RAILWAY ACROSS AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1917, Page 3

RAILWAY ACROSS AUSTRALIA.

HISTORIC ENTERPRISE CUMI'LETEI). The first mail train on Australia's transcontinental railway, which joins the eastern State! of the Coiinnonwealth to the Virgin West, ran last mouth. Mr. Fisher, now the High Commissioner. who as Prime Minister turned the '.first sod at Jv;i Igourlie in the spring of die year before the war, spoke of if rcIJijentiy in Loudon iu an interview with a representative of The Observer, as an historic enterprise of daring which .frill prove of high value in tile development of' li great continent. "It was thought at one time," he said, "a wild-cat scheme. Now it is an accomplished fact. Some of those who were most opposed to it are lauding the enterprise. Xou may safely say that, though the settlement may be slow, I think it will be certain. The modern development of land in alt countries [seems to tie on lines hitherto thought impracticable on in some eases even impossible. I think it will be the same with this part of Australia. Water—the outstanding difliculy on a desert line —will be found one way or another, and, once found agd applied, tile end of the settlement and'development trouble 'has arrived."

SUBJECTION OF A WILDERNESS. The thousand and more miles of new track between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie have been more than mere .platelaying. They have meant the subjection of a wilderness in which existed no civilisation, no population save a few tribes of itinerant aboriginals and a scarcity of water, which, therefore, had to be dragged from the very ibowels of the Wk strata. i ;The 'Work was like the inauguration of a military campaign,. Over a thousand miles of track had to be laid, as the crow flies, from east to irest, The line commences at Port Augusta in South Australia, where jt joins Hie Eastern system, and ends on the famipus goldfields of Kafgoorlie, already connected by railway with Fremantle, the gateway of the "Indian Ocean. It was undertaken 'hv the Government of tile Commonwealth « s part of the Federal compact. The . first sod was turned hy Lord Dennian at Port Augusta in September, 1912, six months before Mr. Fisher turned the first sod at Kajgoorlie. fAnd from that day the line has been built directly by the Federal Government, by its own engineers, and with its own workme:).

The line was built from both" ends. With the exception of sleepers all the permanent-way material, all locomotives, and the greater portion of the other rolling_stock used in the western division had to he imported from over-seas—from this country, from America, or from the Eastern States of Australia, tn the eastern division it had to be hauled over hundreds, in some cases over a thousand miles of railwav before reaching the railhead.

The greatest difficulty was (lip provision of water for man, beast and engine. It the construction of lmge reservoir.,. tl>« laying of great, pip;' linos. t'io driving of horos in the Jienrt of thn wilderness. For (liere were thousands of men to bo watered, and more tliousniiils of horses, camels and sheep. But the job was tackled with Southern optimism; and after the manner of the race the Australians have won through. the tracklayers. The line was built largely by mechanical mean?. Ihe ''tracklayers." American contrivances, waved weird derricks at the head of monstrous rattling construction trains, and having ] a j ( i a length 0 f line, proceeded on the instant, to walk over it. The slebpers, cut in a countrv prodigal of its timber supplies, were of double length to ensure fast traffic. The foimation of tiie road'bed was carried out a few yards only in advance of tlie track.

Lvervthiiig was self-contained. The railnead camp; had th.-ir hospitals, their churches, their stores, their newspapers their banks, their libraries. Dailv tlinv ■brged larther into the unknown, jeaviii" oehind them a 4ft S'/,in broad-gauge link with civilisation. And yet,, great as was ,v"\ work, the most precious studv was the human element of the construction camps.

In the ever-present sunlight of the "inside" country, the workmen hardened to a wonderful fitness. Their maintenance was an object lesson to our Fond Controllers. The Australian mvvv is the most independent in thn world. 'Yet T? VaS "° liquor on the )W. He was paid 13s a day. And the (•rtvernmont fed him in its own ranches—or . boarding-houses— for 25s a week whefe. he had milk with his breakfast POJ ridge, ate fruit and vegetables regularly, had fresh fish 800 miles from the sea coast, and three courses for dinner.

ADVANTAGES FOR EUROPEANS. From the point of view of the European traveller the lino lias certain advantages which should be set down. Tn forty-eight hours from leaving Freemantie the passenger by the Transcontinental will ho in Adelaide, as against the present five days by steamer through the Australian Bight, In another seventeen he is in Melbourne, the Federal seat of Government. Yet another seventeen, and he feels the Pacific breezes in subtrop'?al Sydney. He will have the advantage of passenger accommodation evolved by close study of the best, that the world has to offer, supplemented bv the. ingenuity of builders whose size limits are not cramped 'bv any tunnel or bridge legacies of a past' railroad age