Still on the subject of the South Island Main Trunk railway, here are two pictures taken on the 2 km bridge over the Waitaki River, which as people know, marks the boundary between the Otago and Canterbury provinces.
The earlier picture was taken in 1914 and the later in 1955 (we don't know by who), the year before a new road bridge was built to replace it. Apparently the structure in the earlier photo - visible also in the later photo - is water tanks in case of a fire on the bridge. In steam locomotive days this was always a risk in the hot dry summer months.
2 comments:
The 1955 photo was taken by Euan McQueen - it's reproduced on p77 of his book Rails in the Hinterland.
I remember crossing the old bridge in my father's car when I was quite young. We had to wait for a train to go through, and can still picture a signal box at the end of the bridge, as well as an old-fashioned level crossing-style across the road.
Don Hodgkinson, formerly of Invercargill.
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