RAILWAY TO EXTEND HALF WAY ACROSS CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.

Shannon News, 26 April 1929, Page 2

RAILWAY TO EXTEND HALF WAY ACROSS CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER BORES. SFDNEY, March 7. By June next Alice Springs, that quaint little town amid the desert lands of Central Autsralin, will be a railway terminus, and the dream of the North-South line across the heart of Australia will have half come true. Les sthan 100 miles of line require to be laid to Alice Springs, and the platelayers are advancing at the rate of a mile a dav.

A. railway a few years ago would have been a marvel in Central Aus tretlia,* after camel journeys that took weeks, and sometimes months, but motor transport has come in the meantime to conquer the sandy deserts. Nevertheless, a weekly mail, and a service that will take them to Adelaide in three days without having to dig themselves out of sand drifts, will seem like- the end of their isolation to the people of Central Aw strata. Living is bound to be cheapeA with a reduction of the £SO a ton freight charge which is at present added to the cost of most commodities. Fruit, ice, vegetables and fiesh foods, which the dwellers of the cities take for granted, should soon be available to those who live far inland. As an illustration of the cost of getting supplies into Central Australia, the price of petrol in Alice Springs is more than £2 a ease. It costs 18s. in Adelaide or Melbourne.

The difficulties of building the line from Oodnadatta to Alice Springs havebeen less of engineering and more of commissariat. There are few bridges, no mountains to tunnel or valleys t(; span; the cuttings are not deep, nor are the embankments high, and by a system of momentum grades the variations in surface are used rather than removed. Water has been the problem of the engineers. Mjgn, horses and locomotives used up thousands of gallons a day in a country where there is no surface water. So bores have had to be put down. When the line had progressed beyond darlotte Waters a new bore was urgently necessary. The engineers had a "hunch" that there was water below the Finke River bed,, They used the divining rod, and it reacted favourably. Against the advice of Government officials a bore was put down and at 700 ft. tbe purest water in the country was found. It spurted in a steady' flow. Now 40,000 to 50,000 gallons a day are carted from it by the lank cars". Had the water failed all the men would have had to be withdrawn from the line and sent back to water. Now another bore is being sunk further ahead and the line is creeping toward it. Progress is rapid; it must be to beat th? ever shifting ~and. Gangs work from both ends of the earth-works. The iail truck goes on as each new section is ready and the platelavers with it. No sooner are the rails down than the truck passer over them. Another truck follows close behind, and the rails are ballasted at once.