City’s New Gateway

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 560, 12 January 1929, Page 1

City’s New Gateway

WATERFRONT RAILWAY Trains Will Run in April BY next April it is expected that goods trains will be running over the Auckland-Westfield deviation. Although the line will not be taken over officially by the Railway Department for some time after that the trains will be run in order to relieve the congestion on the present main line.

the present rate of progress, if ; all goes according to schedule, j the six small stations on the devia- i tion will be completed in five months’ time. The frameworks of the Orakei. 1 Panmure and Sylvia Park stations j have been erected, a start has been j made at Marama, and Purewa and the 1 Glen lnnes station will be started next week. Already five and three-quarter miles of the permanent way have been completed. On the city end it has been laid to the northern portal of the Purewa tunnel, and on the south end from Westfield back to Panmure. Splendid progress has been made with the deviation and the Public Works Department is right up to the specified schedule. During the whole time since the work of construction began there has not been a hitch in the programme and not a day has been lost in disputes with the men. Any small differences which may have arisen have been settled amicably without the loss of an hour’s working time. There are several remarkable fea- j tures about the Auckland-Westfield j deviation, apart from the speed with which the work has been pushed for- 1 ward, and in the next six months the public will be able to view one of the finest engineering works of its kind ! in New Zealand. MAGNIFICENT ENTRANCE TO CITY Without doubt it will be a magnificent entrance to the city, as the line sweeps through beautiful, almost English countryside after leaving Westfield until the harbour is reached. At Orakei the first splendid view of the waterfront, and the distant loveliness of the harbour, is; seen. There are no heavy grades and no sharp curves on the run in from Westfield. Any rise or fail is scarcely noticeable. This will ensure a fast run all the way. Safety has been one of the great considerations of the deviation. The track, bridges and stations are all double. The left-hand set of rails will be for outgoing trains and the right side for those coming into Auckland. Each of the stations will have a platform on either side and there are no level crossings on the whole eight and three-quarter miles from Westfield to Auckland. A tour over the whole of the deviation, beginning at the Auckland end. shows how rapidly the big scheme is nearing completion. Work at Campbell Point is almost finished and the two parks are receiving their coats of earth in preparation for the final levelling and planting. NEW PARKS IN MAKING About 180,000 tons of si>oil have been moved from the Point, at the rate of 30,000 tons a month. Two purposes were served in doing this work —the Public Works Department wanted the spoil for the waterfront railway and the City Council wanted the ground levelled for its new parks. When it is finished Gladstone Road will run down through the upper park to the road across the railway bridge at the lower end of the railway yards and then on into the city by various routes. Balfour Road, on a lower level, will join Gladstone Road just at the railway bridge. A start is to be made shortly with an overhead footbridge at

Point Resolution, near the Parnell Baths. This will enable pedestrians to reach the waterfront road from St. Stephens Avenue, or vice versa, and also to reach the Parnell Baths from the new roadway along the waterfront. Orakei, the first of the new stations from the city, is rapidly taking shape, and, like the other five along the line, will be an attractive structure with a tiled roof. Each station will have a platform 500 feet long, running on either side of it and made of pre-cast blocks of concrete. The first platform, that at Sylvia Park, has already been put into position. Access to each station will be gained by overhead bridges from the nearest roads. This will reduce the danger of accidents to an absolute minimum. A massive concrete bridge 46ft. wide will span the Purewa stream near the Orakei station. This will carry the traffic from the Remuera side of the city across to the Orakei garden suburb. The bridge will be started within a month. The concrete piles are ready to be driven. It has been decided to make the Orakei Basin a permanent sheet of water and thus do away with the dreary waste of mud flats which would otherwise blot the pleasant landscape there. At Orakei Neck there will be a bridge and a weir. This will enable, water to flow in and out of the basin as desired and thus keep it fresh. At the northern portal of the Purewa tunnel men are at work laying the permanent way. The tunnel itself, a wide and excellent job. was completed some time ago. Work has gone ahead with the j utmost speed on the rest of the line I to where it joins the main south line |at Westfield. If all goes well (and ! the engineers always qualify their remarks with that statement), the overhead bridge 011 the Great South Road, made famous recently by a hold-up. will be completed in two months’ time. At present the approaches to it are in the course of construction. Every available bit of spoil taken from one section of the line has been used in another. For instance, 50,000 ; tons of bluestone rock were taken j from a cutting at Marama aud used |on other parts of the line or the | waterfront road. The seven overhead bridges along j the line are all of concrete aud capable of taking two-way traffic. They , are all of uniform design, very simple, | but. combining use with artistic effect. LOOKED YEARS AHEAD In the construction of the railway the department has looked years ahead and studied the question from every point of view—economy, ' future progress, and usefulness. Much of the land through which the railway runs will be very closely settled in the future and the whole line has been built with this object in view. Sufficient space has been left at each station for expansion, and for shunting and crossings. A? far as possible in the early construction of the line the work was done by contract. "Piece-work spells peace-work,” said one of the enei- | neers to-day. That probably has ; been one of the reasons why there | has been such freedom from dispute. ! At. present there are about 400 men | employed on the deviation, but they ■ are all more or less specialists. At, ; first GOO men found employment there, but now that the preliminary work has been finished some of them have ' been paid off.