Railway Civil Engineering

Among the many different types of vocation offered by the railways in its various branches is that of the Railway Civil Engineer, a career of endless variety with a scope and magnitude of which few people areaware.

The railway civil engineer is responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of a wide variety of structures over and past which the railway runs. The track itself is maintained under his control as arethe bridges, viaducts and tunnels.

There are55 miles of railway bridges in New Zealand, ranging from the mile-long structure over the Rakaia River, down to those of a few feet spanning little wayside streams. In height they reach a climax in the grandeur of the Mohaka Viaduct, 318 feet above the river. Some of these 2,600 bridges and viaducts were designed and built, and all are maintained, by railway civil engineers.

The 53 miles of New Zealand railway tunnels—189 of them—are under the care of the railway civil engineer, as are station yards, buildings and goods sheds and the staff dwellings and hut settlements. His work is to be seen in the attractive modern designs of the newer station buildings, as at Roto[unclear: rua], Christchurch, Silverstream, New Plymouth, Napier, Te Awamutu.