THE STRATFORD RAILWAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15253, 17 March 1913, Page 5

THE STRATFORD RAILWAY.

PROGRESS OF THE WORK. FROM OUE TAUMARUNUI 00EBESPONDENT. Thb work at this end of the above line is going on steadily. Nearly 100 men are engaged on it. Okahukura, as the junction is called, presents a very different appearance now to what it did, a little over a year ago, when Sir Joseph Ward turned the first sod of the railway. Four neat cottages for the officials, workshops for the carpenter and blacksmith, as well as a number of other buildings give the place a settled air. The station building has been moved there from Te Koura, a few miles distant, though trains still stop at the latter place for the convenience of a few settlers. The chief operations on the line at present are making cuttings and forming embankments. The great bank leading from the side of the hill towards the site of the future bridge over the Ongarue River is growing day by day. The bridge will apparently be at a high level. The service road which crosses the ridge into the Ohura, roughly parallel with the railway route, is now completely formed and partly metalled. Twenty-four chains of it have been treated with burnt papa, which, before it is fired, is of a blue slatey colour and afterwards resembles red brick. During the cutting of the road a seam of shell-rock 16ft thick, similar in appearance to a quartz reef, was discovered, and this has been utilised for metalling a mile and a-half of the road. It is intended to metal the remainder, as pumice, however good for a make-shift, has not the wearing quality of metal, and wherever the latter is procurable it pays in the long run to use it. It is said that the men at present employed on the works are very satisfactory the best, it appears, that have yet been on the job. Only 48 hours per week must be worked, but if time is lost on any day owing to wet weather, etc., it can be made up during the remaining five days. The average wages made by the co-operative workers vary from 9s to 10s 6d a day, according to the energy of the men and the hardness of the material excavated. Testing the river bed for suitable foundations for the bridge is now being carried out. Tenders will probably soon be called for the making of the tunnel. 75 chains long. V • ■•'.■"