Plans For Car Ferry Terminals

Press, Volume C, Issue 29424, 28 January 1961, Page 11

Plans For Car Ferry Terminals

"The Press" Special Service

WELLINGTON, Jan. 26. With the £2 million. 4300-ton Cook Strait road and rail ferry now under construction in Scotland, preparations are proceeding for terminal facilities at Wellington and Picton. By the time the ship is delivered, about May next year, the Wellington and Marlborough harbour boards will have spent more than £600,000 on terminals. Both projects are being carried out by stages. Tenders for the new Wellington wharf will close on February 17 and will be studied by the Wellington board on February 22. The wharf will have a 550foot mooring jetty to the east and a 233-foot passenger jetty, ■with covered approaches, to the west. The ship will dock at a special berth between the two jetties. • Rail access will be from sidings to the north across a central 90-ft linkspan supported by a tower on concrete foundations, similar in concept to the ramps once used by Auckland vehicular ferries. The wharf will have an area of 22,000 square feet of concrete decking on piles of up to 75 feet in length. At Picton the terminal will be similar. Tenders for the £70,000 jetty close at the end of February. Work should take some six months. A separate contract for earthworks and reclamation is now under way and should be finished by the end of May. Piles driven into the reclaimed base will support the jetties, a railway station, taxi and bus stands, a 45-car park, launch landing, baggage facilities, toilets, bookstalls and offices. “It will be rather like a modern airport terminal," said a Marlborough Harbour Board officer. These will be similar to facilities at Wellington. There will again be a separate linkspan. Because the ferry must be held absolutely still I

for railway track connections, designers have had to cut horizontal movement tolerances an absolute minimum while still allowing for vertical Hue movements. For this reason, and to prevent what has been described as “a left-handed connection at one end and a right-handed at the other,” bids to build and install the linkspans will probably be sought jointly by the harbour boards. The work will cost the Marlborough board about £300,000 which is being raised by a loan specially authorised by Parliament last year. The Railways Department has guaranteed some £25,000 yearly in revenue, which should meet interest and capital repayment. The ferry facilities are part of a £500.000 harbour .improvement programme under way at Picton. Wellington works for the ferry service will cost between £300,000 and £350.000. Following a long controversy, the site for the terminal at Wellington has been fixed at Aotea quay, between bulk cement silos and the floating dock. A contract has already been let for the removal of buildings. The ferry, to be run by the Railways Department, is being built at Dumbarton, Scotland by William Denny and Brothers, Ltd. Yet unnamed, she will carry 120 cars, or 35 railway waggons and 40 cars, or 20 waggons and 80 cars» She will have accomodation for 1200 passengers. At Wellington, cars for the ferry will load from a special vehicle ramp on the eastern jetty. The present inter-island wharf will continue to be used for Lyttleton ferry services. No proposal has yet been considered by the Government to reduce or reverse State ownership and control of the service as decided upon by the previous Labour Administration.