SPECIAL INTERVIEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12833, 5 April 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

SPECIAL INTERVIEWS.

THE TOTARA TIMBER INDUSTRY, A GHAT WITH MR. MURDOCH McLEAN. Messbs. J. McLean- and Sons, the wellknown contractors, arc just completing for the Taupo Timber Company a tramway to connect their mill in the totara forests at Taupo with the Rolorua railway. In an interview yesterday with'a Herald representative, Mr. Murdoch McLean, the local representative of the contracting firm, said that this tramway was by far the larg- ( est of its kind in the colony, if not in AusI tralasia. It is 52 miles in length, and i starts at Putarura and ends at Mokai, in the Taupo district. The line goes over five miles of formation constructed by the Government, as a branch line to Lichfield. Then it passes over the Thames Railway Company's line, going through eight miles of undulating country. Passing across the Toharoa Plains to the Kopokorati stream, the tramway rises 1000 ft. through the Mangaiti range, by way of the Wanwau saddle, then there is a fall of 1000 ft to the Waikato River, and passing through'some very rough country great, care had to be taken with the construction. The Waikato is crossed by the means of a wooden bridge, which is probably the. longest wooden one-span bridge in New Zealand, being 257 ft in length, and what is known as a braced-arch bridge, and is in all respects a very fine feat of engineering. From the Waikato there is a 15-mile run to Mbkai, over fairly rough country, and a gradual rise of 1100 ft. The line is of 3ft 6in gauge, and the rails, which are of American manufacture, are 301b to the yard. The rails are laid on totara sleepers, which are placed very close together, averaging 5000 to the mile, or about 166,000 sleepers in all; they are 7ft in length, which means that there are over 1,162,000 ft of timber used up in the sleepers alone. . "When did you begin the work?" '• We started operations in June. 1903. from the M'okai end," said Mr. McLean, "and laid wooden rails as the work progressed, for th« purpose of hauling the sleepers to the top, to within 18 miles of Totai-a. to which place we hauled the steel rails by horse. We are now within seven miles of Potara, and expect to connect the steel and wooden rails by the end of the month. We will gradually replace the wooden rails with steel as time goes on. We are constructing about two miles of the line a week; and it will not be long now before the work is finished, as we confidently expect, to have the whole of the steel rails down by the end of July next. In the meantime the company will be using the wooden rails without much inconvenience, ami will soon be placing their timber on the market. " Our firm have employed from 110 to 115 men continually in the "construction of the line, aud the company have erected a mill iu Mokai, which will be capable of turning out from 20,000 ofc 50,000 feet of timber a day. The timber will be chiefly totara. with a little matai and limit. The market will he, I should think, for the time being confined to New Zealand. The company are already using two imported locomotives, and another, purchased from the Railway Department is now being got ready at the Newmarket, workshops and will be put into use in a week or two. .Most of the rolling stock has been imported, the engines trucks, aud the milling plant being, perhaps, the most up-to-date in the colony ; and when in full swing the industry is certain to employ a vast amount ot labour. Already the company have spent upward; of £100,000, and to show that they anticipated big operations they have cleared 50 acres for a depot. They will in time open up a lot of country, and their estimate of six hundred million feet of timber will more than likely be doubled when they come to examine the cast resources of their leaseholds. I do not know exactly how much land their operations will cover; that, of course, is a matter entirely with the timber company: but 1 understand that they have leased vast tracts of country from private individuals in addition to securing large concessions* from the Maoris. ■ " I don't know much about the conditions under which.the railway is to be conducted, but I should think the traffic would be conlined to timber and goods, and that little hi no passenger traffic will be allowed on the line. The line is certainly an object, lesson to the Government lit tramway building, the 20-ton locomotives running with perfect smoothness on the wooden rails over all kinds of country, and around a large number of curves, many of them of only 100 ft radius. "As far as I can see the prosperity of the Taupo Timber Company is assured, their output will be practically unlimited, and can be made to exceed the severest demand that might ever be put upon it. Not only that, but they have large resources of flax in the swamps, which will some day prove to be. a good asset to them. We have been using their rolling stock in, our work, and found it to answer the purpose very well; the mill supplied the sleepers and the rails, and I know of no better timber for railway and wharf-build-ing than totara. The Australian hardwoods are not able to resist the action of salt water uearlv as well as the New Zealand wood, and probably some day the company will find that their market extends to other parts of the world."

< Asked if his firm had any other big works on hand. Mr. McLean said they had a contract fm the widening of the railway wharves at Wellington, which was a big affair. His brother has that work in hand.