MAIN TRUNK JUNIOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 161, 29 June 1908, Page 4

MAIN TRUNK JUNIOR.

THE STKATF(IKD-ONCi-Uil"K LINE. CJUT WJTU THE ENKINEEIi, , iSays the i\ew Zealaml Times of a late date: Now that, the Mam Trunk line is Hearing completion, the Stratfonl-Ongarue railway the Main Trunk junior—which lias been more or levs ride-tracked while all forces wero concentrated on the larger and niur-j important undertaking, is again coining to the fore., and already the i.* being pushed forward more eilergetki ally. About oue hundred and eighty j men are at present employed, and the I size of the little tent towns at the railhead is, I am informed, daily increasing. Since April the line has been opened a> far as Iluiroa, eighteen miles from Stratford, and practically all the formation is ready for the rails up to a point tour and a-half miles farther on. Here an eleven-chain tunnel U to be put in. and just as soon as the material can be hauled along the rails, work oil the tunnel will progress apace. To get material up by road has been quite impracticable if not impossible, the unmetalled road having degenerated, in. places, into a typical back-block hog.

The iH-xt terminus will be six and ahalf miles north of Iluiroa, and of this I lie tunnel, about a mile and a-halt formation, ami the laying oi Ihe rails ha- to be done before the line will be open to this point. Pa-t the tunnel there is a mile of country over which progre*s will lie -low. So far the difficulties to be contended with have not. the engineer says, been great—the trouble has been the old. old one. insufficiency of ea-li to push the work ahead. The line traverses low. swampy valleys, broken at intervals bv gentle rises, and it i* over one of these "saddle-/' where some fairly big cuttings will have to be made, that work 1 will progre*s sjowly past the tunnel.

The next terminus will be one of the most important on the line. When it is reached (the engineer hopes to lie there in a little over a yean the trallic will be much heavier, for the line wifl tap a large area of the besj farming land, the settlers of which have practically no outlet. the mads being almost impassable. At this point, too. the line will lap the main Stratford road that swings away to the right at Douglas. W'haiigamomona, forty-two miles miles from the present railhead, will be the end of the lirst section. This (own is to be made. I understand, a distributing centre. jiM. as Ohakunc has been for the Main Trunk. Questioned a* to when Whangamomona would be reached. Mr. Cook, the engineer, replied: "That depends. Hut I can say this, (hat from the point for which we are at. present working, the first ten mites will be easy going. Prom there to Whangamomona 1 the eountrv is more difficult."

Most of the men at work on the line have filtered through from lhe_Main Trunk. I wa* informed by oue of them, however, thai the conditions are not so pleasant on the Stratford-Ongaruc, at all events />n the lower reaches. On the Main Trunk most of the work was dry; on this line it often resembles ditching, and for every three men that start work. 1 wo. f was I old, pack up and tramp to more congenial climes.