THE WELLINGTON AND MASTERTON RAILWAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4903, 8 December 1876, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON AND MASTERTON RAILWAY.

(from OUR SPECIAL correspondent). GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. Really at the present moment the most prominent topic in connection with the railway appears to be the question when will it be opened. I have already stated that it might be opened as far as the Pakuratahi by the beginning of: next wool season, and I may say now that, given certain circumstances, this portion of the line might be opened in six months; butatthe same time, if everything is carried out as the authorities apparently propose at present, there is little chance of any portion of the line being opened until it is completed and ready tor traffic to Featherston, and that, unless some alteration in the present intentions of the Government occur, will not be for between eighteen months and two years. This will be better understood when the facts are stated, which stand thus Mr. MoKirdy's first contract, which runs to a point a little beyond the Pakuratahi station, will not be finished within six months. The same as regards Mr. Oakes’ contract, ■ which commences where Mr. MoKirdy’s ends, and runs to within a short distance of the summit tunnel. Collie, Scott, and Wilkinson’s contract, which includes this short distance, may be ready a little before the time previously mentioned, and Mr. McKirdy’a second contract, which carries the line from the termination of Collie, Scott, and Wilkinson’s to the outskirts of Featherston, will take six months to complete. It may be fairly, assumed, then, that at least six months must elapse before the works so far are handed over to the Government. But when this is done there yet remains much to be accomplished. The summit tunnel has to be lined, and under favorable circumstances this would take a good many months to accomplish. But anyone who like myself has visited the summit tunnel, will discover that its inaccessible nature will offer very great difficulties to the work of lining. It is true that between the tunnel and one on Mr, Oakes’ contract, that gentleman has started the manufacture of bricks for lining the highest tunnel on his own works; but granting that a similarly favorable circumstance can be made use of for the summit tunnel, this will merely slightly abate, without removing, the difficulties I have mentioned. Then it must be remembered that as things are arranged at present, the completion of their works by the contractors, bn the four sections in progress, still leaves the permanent way to be laid over some six and twenty miles of railway; and this and the manufacture and portage of bricks for the summit tunnel will all have to be initiated and carried on, when the contracts for them are let, at the worst season of the year, winter. _ And winter in tho Rimutaka means something so awful in tho way of obstacleo to public works

that, as newspaper reporters say, it can be better imagined than described. Under existing plans, then, which mean the completion of present contracts before anything is done towards laying the summit tunnel, or plate-laying, 'it is impossible to resist the logic of facts, which point to the end of 1878 rather than its beginning as the time at which the Wairarapa plain and country beyond, unrivalled in the colony for its agricultural and pastoral resources, shall be fairly tapped, and its production so stimulated by facilities for procuring its requirements and exporting its results as to multiply the trade of Wellington to a degree scarcely conceived, I think, by the most sanguine. But here arises the question, could not the advent of this wished-for time be brought a little nearer ? As a non-professional writer it appears to me that it could, though I doubt not those in authority could give equally good reasons to those that prevail with me to show why it could not. Mr. McKirdy’s Mungaroi contract is now in a slate of forwardness that would admit of plate-laying being commenced upon it, and carried on simultaneously with its progress, so as to have the completion of both almost simultaneous. In other words, the Kne might be ready for opening to the Pakuratahi in at least eight or nine months. The some observations will shortly apply to the other contracts; but even supposing they do not, the fact remains that, by losing no time in regard to lining the summit tunnel, work on all sections, including permanent way, might not he negatived, as regards the utility of its early completion, by this same lining. However, there is, of course, a routine, and also a system, to be observed, against neither of which, as their existence is doubtless the result of a practical experience I do not profess to possess, am I anxious to write a word.

There has not been wanting comment on the frequent and singular deviations from the original plans, which as the works progressed have been made, under the mutual agreement of the Government and the contractors. These deviations occur on Mr. Oakes* section, and on that section of Mr. McKirdy’s known as “Thelncline.” Now, as many of these deviations are most extensive, and remarkable alterations from the plans as furnished to the contractors, and ks they are all undoubted improvements, the inquiry naturally arises—must there not have been something. amiss about the laying off the line at first, in order to acceunt for so many alterations being now required. Well, without imputing want of care or skill to anyone, I must be permitted to say that there has been plainly fault in the laying out of the line qn the sections in which the subsequent alterations were effected. And yet such fault is easily accounted for. If anyone will take the trouble to walk over the line, he will sea that in a country of Alpine inaccessibility, covered in most places with dense and lofty foliage, the surveyors or engineers greatly groped in the dark. Now that the hush for a fair distance on each side of the line has been felled, it is quite easy to perceive how gentlemen laid out a bridge for a quarter of a mile up the bed of a river, and did not notice that the line would be much easier carried along the side of a hill by means of sidings and embankments, X am content to think that a demand for speed in the production of the plans complicated by the difficulties I have (mentioned, caused the mistakes which have I had to be subsequently rectified. But whilst I give this as a merely personal view, the result of non-professional observation, it cannot he denied that there are professional men who assert that the lines were laid out in an office from surveys not made by the most competent hands, however much they may have been under the presumed supervision of perfectly competent persons. But whether mistakes have been made or not, and whether, if made, they were to a certain extent excusable, the fact remains that if the line had been carried out as laid out, it would have been a vast engineering mistake. And, indeed, whether it is not, in respect to the route it now pursues, an engineering mistake, is a subject requiring careful consideration. Owing to the nature of the country, there is every reason to apprehend a want of permanence in the embankments, sidings, and cuttings.' A case in point. From one cutting stone of such extraordinary hardness was taken out that it was stacked for use in building the piers of a bridge on another part of the line at no great distance. Bat in a few weeks after exposure to the atmosphere it became so thoroughly soft, rotten, if the term be applicable, as to be quite useless, and when I saw it, merely wanted a smart tap from a stick to crumble into pieces. As much also as a suspected want of permanence in the earthworks and cuttings will be the difficulties of working the line whe;i opened. Instead of one engine running through to Maaterton with each train, the following practice will have to be observed. One engine, with driver and stoker, will take the train to the Upper Hutt. Thence to the summit it will be hauled by a Fairlie engine, with a fresh driver and stoker. Here it will be transferred to the Fell engine, with fresh workmen, and at the bottom of the incline a fourth engine and fourth set of men to work it will come on. The traffic may be so managed as to prevent this system causing extra expense, but on the first blush it does seem rather likely to prove heavy in that direction. Next, as to the Fell engine and its adaptability for working the incline. As to its perfect power by means of the central rail to overcome an incline of one in fifteen, there need be little doubt, but as to how it will work round the very sharp curves which abound on the incline is altogether another question, and one on which 'gentlemen competent to judge pronounced very adverse opinions. On the whole it is well worthy of consideration whether the plan of Mr. Charles O’Neill, which followed in many respects the direction of the coach road, and by means of a long tunnel through the Kimutaka ’avoided too stiff gradient inclines and the use of Fell engines, would not have been preferable to that now adopted. For one thing, there would not have been so much groping in the dark, as it were, in laying out the line, and I question, after all, whether the expense would have been greater.

There are one or two matters in connection with the works mention of which has been omitted up to this time, inasmuch as to have written about them would have been to have broken the continuity of the detail which in my first three letters I endeavored to give. In the first place, I may now say that Mr. Oakes has a number of Chinamen engaged upon his contract, and speaks of their work in terms of the highest praise. In making a cutting the work of Chinamen to a mere observer shows in very favorable contrast with that of I'luropeans. Instead of pushing ahead in what to the onlooker seems a mere “higgledy-piggledy” fashion, trusting to coming back subsequently and making all smooth and straight, the Chinese carry their “batter” along with them right up to the point at which they are working'; and on some cuttings on a curve which they have made the sides of the cutting look faultlessly even and regular. Mr. Oakes asserts that whilst in individual instances it is always possible to find a. European capable of beating the bast day’s work of a Chinaman, yet that taken in bodies the work of tho Mongolian is greater and betcer executed. It is curious, too, that the Chinamen, as a whole, live better than the Europeans. Mr. Oakes, who has been compelled to keep stores for supplying his workmen, assured me that “John ’ buys far more of what may be termed luxuries than does either Paddy, John Bull, or Sandy.

In reference to tlie fact of the contractor keeping stores for supplying, his workmen, it is only fair to mention, in anticipation of any remarks that may bo made about “ the truck system,” that Mr. Oakes has had storekeeping forced upon him, No outsider, though many were invited, would take up the trade, and men refused to work on contracts where it would be next to impossible to supply themselves with decent food. Under these circumstances, and with the full concurrence of the Government, Mr. Oakes went into storekeeping. His contract, it may be said, is perhaps the most inaccessible of any for the greater portion of its length from the main road. '

Mr. McEirdy has at work for him a party of Italians who, as I mentioned, are carrying out a tunnel in a manner that would shame moat British workmen. I visited their camp, »nd was received with the greatest kindness.

They had formed amongst them a brass band of eighteen performers, whose playing would not disgrace *an operatic or military baud. They visited Greytown, and the townspeople there having made a collection offered it to them. Their leader added £1 to the £7 collected, and handed the whole to the local hospital. They are remarkable not only for musical harmony, hut for that of companionship. I have a shrewd suspicion that if eighteen British workmen formed a band under similar circumstances, the instruments would some fine night be used as weapons wherewith to settle personal differences as to the relative merits of the performers. In concluding notice of the Wellington and Mastertou railway works, I must return thanks to Messrs. Winks and Mason, resident engineers ; Mr. Burnand, Government inspector of works ; Messrs. McKirdy, Oakes, and Collie, contractors ; and Mr. Tawse, foreman for Mr. Oakes ; for the kindness they showed and the information they afforded me;