PAEROA-POKENO LINE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5073, 10 January 1927, Page 2

PAEROA-POKENO LINE.

CONSTRUCTION MAY STAR!’ SOON. LANDS DEPARTMENT’S WORK. Work on t.he construction of thq Paeroa-Pokeno section of the East Coast railway may commence shortly. In conversation with an employee of the Public Works Department at the Taneat.ua end of the railway it was learned that there was a very" remote chance off the cons’ action proceeding beyond Taneatua for a long time. He and other day labourers had been advised that they might be transferred early in the new- year to the Paeroa-Pokeno section. On the Tauranga-Taneat.ua section the construction is completed, and trains have been running for a long time. Big gangs of men and a great dral of machinery have been used, ami if these are transferred to the Paer a-Pokeno section the work will start in earnest.

It may not be generally known that a great deal o'f work ha's, already been done, for the railway by the Lands Drainage Department. Last summer the dredge which was constructing the Waitakaruru-Maukoro canal turned eastward and commenced digging a canal along the route, of the railway for the purpose of securing spoil 'for the embankment. On the first, cut the dredge only lifted peat, but some time ago one o'f the dams placed in the Waitekaruru-Maukoro canal to raise the water level, so that the dredge could float, broke away. The dredge was due for an overhaul, so the. work of reconstructing the dam was not hurried. With the dams removed the peat drained quickly and settled down very rapidly. Where several years ago there was over twenty feet of peat there now apparently only a few feet o'f peat, fqr the dredge, is lifting a very considerable quantity of clay from the canal bottom. A rough estimate places the quantity of clay lifted for the railway embankment by this dredge, at between five and six hundred cubic yards per chain. The dredge is now about three miles west of the Ngatea post office, and is proceeding steadily.