Trestle 12 & the First Tunnel

Building KVR tunnels was gruelling manual work.

Three-man crews, known as “moles,” laboured exclusively by hand using “double jacking.” While one man held a rock drill, two others, taking turns, struck it with 8-pound sledgehammers, rotating the bit after every strike.

To protect the rock’s integrity, explosives were avoided, limiting progress to five feet per day. Under George Chew, crews worked from both ends to meet in the middle, using horses to haul away debris.

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