OUT EAST.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 93, 26 April 1913, Page 5

OUT EAST.

WHANCAMOMONA’S GLORY MARCH OF THE IRON HORSE. the Glory ot Whangamomona is last departing, and Ichabod is written on the corrugated iron chimney that marks the deserted home of the cooperative worker. The terrors of the saddle are mere muddy memories; the walk through the Jong tunnel, stumbling over sleepers, wallowing in mud, has become a reminiscence; the nights ol revelry are slowly gliding into the limbo of forgotten things. And why? The railway is knocking at Whangamomona’s door. Every mile of lino has driven a nail into the coffin of romance, and the journey into the little eastern township is now prosaio in the extreme. Travellers are dumped down a stone’s throw from an hotel, lighted by acetylene gas, furnished better than the average country hostel and equipped with a bathroom, with hot and cold water laid on. And yet it seems but yesterday when packhorses were wont to disappear on the Ohura Road, finding in the yielding papa a welcome rest from their labours!

But it will be many a long day before the last co-operative worker takes his farewell of the eastern township ■ many a long day before the settler will be relieved once and for all of the difficulties of transport over roads devoid of metal; and many a long day, still, before Stratfordians will take a run up to Auckland without seeing New Plymouth or taking a peep at Eltham. And the reason lies, not in the unwillingness of tlie Government to make as quickly as posible the much wanted conection with the Main Trunk, , but in the nature of the country through which those two steel rails must be laid. Follow the line from the Whangamomona tunnel to the Tahora tunnel, and consider. The distance is eight and a half miles, yet there will be seventeen bridges. In the one-and-a-half miles to the township, there are six bridges, with an average of four spans. Stratford was in turmoil when it was proposed to widen Victoria Bridge, but out in Whangamomona they’re building a concrete bridge, one of whose spans measures eighty-one feet, and there’s nary a meeting about it! Five fine concrete and iron structures have been erected* and the sixth is in progress. Follow the line further, and there are eleven more bridges to be built before ,the line can bo taken through the Tahora’ tunnel. It is only a few days now since the hill was pierced, and the Tahora tunnel came into existence." Breaking down is now in full swing. The tunnel ia an funusqal one in that it has ■at ofie end a ihirty-chain radius curve.

It would be well if the engineering difficulties ended here. On the contrary >they aro'jh|t beginning. After the tunnel comes a cutting—the deepest in New Zealand. After the cut'tirfg, "■ Ahh'hel, and so on. Then there is the Gorge. It is not so long ago since Mr C. J. McKenzie, resident engineer at Stratford, told a reporter of this paper that it might ho found posible to avoid the Tangarakau Gorge, by running a line down into the Heao ValleyvdHe had been over the suggested aoute,, .and had found it promising. Next week, Mr Stewart, assistant-brigineer, will return from the wilderness with a further report on the nature of the country through which the rails may possibly be laid. He is stated to be sanguine of the possibilities of the Heao Valley for railway construction. One wonders if the engineers would ever have thought of the Heao Valley, had not the Tangarakau Gorge presented difficulties that even they would prefer to dodge.