SYDNEY’S NEW POST OFFICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 February 1939, Page 12

SYDNEY’S NEW POST OFFICE

TO COST £1,000,000. SYDNEY, January 27. First important steps in a 20-years I plan for post and telegraph extension |in Australia have been taken. ExtenI sions costing £1,000,000 will be made i to the General Post Office building in i Sydney, an underground cable be- ! tween Sydney and Newcastle (100 miles), and the installation of a 12channel carrier system over the 600 miles Sydney-Melbourne route will be ' commenced immediately. The additions have become necessary through ' the growth of business, which has reached a stage where the original basic provision cannot be expanded, i •‘The new post office building will be I the most modern and best equipped post office in the world,” said the di-

rector-general of postal services, Sir Hairy Brown. “The building will take about two years to complete. It will consist of a sub-basement, a basement, with two ramps to Pitt Street, providing one-way motor traffic; and 10 floors, including a mezzanine floor, where the city postmen would arrange their letters before delivery. The floor levels will correspond with those of the present building.” Sir Harry Brown said that the present accommodation was hopelessly inadequate, and large numbers of the staff had to be accommodated in other buildings. The first deliveries of cable for the replacement underground of the present overhead system on the SydneyNewcastle telephone service will be received by the Post Office in a few weeks. The cable, with its repeater stations and other equipment, will take about two years to install. It | will be so equipped as to enable 17 j conversations to be carried on simul-' taneously over the one pair of wires.