HOMER TUNNEL WORK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23700, 5 July 1940, Page 6

HOMER TUNNEL WORK

PREPARING FOR THE SPRING [BY TELEGRAPH OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON,' Thursday The only work at present being done in the Homer Tunnel was drilling for future blasts, and cleaning up the rock faces generally, said Mr. A. F. Downer, head of the firm which is boring the tunnel, when he was interviewed in Wellington yesterday. There were only 15 of his men employed during .the winter from June till Septomber—as the country was pretty well snowbound during that period, he said. As soon as conditions improved in the spring, the number of men employed in the tunnel would ba doubled.

Mr. Downer said that, while the tunI nel had been pierced for a. long time, only 500 ft. out of 4000 ft. had been . opened out to the full breadth and height. (The tunnel will be 24ft. in breadth and 17ft. in height, providing for two-way traffic.) There -was still 3500 ft. of tunnel, in hard granite-like rock, to open out. The men employed during the winter had one constant ; job. That was to drill holes in the rock faces and roof for the shots that would be fired next summer. He estimated that it would take the whole of the coming; summer to get through that job. Mr. Downer said that the tunnel was not to bo lined with. brick or concrete. The formation was such that it did not necessitate that expense. The Homer Saddle appeared to be a mountain" of granite-like stone, known as mica norite, similar in appearance to Coromandel granite, but not of ' the same geological formation. Here and there, however, there were soft sections, which would have to be lined with, concrete