AT EVANS BAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 72, 25 March 1912, Page 2

AT EVANS BAY.

UNION COMPANY'S WORKSHOPS BIG BUILDINGS NEAk COMPLE--TION Evans Bay, between Point Jerningham and North Kilbirnie, is rather out of the ordinary run of traffic, and big works may be proceeding there without, attracting much attention from the public. So it is with the- Union Steam Ship Company's development 6cheme juet this 6ide of the patent slip. Herfe stands already the big laundry, described in' Saturday's Post, and alongside it to the south are other great steel and iron structures in the course of erection. These are for the company^ stores and workshops. To make a site for them the hill had to be cut away on one side of the Queens-drive, and the spoil used to reclaim -a large area from Evans Bay on the .other. It is like a pieco of the fiutt railway duplication works on a similar scale for a short distance. The projecting foreland of the hills sloping uown from Hataitai has been cut right .down as with a knife, and along tho j water front a retaining wall has been built to keep the sea from getting back its own. The reclamation represents a dozen acres or so. Running southward towards the head of the bay is a neat, but solidly founded wharf, with sufficient .berthage for the- average' collier and smaller boats. It is part of a large scheme. IN THREE BLOCKS. The workshops themselves are in three blocks. The third to the south is complete, the second working northward is nearly finished, and the steel columns and framework are being erected for the first, which stands just alongside the steam laundry and powerhouse, already in operation, • The construction of all the buildings is of steel framework, covered with galvanised corrugated iron. The minimum of wood is used, but the floors are of jarrah. Block 3, already complete, stands isolated from the others. It is the company's general s,tore. It . consists of a two-story building 24ft high in three bays, each about 40ft wide and 70ft long. Block 2is Hearing completion. It is also of two floors in five bays or sections', each 40ft by 70ft, the total area of floor being therefore 200 ft by 70ft for each story. The sections are devoted to the pattern etore, shipwright* and builders' shop, sawmill, iron rack and wire store, and salvage store on ground floor, with the timekeeper's office. The first floor or upper story will be occupied by riggers, joiners, sailmakers, upholsterers, and the works offices in the 'various bays. The height of these buildings is about 25ft, and a balcony runs the whole length on the seaward side. THE MAIN SHOPS. Block I contains what are, really the main engineering shops 1 . Its length is 140 feet and its breadth 100 feet, while the height of the main portion is 30 feet. The first ,two bays are devoted to the boileimakei* and blacksmiths' shops. Underground flues are- fitted for carrying away tho smoke and fumes from the forges 1 to the chimney stack, which is 80 feet high. The heavy machine and fitting shop occupies the next bay, 30 feet by 100 feet. The next, of the sanro dimensions, contains the light machine shop and the electricians, plumbers, and coppersmiths' departments. This block is, of course, in one , (story only, already built and in operation, so far as the boilers are concerned and the -engines which drive the laundry and the. electric generators, is 60 feet by 30 fe«t in dimensions. ' The main engines, it r is understood, are to be of the producer' gas type. They are not yet installed. The two boilers, aie small, of the semi-marine return tube type. There are duplicate sets of generating plant, the dynamos being direct-coupled to very sweetly running enclosed high-speed engines. Coal will be brought up by a short line of railway from the, ship's side on the wharf and hauled up' an incline to ehoot into the bunkers by patent winch. A huge water tank, 30 feet by 16 feet by 9 feet in dimensions, will hold a reserve supply of rain water, collected from ,tbe roofs of the laundry and the main buildings. This water will be used largely in the laundry for washing purposes. The work generally will be finished, the contractor*, hope, in about three months' time. The group of workshops and laun. dry, with the wharf, will then give some earnest, when seen from the seaward, of what Evans Bay will be in i,he future for Wellington— a great Industrial basin, with factories scattered all round its long margin. The contractors for the workshops are Messrs. M'Lean and Gray, conjointly with Messrs. M 'Arthur and Co., who are responsible for the steel construction, and have a considerable plant on the site for preparing the girders and columns for erection. The architects • are Messrs. Crichton and M'Kay, and Mr, Anderson is clerk of works.