NEW RAILWAY STATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16622, 14 April 1928, Page 5

NEW RAILWAY STATION

BIG AUCKLAND, CONTRACT SUM OP £326,000 INVOLVED (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. A commencement on the construction of the new railway station in Auckland i.s to be made in a fortnight. The contractors, Messrs. J. T. Julian and tfon, Ltd.. are busy completing the preliminaries in connection with the signing of the contract, and hope to have 70 or £0 men engaged in the manufacture of concrete piles as soon as the material i.s assembled. Learning that the tender had been accepted, 100 men called at the office of the contractors yesterday morning seeking employment, but at present no hands are being engaged. It is expected that about 400 men will be employed on the job by the middle of the winter, and that with, those engaged indirectly in the work nearly 1000 wage-earners will benefit by the contract and sub-contracts during the year, a factor which will materially help to relieve the unemployment situation in the city. The contract is described as the largest building undertaking ever let on an independent contract in New Zealand. The price, £526,000, is nearly double that of the largest building contract ever let in Auckland, the War Memorial Museum, now in course of construction at a cost of £183,400, and nearly three times the magnitude of the University building, which* cost £127,000. The unsuccessful tenderers were: The Fletcher Construction Co., Ltd., Wellington ; the Hansford and Mills Construction Co., Ltd., Wellington; and Mr. Richard A. Cornish, Auckland. DESIGN AND EQUIPMENT.

All the most modern practice in design and equipment of railway terminals will be embodied in the new Auckland station, from which it is hoped the first trains will be dispatched at Christmas, 1928. In the conveniences and amenities which it will offer • to the travelling public the station promises to compare not unfavorably with its much larger counterparts in the cities of Europe and America. Standing on the Mechanics' Bay reclamation and fronting Beach road at a point nearly half a mile from Queen street, the., station will ultimately be the point of departure Kind arrival of trains traversing both the Westfield deviation and the future new northern outlet by tunnel under the centre of Auckland city. It is to be a steel and concrete building of three stories and a basement, resting upon foundations consisting of a forest of concrete piles. The approach from Beach road is by Ji garden phua of- land a-cross which the main railway tracks at present run. The plaza will be laid out with lawns and iiower beds, and in the centre will he a memorial to the Auckland railwaymen who fell in the Great War. Around it will he two roads, one rising by a ramp on each side to the level o 4 the main floor and accommodating both tramcars and motor vehicles. Passing under a suspended verandah passengers will enter flie general lobby. The lower road is intended to give access to the basement, where, luggage raid mails will be handled, hut there i.s also provision for a low-level subway for the use of suburban passengers who wish to pass direct to and *.'om the platforms devoted to their class of traffic. Jhr ■jenernl lobhv is to be 110 ft long, 40ft wide and 40ft high, and opening on to ; t will be the ticket nnd luggage offices A small but verv useful refinement will consist of a series of racks *lsin above the floor, on which passengers may rest their hand batrgage while purchasing tic'-ets.

The lobby will open into* the concourse, n, spacious ball 250't long and 42ft wide, giving access to the seven •(viva! and departure p'atforms, each mh in length.' This will be finished with convergences unknown to earlier New Zealand railway practice. Among these, are four shops, a barber's shop, baths, a. telegraph and telephone office, iiul an n.mhuln.nce room. There will n!sn be dining and general refreshment >r,o;r:s, and waiting and rest rooms for women.