SPEEDY WORKMANSHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20324, 3 August 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

SPEEDY WORKMANSHIP.

BRIDGE BUILT IN ,14 HOURS,

EXPEDITIOUS TRANSFORMATIONS The prime ecwt of a great Hner ia to enormous that the interest on It alone reaches £l5O a day. But this is nothing to the cost of upkeep and the wagai of the crew, officers, and stewards. One day's delay in the sailing of it may oost the company more than £2OOO. ,

Yet liners must be overhauled occasionally. This is always a rush job. When a vessel such as the Cunarder Manretania has to have her hull cleaned (he ia lifted into the great floating dock at Southampton, and 1000 picked men set to work. In seventeen hours her whole Tart hull is scraped clean of barnacles and weed and painted with a special quick-drying paint. In twenty-four hours she is again ready for sea.

A railway company was confronted with a task of similar magnitude when the bridge by which the main North-Eastern line crosses the River Lea near Brosbourne had to be renewed. The line wh closed at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 25, 1924, and work went on all night by fbe light of acetylene flares. By 2 p.m. so Sunday the job was finished and a new steel bridge was in position. Even more remarkable was the feat accomplished by engineers of the Boutheni Railway when, in June, 1925, a new bridge was built over the old main line near Crofton Park. One hundred and thirty picked men did the work, and In fourteen hours it was finished.

Speed is 4>qually necessary whea a telephone exchange has to be altered and transferred to a new building. A remarkable feat in this direction was achieved when the old Gerrard Street exchange was moved. Preparations for the move went on for nearly eighteen months, and when the signal was given an army of workmen did the whole job in twelve minutes. Olympia has been the scene of many feats of lightning workmanship, for exhibitions succeed each other so rapidly, that one is hardly over before another ft duo to open. One of the most Mnariflgrecords connected with the place w&a the building of an eight-roomed cottage b&tween six-thirty on Friday morning and ten on Saturday evening. Daring, these forty hours 130.000 bricks were _ laid and fifteen tons of mortar used in setting them. The work would have taken three months in ordinary circumstances.