PAEROA-POKENO LINE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5124, 11 May 1927, Page 2

PAEROA-POKENO LINE.

THE PLAINS SECTION. WORK OF DREDGE. Slowly and steadily the embankment across the Hauraki Plains which will eventually carry the- Pae-roa-Pokeno railway is being constructed. This work is proceeding in the peat country west of Ngateawhere for some months a Lands Department dredge has been excavating a canal to drain the- land and to obtain spoil for the railway. The canal has now been made from the Wai-takaruru-Maukoro canal eastward for 109 chains, and the face is now 33 chains west of the Pouarua road and about three -miles from the Ngatea post office. The cut has been made 13ft deep, and 6ft or 7ft of clay has been brought up and deposited on the northern bank. Naturally the rate of progress has been slow on account of the nature of the country, which has necessitated the making of small cuts at first and gradually enlarging them as the banks consolidated sufficiently to hold the weight of the spoil. A great deal of timber has been encountered. while the inaccessibility of the dredge makes the transportation of fuel a long and difficult matter. Recently the dredge returned to the junction with the Maukoro canal and commenced deepening the cut to 18ft. On Friday last the macliine was working about ten chains from the junction, and the progress was satisfactory. Two dredge crews are employed, and the machine is kept going about twenty hours a day.