NEW MILK STATION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1930, Page 10

NEW MILK STATION

PROGRESS OF BUILDING

A LONG WAY TO GO

HOLD-UPS AND DELAYS

Though when the foundation-stone of the now city milk statiou was laid in November of last year it was fairly confidently stated that the- maiu factory section would bo completed and ready for the installation of machinery in February, and that nil should be in readiness for a change-over from the old to the new factory during the 1930 winter, it is plain now that the factory cannot be put in commission for some months. Various difficulties, minor holdups, and delays have brought this about. For some considerable time after the contractors, Messrs. Hansford and Mills, had taken over the weather was particularly bad, and the heavily excavated portions of the site became feet deep in clay mud. Heavy winds for a few more weeks slowed down the building- of the chimney stack. Alterations in plans, themselves delayed by the difficulties of long distance consultation with English experts, brought more delays, and so t the job has dragged out well over the anticipated time. However, if it has • run along rather slowly it is working out fully satisfactorily. It would undoubtedly have been to the advantage of the department had the factory been ready for operation during the winter months, June, July, or August, for so intricate a plant is bound to, develop tricks and peculiarities when first put into operation, and milk treatment is a more simple business in cold weather than in hot. However, the delay cannot be avoided now and the change-over must be made when the plant is ready; it cannot wait till another winter comes round. Though tho building is well behind time, a great part of the plant has come to hand or is on the water, and asthe floors are not ready to receive it, it is necessary to handle it doubly, trebly in some instances. Tho cases, some of them weighing a good many tons, have to be opened for examination as to possible breakages, closed up again, and stored in various buildings till they can bo moved to the factory floors. The total of these extra handling charges will probably be considerable. ROOM TOR EXTENSION. The factory is in four main sections. Fronting Tory,street is tho office block, about which there is no particular hurry; next comes the main, factory block, to house tho whole, of the milk treating plant, can and bottling washing machines, ' milk and cream and butter stores, cooling, plant, and en-gine-room; behind that again is the workshop and wagon shed; and adjoining on the south of this last block (in the foot of an L) is the double line of stables.' Workshop, wagon shed, and stables arc practically completed, but they are, as compared with the main factory building, quite straight forward buildings. A start has _ been made with the installation plant in the workshop, where practically all repair and repainting work to lorries and wagons will bo carried out. The area of the site is about an acre and threequarters, but for the time being about half an acre is not to be built upon, but will be required in fnll as extensions are called for. This, however, should not be necessary for some time, as plans have been laid to meet the anticipated growth in business for some years. Inside the factory, too, there is room for considerable extension of operations, for floor room has been lett tor tho duplication of pasteurisers, bottlers, Washers, and so on. When the plans, were drawn up it was the intention of the department to cater m a fairly big way for the ice. business, for there was a growing demand tor ice, but sinec then circumstances have altered a good deal. Two or three private companies have launched out m a biff way, and, on top of it all, home, shop, and ship electrically operated freezers have cut the demand for factory ice severely. It was decided, however, not to amend the plans by cutting out the ice-making rooms and stores, but to carry on, leaving these rooms for general storage purposes until such" time as bigger business requires still more room. FEATURES OF BUILDINGS. There are three features which at once strike the visitor to the factory: solidity, light in plenty, and the spick and spauuess of the tiled milk rooms as they will be. (At present they are none too spick and span, but the clearing away of building debris will not be a serious business.) lliglit through the buildings arc of brick and concrete, with steel trussed roofs, well lit from the side and above. The walls are white-tiled for ten or twelve feet up from the concrete floors, and the ceilings are of plain white plaster. There is nowhere any interior ornamentation, for the milk business calls for real cleanliness, not for pretty looks. As the wear on the floors from tho dragging of cans and cranes will be heavy the concrete surface is hardened up by embedded steel mesh an inch or so in thickness; there will be. plenty of wear and sliding in; that. ■ Tho delivery of milk and cream and its reloading on to vans and wagons for the city rounds will bo done under cover ana between the engine-house and tho workshops a, covered yard will provide shelter to the men and horses while waiting, no matter what the weather.

Practically the.whole of the.piping work —'thefo will be over seven miles of. pipes, water, steam, brine, and so on, in the completed job:—and also the cabling carrying electric power to the various plant units will be carried in culverts below the floors; thus these services will be right out of the way and yet available for inspection or repair at all times. Plant, pipe line, and power installation will start off together when the factory building is sufficiently far ahead to permit that work. OLD SHACKS TO GO. About the factory site are some of the dingiest and most disreputable looking old shacks in-Wellington, but a line of these will go very shortly, as the council, at the time rather against its will, found itself faced with what practically amounted to the necessity of buying more land than it actually needed for the site. Councillors now, however, are rather-pleased that that necessity arose, for. the extra space on tho south side of the main block can profitably bo used as parking space until such time-as it may be required for building. Probably a residence for one of the department's oflicers will be erected on part of this land, and a strip now taken up by a row oi tumbledown cottages may be transformed into agarden plot'—the district can do withsome beautification. Some land still re- ! maining .fronting Tory street, to the south, of the site proper, will in all probability bo disposed of by the coun- ! eil. . .' _^^