ENGINEERING TRADES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 10

ENGINEERING TRADES

MANY ORDERS FOR BRITAIN

Many indications of the improvement in the British engineering and iron and steel trades are to be found in the latest bulletin of the Department of Overseas Trude received by His Majesty s Trade Commissioner in New Zealand. The exports of textile machinery from the United Kingdom during the first eleven months of 1927 amounted to 110,284 tons as compared with 93,149 tons and 111,101 tons in the corresponding periods of 1926 and 1925, respectively. The most noteworthy increase is Japan with 7514 tons in the first eleven months of 1927 as compared with 6287 tons and 3425 tons in the corresponding periods of 1926 and 1925. Germany and the Netherlands also showed increased takings. . , , , , A large new bridge is to be built at Makurdi, 290 miles inland from Port Harcourt, on the Eastern Division of the Nigerian Railway, in order to provide better facilities for rail and road traffic than is possible by the existing train ferry service over the Benue River. The bridge, which will comprise 13 spans with a total length between abutments of 2584 feet, will rank as the longest on the African continent. The contract for the whole of the works has been awarded to Sir William Arrol and Co., Ltd., Glasgow, on a tender of £960,505, and a period of four ’and a half years from date is allowed for the completion of the bridge. » It is reported that Platt Bros, and Co., Ltd., well-known textile machinery manufacturers, of Manchester, have booked orders for the equipment of two or three new cotton mills in Japan with ring-spinning spindles and the necessary preparation machinery. This contract is said to involve a large sum. Edgar Allen and Co., Ltd., Sheffield, have secured the contract for plant for the equipment of a Portland cement factory at Berrima, New South Wales, with a capacity of 126,000 tons per annum of high-grade Portland and quickhardening cement. This company are also supplying a 50,000-ton plant for New Zealand. In connection with the completion ot port works, the State Government, Pernambuco, Las awarded the contract for the supply of all the cranes —34 miscellaneous and 28 overhead—as well as tor the coaling plant and hopper, to Babcock and Wilcox, Ltd., while J. I. Thornycroft and Co., Ltd., obtained the contract tor a salvage tug. Twenty foreign firms tendered for the mechanical equipment. A contract for tho supply of granite for the new port works at Buenos Ayres has been awarded to a Scottish hi;m. Many foreign orders for the construction and supply of locomotives, carriages, and wagons and other railway material and for the supply of large quantities of electrical ‘machinery and equipment have been secured by British firms in the face of keen competition.