BULLER GORGE RAILWAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24138, 3 December 1941, Page 8

BULLER GORGE RAILWAY

LAST SPIKE DRIVEN CEREMONY AT SLATEY CREEK fBY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION*] "WESTPORT, Tuesday The ceremony of driving the last spikain the Buller Gorge railway, licking Westport by rail with Reefton, thenca ■with the rest of the South,lsland, was performed to-day by the Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, and the Minister of Railways, the Hon. R. Semple, after speeches had been' made by Mr. J. M. Robertson, Mayor of Westport, who presided, „ind other local body representatives and departmental officials. Mr. J. Kelly, the oldest' driver in the Buller district, drove thefirst engine through the tapes! The Prime Minister, -the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, who was to have driven the - last spike, and the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, were unable to make the trip to Westport by aeroplane owing to adverse weather at Wellington. Presentations were made to Mr. Webb and Mr. Semple, and to three engineers concerned in the construction of the line. Souvenirs of the occasion were also handed to Mr. Webb for the Prime Minister and Mr. Armstrong. There was a large attendance of the public from Westport and other parts of the West Coast, special trains running from Reefton and Westport to Slatey Creek, the scene of the linking up. An engine from Westport. bore a placard inscribed: "Travel by.train: Seddonville to Bluff, 606 miles." l&e site where the ceremony was enac.ed was where gold was first discovered in Buller by the explorer Rochford, after whom the mountain at th& back of Westport is named.