Value of Modern Machinery Seen At North Oamaru

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27038, 24 March 1949, Page 3

Value of Modern Machinery Seen At North Oamaru

NORTH QTAGO NEWS

The value of modern machinery for quick and efficient work on highways, streets, and other undertakings of this nature has been demonstrated at the north end of Oamaru during the past few days, when a ditcher owned by the Public Works Department carried out work which would have taken men many weeks to complete. The ditcher is working in the vicinity of the new housing area in Raglan and Arundel streets opening up ditches for water and sewerage mains.

The ditcher is about the size of a crawler tractor, and the mechanism for opening up the drains is attached behind. A high-powered engine drives the machine, which runs on crawler-type tracks. The digger itself, driven by a power take-off, has several buckets attached to an endless belt, and these revolve on an axle, bringing the clay to the surface and depositing it on another endless belt which throws the clay to the left of the machinery. A fast shovel-like apparatus suspended on a heavy shaft loosens the clay. The ditcher works on the same principle as a dredge. The machine is capable of digging drains to a depth of sft 6in, with a width of 20in. It works equally well in any type of ground and has been known to work , in gravel and boulder country. After the'’ditches have been opened, pipes are manually laid and covered. There are only two ditchers of the kind in’the South Island at present, and the

one at work at the north end recently opened up drains in the Drummond district, of Southland, at an average rate of a mile per day. It is estimated that the ditcher will remove approximately 35 cubic yards of clay an hour at the north end, where the clay is hard. The first job was to cut a ditch 2Jft deep and 18in wide for the water main and this work was completed within a very short time. Later the ditcher was employed in cutting a ditch sft 6in deep for the sewer to serve the new housing area, and it was estimated that it would cover approximately 100 feet an hour. During the half-hour the Daily Times reporter watched the machine at work it covered a distance of 64ft, work which it would take a labourer more than a day to complete. Though the ditcher can be regulated to cut a ditch up to sft 6in deep, the shallower the cut the faster the machine can move. In this area, it would take a man a day to remove 10 to 12 cubic yards for a ditch sft 6in deep. The machine is equally effective on grades and sealed surfaces, and it was recently employed on work in the main street of Invercargill.