Indoor Rail Yard

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 18

Indoor Rail Yard

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

MELBOURNE, May 28.

A £3O million schepie to roof the railway yards at the Flinders Street Station was announced today by the Victorian Transport Minister, Mr E. Meagher, and a company which has a 99-year lease on the 10-acre site, H.J.K. Proprietary, Ltd. The project involves roofing the railway lines from Swgnston street to Flinders street —two blocks —and from Flinders street to the Yarra river, about 100 yards. The station will be rebuilt. A hotel and office building at least 30-storeys high and a large public plaza are among other features of the project. Flinders Street Station is one of the three busiest suburban stations in the world. - The builder, Mr F. O. Watts, said it was hoped work would begin within 12 months.

H.J.K.’s Ifease provides that it will be completed within 10 years, but its managingdirector, Mr H. K. Jones, said it could be done in seven years.

Mr R. N. Vroland, chairman of H.J.K., said finance for the project would be raised in Australia and in five overseas countries.

Mr Vroland said the plan announced today * was independent of the Princes Gate development already announced, involving expenditure of £5 million on roofing and building oven railway lines the other side of Printes Bridge from Flinders Street Station. The Mayor of Wellington, Mr F. J. Kitts, earlier expressed interest in the Princes Gate scheme, recalling that his City Council, a few years ago rejected, for lack of money, an offer from the Railways Department of the air-space for a three-storey parking building over Wellington Station on leasehold terms.

Mr Kitts was .quoted as saying that the project was worth further consideration.