Wellington's New Station.

(Continued from page 9.)

On either side of the main entrance are small offices for the use of taxi-men and “red-cap” porters. Within is a booking hall running east and west, 114 feet in length and 40 feet in breadth. On the left, on the near side, is the Stationmaster's office, and on the right the booking offices. Opposite the latter are the checked-luggage windows and counters, and in a deep recess at the extreme eastern end, is the enquiry counter. The checked-luggage office has also windows and counters fronting the main concourse. At the extreme west end of the booking-hall is the dining-room, sixty feet by forty feet, also having access to the concourse.

Immediately opposite the main entrance is the lobby leading to the passenger concourse, the circulating area for the whole station. Two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, it extends from the suburban passenger entrance on Featherston Street to the luggage and parcels office at the east end. On the south side, at the suburban entrance, are an emergency booking office for race traffic, locker rooms for guards and porters, and the coaching-foreman's office. Within the concourse on the same side, going towards the lobby from the booking-hall, are the entrance to the kitchen and dining-room staff rooms, then the general waiting-room and the ladies' waiting-room. Between the two latter a passage gives access to the dining-room. A stairway from the concourse also leads to a ladies' rest-room, hospital, bath-room and lavatories on the floor above. On the northern side immediately within the main suburban entrance is the bookstall, and just within the concourse are the barber's shop and men's bathroom and lavatories. A sliding gate gives access to a short platform leading to the staff lavatory, store rooms, ambulance room and lamp room, and ending with the suburban mail-dock.

Along the north side of the concourse five sliding gates give access to the various platforms; first the suburban platform, 640 feet long and 21 feet wide, double fronted, then a platform for general traffic, principally country trains and race traffic. This platform is also 640 feet long, 21 feet wide, and double fronted. The main departure platform, exactly in line with the main entrance through the booking-hall and concourse, is a double fronted platform 900 feet long and 29 feet wide. The main arrival platform is 900 feet long and 21 feet wide, with provision for train on one side and taxi-road on the other, connecting with Waterloo Quay.

Between the various platform gates along the north side of the concourse are a Post and Telegraph office, public telephone bureaux, and two shops for fruit, soft drinks, etc. Outside the concourse the platforms are all connected up with the luggage-room by a covered trucking platform 18 feet wide.

The building is of steel construction, on reinforced concrete piles extending through the reclamation to below the original harbour bed. The steel columns are encased in concrete and the upper floors are supported between the columns by steel beams encased in concrete. The office partition walls are of terracotta and the outer walls of reinforced brickwork. The whole of the steelwork, re-inforced concrete and reinforcing for the brickwork were designed by Mr. P. Holgate, Structural Engineer, who personally carried out a series of tests on the strength of reinforced brickwork as designed for earthquake resisting construction in Japan. The bricks are made with slots enabling vertical steel bars to pass through the brickwork. These are cemented into the brickwork and securely attached to the beams above and below. The floors are of reinforced concrete. The building is fireproof and earthquakeproof throughout.

Access to the upper floors is afforded by lifts and stairways from the two Bunny Street entrances, and by a lift and stairway from the lobby between the booking-hall and the concourse. The District Traffic Manager's staff occupies the western end of the first floor, the Locomotive, Workshop and Stores

(Continued on page 53.)

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