A MAMMOUTH PLOUGH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 885, 3 August 1910, Page 5

A MAMMOUTH PLOUGH.

RECLAMATION AT THORNDON. • An admirably effective instrument employed by the Kailway Department rn the reclamation works now proceeding in connection vrith the duplication of the Hutt railway is a giant plough, which empties the spoil irom a line ol trucks in about as much tinio.as would bo taken up in shiiting theui for a short distance along a line of rails. A Dominion representative yesterday saw the plough in operation. A train iif fifteen trucks, each containing five tons of spoil, was brought to -the edge of the reclamation area, at tho end of .'L'horndon Esplanadu. Patent doors let down at the end of each truck provided the plough with a continuous line to run upon. Ihe plough itself is a single ilat share of heavy timbers braced with steel. At the outset it lay slantwise across tho first truck of tho train. A line ot posts along one sido of each truck,served as stops to prevent the plough being pulled over the side. Motive power was supplied by a ten-ton crane, from which a wire rope was led along, over the line ol trucks, and attached to the plough. Once started, the iiiuiumoUi'sliare moved steadily along, scraping out tho contents of each- truck in its passage, and hurling an avalanche of spoil down the bank adjoining the hn«. The great plough is as neat working as it is powerful. It deposits the spoil with even regularity, and the lines it leaves behind, aro clean and straight. Tho whole depositing process occupied, from the time the trucks were drawn into position, just eight minutes and a half. Six minutes were occupied in letting down doors and making all things ready for tho passage of the plough, and tho big share itself took just two minutes and a half in traversing the line of trucks. "It's the best thing that ever was for shifting mullock, is the verdict of the ganger in charge of the work, and he is a man of wide experience. Rapid progress is being made with the reclamation work. The stone retaining wall with which it is faced is now within a dozen chains of tho point on Thorndon Esplanado at which it is to terminate; The space behind the wall still to bo filled in is, roughly, triangular in shape, with the apex of the figure distant about 120 yards from the line'of the retaining wall.