Engineering Skill Wins in Railway Job

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 354, 15 May 1928, Page 13

Engineering Skill Wins in Railway Job

NEW LINE OPENED WAIOTIRA TO KIRIKOPUNI (From Our Oicn Correspondent) HELEN S VILLE, To-day. Only 13 miles of rail, but built on the face of a treacherous country at a great expense. f J , HE piece of railway construction begun in 1915, which now joins Waiotira Station to Kirikopuni, on the Dargaville line, was officialy opened by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, this afternoon. The war and a consequent shortage of money resulted in the work being stopped in 1915, and it was not begun again until 1920. Even then the Public Works Department could not give it much attention because the department was concentrating on the line between Huarau and Waiotira. The year 1924 had eomje before the task was undertaken seriously. For some time now tlie section, chiefly from Pukehuia has been operated successfully by the Public Works Department. DIFFICULT JOB Over 400 men were employed on the line, and sometimes as 'many as 11 steam shovels, probably the most on any work in the country, were used. The country was a severe test for the patience and the skill of the engineers who found that their bridge approaches sank rapidly, that the flats required extra filling and banks three times the standard width, that the tunnels necessitated concrete about two feet in thickness, and that the cuttings were repeatedly slipping. The length of the section is 13 miles 55 chains, and it contains four stations, one of them a large terminus, two tunnels, one large bridge over the Wairoa River and 13 other bridges totalling 1,300 ft. The two tunnels have been a difficult engineering feat. The Omana tube is 689yds long and the Tokatoka tunnel 389yds. The bridge over the Wairoa is 756 ft long and it consists of two 150 ft steel truss spans, two of 45ft and 15 30ft steel plate deck spans. Reinforced concrete piers sunk 20ft below the bed of the stream and 17 timber piles carry the spans. The total weight of steel on the bridge is 290 tons, and it was made up at the Tauranga workshops.