EAST COAST LINE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 171, 10 June 1940, Page 8

EAST COAST LINE

railway to the rangitaiki HOW THE ROUTE WAS CHOSEN - / (Continued from Friday) The initial operations were com* meneed under the direction of Mr G. L. Cook, resident engineer, Tail ranga, and within two years the Public Works Department was running trains for the benefit of settlers over a 13-miles stretch between Tauranga and Te Puke. Thesector was formally opened on October 16, 1013. At this time the work at Gisborne, commenced in 1900:; had been continued in # small stages until the line reached a point 42" miles inland, and the intention was to push it on simultaneously with-' the work in the Bay of Plenty in order to tap the timber resources of the Motu Bush as quickly as possible and 1 bring the line into pay-*-ing order. The demand for an immediate start on the Waihi end, an agitation which had long been fathered' in the House by Mr H. Poland,., member for Ohinemuri, and thd late Sir William Herries, member for Bay of Plenty, Avas acceded to in 1911, when authority Avas given for the. commencement of the first nine miles from Waihi to Athenree.. An extremely bad start was made,, however, .work being suspended tothe extent of only £5363 being, spent on this sector in 1912 and' £205 in 1913. The excuse was that heavy rock country had been encountered and there was no prospect of the line being immediately profit-bearing. The tortoise crawled-; with almost unbelievable sluggishness in those pre-war days.-Non-arrival of Machinery^ The intervention of the war produced a serious set-back. Machineryand materials, which had been ordered in Britain, failed to arrive through confiscation for Avar requirements, scarcity of or the going over of factories to-munition-making. The departure or men for the front created a great scarcity of labour, and the result Avrts suspension of work- on several sectors and a great sloAving down» of progress on others. Most ,of the - bridges in course of construction were left idle. One of the sectors to suffer was the ill-starred Waihi- 1 Athenree line. The engineer, incharge and at number of men the Expeditionary Force in March,. 19J7, and the job AA r as closed doAvn for a year. To make matters worse, the lowlying. country round the rivermouths on the plain Avas flooded iir October, 1916, serious Avashoiits occurring on the completed section between Tauranga and Te Puke and along, the earthworks toAvardsMatata. A repetition of the damageoccurred in March, 1924, and againin June, 1925, when the heav««\s» floods on record Avere experienced 1 ' on the TaraAvera and Rangitail.f rivers. At that time the Rangitaiki land drainage scheme had not heen fully effectiA T e and both rivers overfloAved their banks and Avashed aAvay portions of the railway eartlnvorks. | The Tauranga Harbour Bridge. | Trouble of a similar kind Avas experienc'ed in driving the reinforced concrete . piles for the bridge across the Tauranga Harbour. This structure, the largest of its kind in NeAA r Zealand, consists of twenty— one 50ft spans, fiA r e 25ft spans and one 57ft span, having extra height, aboA r e Avater level to enable boats to pass under it. The first pile Avasdriven in March, 1916, but progress Avas sloav owing to difficulty in obtaining materials during the Avar and the unstable character of the harbour bottom. Piles had to be sunk in some cases 60ft ancl 100 ft into the mud and ooze before rock Avas encounty'ed. The bridge Avas officially opened for railway traffic in June, 1924. •The non-arrival of steelwork- forthe Kaituna River bridge delayed the proper completion of the east-> ward' extensions of the line from Te Puke, but a temporary structure enabled a regular train service to be run to Paengaroa in 1917 and to Matata the following year. By that time Avork at the Gisborne end had* reached Motuhora and that portion, of line Avas handed oA r er to the Rail way Department in November, 1917.. (To be continued)