Thorndon Station To be Demolished

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 81, 7 April 1937, Page 4

Thorndon Station To be Demolished

A 3 SOON AS NEW STATION IS OPENED Pe'r Press Association. WELLINGTON, April C. Within two three months of’tfie opening of Wellington’s now railway station, the travelling public will see the last of Thorndon Station. The building has long outlived its usefulness and will be pulled down to permit the re-routeing of the main line from the new station to the deviation by way of the Tawa Flat tunnels. Thorndon station was built by the old Mana watu Railway Company on reclaimed land and was opened to traffic on November 3, 1886. Apart from additions in subsequent years as extended accommodation was lequired, the rambling wooden building has remained for 60 years substantially in the shape it is to-day. Few Wellington residents, if any at all, will regret the demolition of Thorndon Station. Its melancholy neighbours, the old engine sheds near the platforms, are also to be removed in the scheme for improving the layout of the yards called for by rearrangement of the whole system consequent on the opening of the new terminal. The demolition of Thorndon’s unsightly pile is dictated not merely from the desire of the Railway Department to do away with an eyesore, but is necessary for the laying of a now permanent way from the new station tc connect with the deviation. Thorndon’s platforms and the buildings on them stand fairly in the way of the projected tracks and must go as aoont as the big station is opened.