3-047-009 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Otago Great Northern Railway, New Zealand: Waiamakura Viaduct, 1872. View 'of New Zealand scenery taken from portions of the Great Northern Trunk Railway, a line upon a 42-in. gauge...This line of railway will connect the two principal cities of the Middle Island, Dunedin and Christchurch, distant about 200 miles from each other...Mr. John Millar, civil engineer, was retained by the colonial Government to survey and lay out that portion of the railway...The view [from a drawing by Mr. Millar] is of a proposed high-level viaduct across the Otipopo gorge, in the vicinity of the town of Herbert. The scenery hereabouts is exceedingly picturesque...The river Waimakarua, or river of two courses, passes under this viaduct at over a hundred feet below the train level, the railway being constructed along the opposite mountain side, for upwards of a mile, to the head of the defile. This pass affords an interesting field for the geologist. The huge rocks, forming abutments for the projected bridge, bear evidence of centuries of action of water at a level much higher than the present meandering courses of the river. Here the engineer will utilise the huge blocks of granite in the erection of the piers shown in the Illustration'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.