THE STRATFORD RAILWAY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 312, 29 June 1912, Page 3

THE STRATFORD RAILWAY

WORK AT THE NORTHERN END. MAKING GOOD PROGRESS. The work in connection with the northern end of the Stratford line is (writes the Auckland nerald's Taumarunui correspondent), being pushed on steadily and well. About 150 co-operative laborers are now employed there, under the engineer in charge, Mr. Baker., The work is proceeding from the Okahukara Junction, and also from a point on the Ohnra road called the 12-mile peg. The distance from the one point to the other is some eight miles, afiiT between them rises a range of hills, which will have to be pierced by a tunnel 74 chains long, the mouth of which will be 2'/ 4 miles from the junction. It is only a few months since Sir Joseph Ward turned the first sod of the present line construction, and there is already a striking change in the appearance of the whole surroundings. The very atmosphere of the place seems to have been changed. From a wild and desolate spot it has become almost cheerful. The road has made everything possible. At n spot on the Ongarue river, where one of the workmen was drowned while crossing in a canoe, a temporary bridge lias been erected, and a j 16ft service-road, -beautifully graded, has i been already constructed for a distance of three miles, and fascined and pumiced for two. The result is a smooth and regular surface, and a sound bed, which will -serve in the first place for tlie haulage of material in the line construction, and afterwards for conveyance of settlers' produce when the blocks are ■opened up. Those settlers will be much more fortunate than thousands of their | fellows in having a fine thoroughfare ! made ready for them at the start. It is, f not top much to say that it will add £2 an acre to the-value of their land. Had this means of developing the country been adopted before, it would have saved much, misery and waste of energy. ' The,making of roads should precede settlement, not follow it. ' A road like the service road at Okahukara is, of course,' much more expensive than the < bridle tracks with . which settlers elsewhere have to he content; but even so, it should not he beyond the resources, of' the' country. Along the road—not strictly parallel, however—the track of the future -railway is now taking shape. Cuttings have been made for' one mile and <SO chains, culverts have been constructed—the,.small streams having had their courses diverted by means of sluicing boxes, so that concrete beds might -be formed under the culverts. Certain gangs are at work felling bush where necessary. At one mile 50 chains from Okahukara, the service road diverges so as to skirt the bill and not go through it, as tbe railway will. The efforts of the engineer are at present mainly directed to completing the road, and giy*n reasonably favorable weather the connection between the approaching sections should be finished by the end of October. The pumicing depends entirely on* the weather, b'ut this should not 'entail any great dfelay once the formation is made.