RAILWAY WORKSHOPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19991, 6 July 1928, Page 12

RAILWAY WORKSHOPS.

PROGRESS AT OTAHUHU.

OPENING IN A FEW MONTHS.

WRECKAGE FROM PAERATA. An indication of the approaching completion of the new railway workshops at Otahuhn was tho despatch to the workshop sidings yesterday of the bulk of the wreckage from tho recent goods train smash at Paerata. Twenty-bogey waggons, carrying 31 smashed trucks wore drawn from the main line during the afternoon past the workshops to a siding where they will not bo in the way of the work in progress. Theie they will remain until the shops open in four or five months' time, when thev will be salvaged as opportunity allows. All the main constructional work on the 13 huge workshops and the oflices and tho men's social hall is now finished and effort is being directed chiefly toward the completion of the network of concrete roadways and the preparation of the interior of the shops for tho reception of machinery and plant. One of the last operations will be the laying of hot-mix bitumen over the whole of the concrete surfaces. The installation of plant has already begun under the supervision of engineers of the Railway Department, about a dozen heavy lathes having been bedded, chiefly in the wood machine shop. The installation of electrical plant in tho power house has received first consideration, for the workshops will depend oil electricity for the whole of its power, including that required for the trains and trackless trucks. The work has reached an advanced stage and three transformers and an auxiliary transformer are already connected with tho 11,000 volt main. The massive low-tension switch gear which receives tho 400-volt alternating current from the transformers is also in operation. Other electrical plant that has been installed includes a three-phase motor, coupled with a direct current generator for supplying power for ordinary working purposes, a similar motor coupled with a single-phase alternating generator which will suppljr current for the electric welders and a 125 h.p. compressor for operating pneumatically driven machinery such as riveters.

The charging board for the storage batteries of the numerous electrically-driven rubber-shod trucks which will run on the bitumen-surfaced roads has also been erected and a number of the trucks have been unpacked and are awaiting test.