HUGE WASH-OUT IN HIGHWAY BLOCKS MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY LINE

Wanganui Chronicle, 25 May 1948, Page 4

HUGE WASH-OUT IN HIGHWAY BLOCKS MAIN TRUNK RAILWAY LINE

(P.A.) New Plymouth, May 24. A huge chasm about two cnains long and 40 feet deep was gouged in the tar-sealed section of the Te KuitiNational Park State highway about two miles north of Taumarunui by pent-up storm water from a blocked culvert this afternoon. Tons of soil were sluiced on to the Main Trunk railway line below the road and rail traffic was brought to a standstill. The reopening of the road and railway fine tor traffic will depend on the availability of machinery to effect repairs. The road will be closed tor at least a week and probably longer. The removal of spoil from the railway line by pick and shovel would take almost as long, but it is hoped machinery will reduce this time considerably. In the meantime arrangements were made to tranship passengers on tonight's expresses by buses as was done for those on several mixed trains yesterday afternoon. The road began to show signs of subsidence over the week-end and on Sunday night a part had sunk to a depth of about six inches. The Public Works Department employees worked rapidly this morning in an attempt to cut a channel and put in a new culvert to release the water, but at about 1.30 p.m. the whole road gave way and poured downhill towards the railway line. The volume of water issuing from underneath a narrow ledge of spoil, which was all that was left of the filling, sluiced out the bottom chasm to a depth of more than 40 feet. The flood of water carried spoil from the road with it and within an hour or two most of it was deposited on the track.