RE-OPENING OF RAILWAY

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1933, Page 4

RE-OPENING OF RAILWAY

REPAIR OF FLOOD DAMAGE COMPLETION END OF THIS WEEK. LINE NOW CONSIDERED SAFE. ONE SMALL SLIP RECENTLY. (By Wire—Special to News.) Ohura, Last Night The Stratford Main Trunk line will be sufficiently repaired at the end of this week to enable the ordinary train service to be resumed. The Public Works Department has made strenuous efforts to clear the slips which have blocked the line for five weeks. Gangs have been working day and night and have now practically cleared the track. The recent very heavy rains have not caused, any further serious slips and. the line is now considered safe for traffic. Goods for the Ohura district and the valley have been transported on the Main Trunk via Marton and Stratford, which meant two days’ delay from Auckland and 24 hours’ delay to newspapers. Mails have been carried by Kallil’s daily motor service and deliveries have been only a few hours behind train times. The Matiere correspondent of the News states that another small slip was brought down by the rain during the week-end at the second tunnel from Okahukura, but it has now been cleared away. Owing to the timber embedded in the slip at the Okahukura tunnel and in the silt Within the tunnel itself the work has proceeded slowly. The tunnel is 78 chains long and has been blocked with silt right through.