A Race With Time.

Other duties of the platelayers include the relaying of station yards and laying points and crossings. A big job undertaken recently was the change-over from the old Otaki railway bridge to the new.

The new structure, erected by a special bridge gang, was in readiness at 8–50 a.m., at which time Field's express from Palmerston North passed over en route to Wellington. As soon as she had gone the platelayers and surfacemen combined, numbering fourteen, set about linking up with the new bridge. They had already laid the new rails on the latter, but they had only one hour and twenty minutes in which to break the line, pull over 542 feet of track to meet the rails on the new bridge, join it up, and make it safe for the passage of a train. That may not sound a great deal on paper, but in reality it is no small matter, even for fourteen page 11 men. They had to work hurriedly and yet carefully, since an undertaking of such a nature could not be performed piecemeal. It was all or nothing, a task to be completed in rapid time without interruption to the train service, or a failure before which the next train would have to slow to a halt and snort its scorn in steam. But the job, formidable as it was, was successful. The race with time was won, and when No. 600 came up at 10.10 a.m. it was able to go over the new bridge by the new track without interruption.