Demolition Begun Of Old Railway Station

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28958, 28 July 1959, Page 8

Demolition Begun Of Old Railway Station

The noises of splintering timber, crashing bricks and shattering glass mingled with the roar of three 95 horse-power bulldozers meant the death of hall the old Christchurch Railway Station yesterday. At 7 a.m. demolition gangs moved on to the eastern half of the station and by 3 p.m. all that remained was a gaunt relic standing in piles of crushed and broken bricks and timber with conduit splayed at angles. The gangs had by this time had the accumulated soot and dust of many years scattered over them.

Visitors stepping from trains at the station in three days will see a station cut in half. The demolition should be completed by then, according to the contractor (Mr J. Ryan). The station will be cut at the end of the booking office, eliminating the gangway which runs alongside. Yesterday that gangway • was filled with an almost continuous stream of dusty gangers carting out roofing iron and lead from spouting. Mr Ryan said the lead was the only material worth salvaging, as he pointed to one of his trucks piled high with an estimated three tons of it. Work On Brick Walls Bulldozers had to push and pull at the brick walls to bring them down. At the rear of the almost demolished section a brick wall was separated by only a few feet from one of the completed sections of the new station, temporarily housing the lost property and left luggage offices To prevent the wall crashing down on the new section the bulldozer operator had to take his machine up an incline of crushed brick and plaster, lift the grab over the top of the wall, hook it on and pull. The wail collapsed inwards after about three attempts. On the steep, gabled roof of

the most prominent part of the station 20 gangers clambered, swinging pick axes, axes and sledge hammers, tearing away old beams and grey slates. A mixture of comments from spectators grouped on the traffic island opposite the station greeted the demolition: “There goes a monstrosity,” said one; and another: “What a waste of good material.” indicating the broken bricks and timber.

Late yesterday afternoon a solitary chimney topped by an old-fashioned clay “tea pot” stood out starkly from the rubble. It was soon ■ to be demolished. A city pottery manufacturer said that these “tea pots” would be something else worth salvaging. No longer in production, they would be worth about £3 10s today, he said.