TRAM-TRACK CONSTRUCTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1171, 5 July 1911, Page 6

TRAM-TRACK CONSTRUCTION.

THE LATEST METHOD. "Tho public don't know, and I don't suppose ifc cares much, what tho tram tracks of Wellington cost in maintenance tluring tho year," said a corporation official to a Dominion "reporter yesterday whilst both wore watching 'tho tram-rail laying operations in Customhouse Quay. The reporter gathered that tho manner in which tho track was laid down originally wns not considered to bo tho best method. Indeed, it was departed from on tho first extension that was mado after Die contractors handed over tho tramways to tho corporation. This was tho Island Bay section from Duppa Street to tho beach—which is laid down on wooden sleepers,' as is also the Island Bay and Brooklyn sections. On the newsection between the Bank of Now Zealand corner and the General Post Office s,till another method of rail-laying is being used. Tho big flslb.rails are being laid upon sleepers of concrete (laid sft. apart), which are reinforced with fivo lengths of quarter-inch iron steel bars. These sleepers arc five inches in depth, and havo a broad base which gives them a solid rest on the, earth. The -rails are attached by means of a crip-pin of steel, which passes through a hole in tho sleeper, and toogrips the base of the rail above and tho sleeper below. When , the whole is trued up by tamping shingle beneath the sleepers tho track is knitted together with six inches of solid concrete, rising an inch above the level of the tops of the concrete sleepers It is calculated that.depressions cannot develop with a track laid in such a manner, and that the extra cost is amply justified by. the saving the method will make in tho cost of maintenance. Given fine weather, a staf!t will be made-with tho wood-blocking of the track to-day. •