NORTH-SOUTH RAILWAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 7

NORTH-SOUTH RAILWAY.

AUSTRALIAN UNDERTAKING. 1 TO TRAA’ERSE THE DEAD HEART. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, Ai.gust 11. Australia is traversed from east to west by a railway, one of the most remarkable in the world. From north to south there is a great gap between the northern and southern terminii which is untapped by the “steel roads.” One of the inducements to South Australia to enter ths federation of the Australian States an<l to transfer her Northern Territory to the control of the Commonwealth was th® promised construction of the uncompleted section of the railway line. At length, after a quarter of a century's delay, that promise is to be fulfilled. From Adelaide the State railway runs some hundreds of miles to Oodnadatta. the edge of the arid region which some have described as the “dead heart of the continent.” From Darwin, on the northern coast, a railway runs south to Alice Springs, also an oasis in a desert. To span the gap between the two terminii, the Commonwealth authorities have recently let a contract to the Victorian Construction Company for £695,320. The length of line will be 271 miles. In three months thc great work will be under way. The job of gGting camps ready to cater for about 700 men will take that time. Something of the enormity of the task facing the contractors may be gauged from the materials hieh have to be taken to the railhead, r.nd ’ ic extent and nature of the route to be traversed. Five steel and cbncretc bridges to carry the line over the Alberta. Hamilton, Stevenson, Finke, and Todd Rivers, in addition to smaller structures over several creeks, will be built, ami innumerable flood openings and culverts have to be provided. Seventy-five miles ■-f sandhills have to be spanned by the slender steel rails. Earthworks totalling 895.0(H) yards, stone banks 32.000 yards, sheathing 35.000 yards, and ballast 195.6(H) yards, form part of the contract. Fortyfive thousand tons of sleepers and rails will carry the traffic, and 230 miles of telegraph lines must be erected. The steel in the bridges amounts to 670 tons, and 10,000 cubic yards of concrete in the bridges and culverts have to be built. The timber requirements represent lO.OOl) cubic feet, and 0,000 bags of cement will be used.

The men will have laid nearly 300 miles of track along the most inhospitable route of Australia before the train runs. Fifteen hundred concrete piles will be used in the work, and 16,315 chains of surface forming will be necessary.

While the Federal authorities are embarking on this gigantic construction, the New South Wales Railway Commissioners are congratulating themselves on the ucarcompletion of the linking of Sydney and Broken Hill, the rich silver-lead-zinc mining centre in the far west of the State. Hitherto all Broken Hill's trade has gone through Adelaide, because the New South Wales railway has run only as far west as Bourkc. But no. th. line has been extended as far as the eastern hank of the Darling River at Menindie from Bourkc, and from Broken Hill to the western bank. The most difficult portion of the job has »een the instruction of a bridge across the river to link thc two ends, but at length this is nearly complete. and within a few weeks the trains will be running from Sydney right out.