Avalanche Barriers.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

Avalanche Barriers.

Th© tunnel emerges ink* daylight again at Goppenetein. Goppenstein is situated in a wild, precipitous valley, and the abandoned mining buildings, 'which were formerly the sole signs of human habitation here, were connected with the outer world of the Rhone Valley only by a rough mule path, as often as not rendered impassable by the fall of an avalanche. In this barren spot a village rapidly sprung up for the accommodation of the workmen and officials, and here another catastrophe occurred a few winters ago, an avalanche descending on the place and destroying most of the buildings, besides killing twelve persons. Now a system of avalanche barriers, constructed at intervals up the mountain sido to break the forco of falling avalanches, effectually guards against unpleasant surprises of this description.

The track proceeds from here ' through a series of short tunnels into the Rhone Valley, and continues its way along a narrow ledge which has been blasted in the rocky mountain side a thousand feet above the Rhone. The construction of a track here is of itself a task for giants, and is rendered even more formidable by the presence of chasms and ravines, some of which are being bridged by means of tall viaducts, others by steel bridges. The works train, in the meantime, has to make use of frail wooden bridges and temporary tracks laid at the very edgo of the precipice.