NEARLY COMPLETE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 12, 15 January 1929, Page 8

NEARLY COMPLETE

MOVE TO NEW PREMISES

RAILWAY WORKSHOPS

After fifty years or more the ceaseless activity of the old Petone railway workshops is being gradually stilled— within a month they will be deserted, and before man}' more weeks ha*o elapsed ever the familiar, if somewhat dilapidated, building will be gone. During the Christmas holidays there ha« been a gradual transfer from the old to tho new workshops, until at tho present time practically the only use to which, the old workshops are being put is that of a garage for the Railway Department's fleet of motor-buses.. By next month they too will be in the new quarters, and when the. Kaiwarra maintenance shops are also transferred to the new buildings, as is intended, tho whole of the Wellington railway' workshop organisation will be in one place. Tho site of the old Petone workshops it is intended to clear entirely of buildings, and then there will be some 16 acres of land eminently , suitable for industrial concerns desiring railway access. Of land there is not! too much available near the city, and the best method of dividing this area is now: being considered. ■ • '

Some of the machinery in the old. workshops has found a place ia the new workshops, but much of the electrical gear installed three years ago, when the change-over was made from gas to electricity as motivo power, ia destined for Addington. It is not a case of "What shall we do with all the gear?" for .when the electrical installation was made the move to new premises was already within the range of practical politics, so all the new machinery was designed with a view t» serving the .Addington shops, its sojourn at Petone being looked upon as merely temporary, for the Eailway Department, in spite of what some of its critics say, does look to the future. ■ The new railway workshops, already described in "The Post," will not be m full working order for another few weeks, for the inauguration of such a big undertaking is naturally a long process. But tho activity there is already in excess of that which prevailed in the old and cramped shops, and when all the locomotive men and other workers who are on their way from Napier, Wanganui, and Auckland have arrived, there will be- over a thousand men at work. To house these men and their families has necessitated considerable building activity all around the new workshops, on the Wainui side of which there is rapidly coming into, being a ; new residential area. To take the men to and from their work, for many at present live in the city and suburbs, .the Department runs a special train, on© that runs right into the shops in the morning and leaves from there when the day's work is .done.

Comparisons between working conditions in the old and the new shops can. hardly be made. As one loco, man said: "It is like going into heaven-from the other place." The old shops had served their day, and served it well, but for years they had proved to be inadequate for the. increasing demands made upon, them with, the growth of the Dominion's railway activity. But in tho new shops there is ample space and machinery Sufficient and up-to-date enough to cope with all demands for many years to come. ' ■