"ARTHUR'S PASS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13744, 8 May 1908, Page 7

"ARTHUR'S PASS."

-t HOW IT WAS NAMED, ' DETAILS OF THE TUNNEL WORK. [BY TEI.KGBAI'H.-— CORRESPONDENT.] - . CiiRtSTCHORCH, Thursday. !■:: The present road connection between Canterbury and .West-land, which is ;to; be superseded to a large extent by the tunnel,'was never officially, named, but received its present title from a casual reference while it was still unnamed. The story goes that in the early days' Mr. A. I). Dqbson, how city surveyor of Christchurch, discovered the pass at a time when connection with the West. Coast was, a matter of exploration more or less. The pass was generally recognised as a great improvement on anything previously known, but a. reward was offered for the discovery of another pass as good or better. Apparently,, there were different routes Under consideration, For a relative of Mr. Dobson, then in the Government service, was asked to report on them. He reported that he could find none better than "Arthur's Pass," his reference being merely to Mr. Dobson's Christian name, and not to any name that the pass had then received.. The name, however, stuck to the pass, and Arthur's Pass it will probably remain. In conversation with a Times, reporter, Mr. Murdoch McLean said the completed tunnel will be 17ft high by 15ft wide, but the first, shaft will be much smaller. The skilled men who will be boring into the mountain from either end will cut a. tunnel 9ft by 7ft. Nine men will form a shaft at the face, six of whom will work the pneumatic drills, and the other three will be in attendance on the drillers. The drills, driven by compressed* air, with pofrcr derived from water-driven Pelfon wheels, will bore into the solid rock to a depth of 4ft 6in. Thirteen or. 14 holes will be made at the face, at points distributed over its entire surface, and then the blasts will be inserted. Thirty or 40 pounds of gelignite will form a charge, a portion in each hole. The firing will be done by electrical charge, an electric exploder firing the changes in sections. A blast will remove from 11 to 12 cubic yards of the solid rock, and advance the tunnel from two to two and a-half yards. Each day should see an advance of from 18ft to 22ft, When the tunnel is a long way in apparatus will Deinstalled to scatter a fine spray of water in,the air at. the face, thus absorbing the fumes and clearing the air of dust. '-:, •

As was pointed out by the Prime Minister in his speech at the opening ceremony on Tuesday, the contract for the construction of the tunnel wasHet to Messrs. John McLean and Sons, a well-known and experienced. firm of contractors, with headquarters at Auckland, find it was signed in August last. Tjhe amount as £599,794, and the stipulated time for completion was five years from the, date of acceptance of tenders, viz.,. August 1, 1912. The actual length of the tunnel was five miles 25i chains, but the approach works were included in the contract,, so that the length of country covered by the tunnel and approaches would be in all about eight miles. The tunnel would be straight throughout on a form grade of on© in 33. It would be 15£ ft high, 14ft wide at> the rail level, arid 15ft" at its widest point. The tunnel would be lined with rubble masonry, concrete, or brickwork; with concrete blocks or brickwork" in the arch. ; By the time the ' tunnel was completed the Government would be in a position to utilise the electrical energy generated from the water power available in the neighbourhood for running trains through the tunnel, thus avoiding the inconvenience to passengers which would be inseparable from a five mile tunnel journey behind an ordinary steam locomotive. The locality in which the tunnel would be built was a national scenicreserve"and the contractors and their workmen/ would be compelled to carry out the work in such a way as to cause no damage to forest scenery or' permanent disfigurement of the landscape. The quantities of each work to be carried out, as- calculated by the contractors, were, approximately, as follows in cubic yards: —'-Earthwork excavation, 10,700 tunnel excavation, 312,816; brickwork, 5223; concrete, 50,000; masonry, 400; stonework, 800; rock facing, 12,000; drain pipes (lineal feet), 1500. ~ \J: ' •>

The Arthur's Pass tunnel, Sir Joseph continued, would be the fifth longest in the world. The upper end of the tunnel, in. Bealey Valley would be about 2490 ft, and the summit of Arthur's Pass was about 3000 ft above sea level. - The greatest depth from the surface of the ground to the tunnel was 1150 ft.

CONDEMNATION OF THE WORK. [HY TEI.KGRArii. —OWX '.COBHESI'ON'DKNT.] WfiixxsGTox, Thursday. Referring to the commencement of work on the Arthur's Pass tunnel, the Dominion gays:"We regard it as an occasion giving little cause for rejoicing. The country is committed to the work-of connecting Canterbury with Westland at a stupendous cost, and it" is only necessary now to express the misgivings which everybody who is not blinded by political or provincial considerations must feel as he considers the position. The decision" of Mr. Seddon to take over this line and complete it as a State undertaking was due to the political pressure exerted by Canterbury and Westland. That those two provinces have profited from the construction of the line, and will continue so to profit until it is completed, is of course beyond question, but that profit is obtained at'the expense of the other parts of the Dominion. When the line is complete,it will not pay. It is a national work, but it is not a national work in the true sense of a work profitable to the nation. At the present time it is little better than a gigantic system of- poor relief, absorbing labour that would be more advantageously employed in other ways, and eating up the nation's money for the satisfaction of two provincial publics."