A BIG ENGINEERING WORK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3380, 25 December 1918, Page 43

A BIG ENGINEERING WORK.

Major M'Laren, writing to his father (Mr John H. M'Laren, an old and highly-re-spected resident of Dunedin) from Leckerstone, Dunfermline, on .November 23 of last) year, gives some interesting • information as to military operations at Dieppe. The special work on which the major was engaged was the construction of a terminus for a " train ferry steamer/' about 560 ft long, with a beam of. about 60ft, capable of accommodating about "SO railway wagons on four sets of track' on the rail deok." The work entailed the construction of auitable berthing accommodation, and was carried out in a tidal basin where there was a "range of 32ft between high and low water at spring tides." An existing row of masonry piers was utilised on the starboard side of the ship, and these were " fendered" with whole timber fixed in a vertical plane and in a straight line. Major M'Laren gives further details of what was evidently a work of some magnitude, and wrote that communication between a huge dolphin and the slip was obtained by a steel bridge 120 ft long. This bridge was hinged at the dolphin end and the outer end rested on the ship, and was lighted aft the free, end by electrical machinery carried by hoisting towers built on twin pile dolphins. Thus the " free end of the bridge could be raised or lowered, depending on. the state of the tide," and set on the stern of the ferry steamer, and 'the loaded wagons run off and the empty \vagon9 run on. The 'main object of the ferry steamer was to transport heavy machines of war ready for use', and thus save transportation in parts and subsequent reassembling. Two or three miles of railway sidings were laid to accommodate the wagons as they were drawn off the ship. The communication briffge was 120 ft long, and weighed about 200 tons. Major M'Laren, when writing, expected that it would take another two or three months to complete the work.