TAWA FLAT TUNNEL

Hokitika Guardian, 13 December 1927, Page 3

TAWA FLAT TUNNEL

DEPA BTM ENT’S ft IETHODS CONDEMNED. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Dec. 13. An English civil engineer, at present visiting Wellington, who has experience all over the world in tunnelling, strongly condemns the method of the Public Works Department as antiquated and costly. The projected Tawu Flat tunnel, he says, is going to cost three times ns much as it should, and he quotes Westfield tun-

nel on the Auckland deviation as a case in point, that had taken two years to build though only twentynine chains in length, and at the same rate Tawa Flat works would occupy seventeen years. He advises the Government to send some one abroad to learn how tunnels are now built. The antiquated methods at Westfield are being applied to Tawa Flat and the engineers are going on lines, long milpersotJed, under which no sane contractor would take one job, One engineer was copying another’s itjeas regardless of whether they applied or not. The a \ era go tunnelling is nowadays seventy-five feet per week and even that is a moderate estimate, but at. Tawa 1' hit it will only be fifty feet per month. 'Hie whole system of tunnelling, the design and the way the work is carried out, are ridiculous and absurd. This expert condemnation follows oil grave doubts raised by local engineers as to the propriety of the route selected. It is contended the grade of 1 in 100 is preposterous when a much flatter grade could easily he secured, the official reply to which was regarded as far from satisfactory. Now the Department has to face a still graver charge. .