WEST COAST RAILWAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 285, 29 October 1884, Page 2

WEST COAST RAILWAY

The Northern Section.

[By our Special Reporter.] [CONCLUDED.] The distance of Shannon Town from Lonburn is 14 1/2 miles, and in one corner of it we find a pretty, natural clearing, where some willows have already been planted in the banks of the streamlets, and an old, disused flour mill rears its gloomy head in the background. The Otauru creek runs past here, and this is the spot where the contractors, Messrs Wilkie, Bros., reside. Under their careful management, the works have the appearance of being carried oat in a masterly manner, and this may be said generally of the Company's contractors— they understand their work. At Shannon I understand there is another large block of allocated land, and this township is expected to become the principal centre of all their settlements. With a good I line to place it in connection with Wellington and Palmerston North, and a wharf of its own, where steamers can unload stores and load produce, I must say there is very little more required to suit the taste of the most particular settlers. Foxton is distant 12 miles and, since the road is all flat, that town will some future day make a very good little suburban offshoot from the town of Shannon, Having a wharf too, it will be able, to some extent, to repay its principal town, so to speak, for the privilege of being its suburb, by affording accommodation for coal depots, wool stores, and the like, and be a very convenient spot for the coal-heavers to reside in, although , of course, if it were not to keep friendly term with Shannon, the latter place can easily, fall back upon the Shannon wharf, and utterly discard Foxton in every way. There is a vast project I believe on foot, to connect Foxton with the Whererua Clearing, where Levin Station is to be, but anyone who will take the trouble to follow the Company's railway line, or the trial line made by the Government will see how absolutely impossible and absurd such a scheme is. And here I must make a remark that is not given from invidious comparisons, but simply because it impressed me so strongly at the time. When walking along the Company's line , I occasionally came across the Government trial line, and it did seem to me as if the Government had really scoured the country round for precipices and hillocks to traverse, in order to have an opportunity of showing their engineering capabilities in overcoming them. No, the Government trial line goes along the self-same route that the said tramway would take, if constructed, and I can only repeat what I said, just now, before you talk of tramways from Whererua to Foxton, just go as I did and have a look at the country. You will then be capable of passing an opinion, provided that you suppress all prejudice against your friends the Company. This bit of advice en passant to the Foxton people. Leaving Shannon the line consists of almost all straights and flats until Longburn is reached. There are however some natural obstacles of considerable importance to be overcome. For instance, there is a huge swamp of 30,000 acres, belonging to the Company. The formation has to be laid on fascines although this, and the task is an expensive one. The swamp varies in depth, but is as much as 16ft. deep, in many places. The formation has been partly completed over a portion of it. When, the train full of earth runs on to the formation, which is in reality floating upon the fascines, the surface of the swamp trembles for some distance all round, and bends down with the pressure, just as ice does when too large a crowd is standing together in one spot. In fact, it seemed to me rather an advantage to be as far away from the train as possible on this particular occasion, although as a general rule I prefer to be on board of one as much as I can. However, the danger of the surface breaking through is probably only an apparent one. When the swamp is crossed we have good travelling until we get to Longburn with the exception of crossing the Manawatu River. However, this is a very much easier task here than it would have been lower down the river, nearer Foxton, where the depth is greater, the bed wider, and the banks softer and less permanent. The Manawatu Bridge is a quarter of a mile long, and built on piles, and stood the recent floods without taking the slightest ill-effect. A few miles from the bridge isLongburn junction, where the line meets the Government railway and runs into Palmerston. Here then we arrive at our destination. We have viewed the chief places of interest through which the Company's line will pass, and they are many and varied, and we now find ourselves at Longburn. There are those contracts now being carried out, viz., the most northern one, Messrs Wilkie Bros.,' and that of Mr Seymour. The first is 9 miles in length, the next 16, and the last only 7, making 32 miles of railway in all which are in course of construction from Longburn towards Wellington. The distance from Longburn to Waikanae is only 47 miles, so that there are only 15 miles that remain to be let. This will probably be done very shortly in two small contracts, and then the whole of the line from Palmerston to Wellington will be in hand. When we come to compare the actions of the Company with those of the government, we find that the latter, if they worked at the same rate as they have been doing the last five years, at the NapierWoodville extension, would take exactly 90 years to construct the whole line of railway between Palmerston and Wellington ; whereas, if the Company complete it within two years from now, which they will easily do, they will only have taken 3 1/2 years at actual work. Delightful state of things is it not ? Truly it may be said that the dolce far niente of the Government, in carrying out public works is not to be surpassed. So much, then, for the line of railway. Then, in addition to this the Company have a great deal of work before them in cutting up the large areas of land which they are now possessed of into blocks suitable for settlement. They

are employing 4 or 5 different survey parties at the present time, which are busily engaged in the operation, but it is impossible to say when the land will be ready to throw open for settlement. However the mode of settlement has been well-planned. Nearly the whole of the rural sections will be in blocks of 320 acres each, those which will contain a less area being just the suburban lands near a township. It is difficult to say where the township will grow at such an early stage as this, but the Company will not throw away money in expensive station buildings until they are quite sure where they will be most required. When this has been ascertained, substaintial buildings will be put up at once. There is another work that has now been undertaken, viz., the draining the 30,000 acre swamp. This swamp will afford a sufficient area of good land to settle something like 300 to 400 families, when it is all drained, but the expense of putting it into a fit state of for use, as well as a large steam dredge and engine and all the required machinery. The plan of draining will be to dredge out a central canal about 1/2 chain wide throughout the whole length of the swamp, and run cross drains inwards to meet it. There is a good fall into the Manawatu River, and when all the water has been run off, through cleared channels, it is thought that there will no further difficulty in keeping the land quite dry. What surprises one most is that a swamp should ever have been formed here at all ; but that is not the point. The vital question at the present moment is how to remove it, and this has been solved by the Company's engineers. To conclude, I must heartily say that the line which the Company are forming to connect Palmerston with Wellington, will be, withou exception, the best and most unique of its sort in the colony. The grades are such that an English express train could travel along them without the slightest danger or difficulty, and the curves are in most places so slight as to be hardly perceptible, and would in no places prevent a train from travelling round them at ordinary speed. The engines which the Company intend to import will have large driving wheels, and the whole line of railway is laid out with a view to attaining the greatest possible speed. I can say, without fear of flattery, that the northern end of the line at any rate, which is under the charge of Mr. James E. Fulton, C.E., promises to be one of the very best that the colony of New Zealand has yet seen.