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Heating of the Wellington Railway Station.

This very important work was entrusted to Messrs. A. & T. Burt, Ltd., the well-known Heating, Electrical and General Engineers. It is of interest to note that the system is the largest yet installed in the Dominion, and in consequence, called for two very powerful heating boilers; in fact, the largest ever constructed by the Beeston Boiler Co., Ltd., Notts, England, who manufacture no less than 20,000 tons of boilers and radiators annually.

These two boilers are required to generate hot water at a temperature of 180° F., and of sufficient quantity to ensure efficient results being obtained from 430 radiators located throughout this large building.

The boilers are erected side by side in a special boiler house in the basement, and are each fired with English “Urquhart” Oil Burners, supplied and installed by Messrs. J. F. Hargrave, Ltd., who specialise in Oil Burning equipment. Each boiler is fitted with two burners; one burner will act as a pilot, while the second will automatically operate, according to the demand on the boiler.

The oil is atomised by means of air at 5 lbs. pressure. The air is supplied by three air compressors, fitted with silencers, and the compressors are so coupled that in the event of any one air compressor failing, the others can carry the load.

One thousand gallons of fuel oil are stored in underground tanks, which are filled from bulk delivery waggons as required.

The solution to artistic harmony between heating and decoration was solved by the introduction of Convector Heaters, all of which were manufactured by the Heating Contractors who have, during past years, made a close study in their development, keeping in mind always the need that not only is efficiency required, but conformity with decoration.

The heating elements in these Convector radiators are constructed of copper gilled tubes, housed in sheetmetal cases of artistic design, and of compact dimensions, dignified and unobtrusive in appearance.

Harmony between heating and design has been carried further in all the panelled rooms, by concealing the heating elements within the walls, introducing in this way, not only efficiency, but economy, cleanliness, and dependability.

These radiators, unlike the standard type, definitely cause an air circulation within the rooms, and overcome the possibility of hot and cold spots being present, as is often found with these standard type radiators.

Some idea of the vastness of this scheme will be realised when it is recalled that over 20,000 feet of galvanised pipes are installed, ranging in size from 6 inch to 1/2 inch internal diameter.

The heated water is propelled through these pipes by the use of two English Worthington Simpson centrifugal pumps, each rotated by a 10 h.p. Crompton Parkinson British motor, with Texrope drives and flexible couplings complete.

Each of these pumps is capable of delivering 700 gals, of water per minute against a head of 60 feet. Should, through a power failure or other cause, these pumps cease to work, the pipe work is so arranged that natural circulation is introduced, and at no time will the occupants of the offices be without comfortable heat.

The scheme generally, has been well designed, and is the last word in Heating.

Messrs. A. & T. Burt, Ltd., were further entrusted with the Ventilation of the Kitchen and the Waiting Room.

Kitchen Ventilation:

This system is of the exhausting type, and the unit employed is a No. 6 “Progressive” fan, driven by a 5 h.p. Crompton Parkinson motor, and Texrope drive, and will give ten changes of air per hour in the kitchen.

The advantage of the exhausting system is that all fumes from the cooling ranges are immediately drawn away from the kitchen preventing air contamination in the restaurant, and adjacent rooms.

Waiting Room Ventilation:

This also is an exhaust system, and the unit is a No. 4 “Progressive” Multivane fan, driven by a 1 h.p. Crompton Parkinson motor and Texrope drive.

Refrigeration—Cool Rooms for Restaurant:

For use in connection with the Station Restaurant, there are two cool rooms for the storage of meat, fish, and other perishable goods.

The unit for these rooms is a No. 3A water-cooled Condenser type, manufactured by Messrs. L. Sterne & Co., Glasgow, and installed by their New Zealand agents, Messrs. A. & T. Burt, Ltd.

The room evaporators are manufactured in their Wellington works, and are of the copper finned tube type, arranged for fan air circulation. The whole system is fully automatic, maintaining an even temperature in the rooms, at all times, and under all conditions.

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in gold and rose lights, departure by night trains will have a new setting altogether for New Zealand eyes. By the way, the order that included this floodlighting was the largest single order of its kind ever received from any part of the world by the G.E.C., Britain's mightiest electrical organisation.

There will be many a gasp of wonder when this first great hall is entered for the first time. With the insistence on the practical which characterises all railway nomenclature, this lofty crosswise fane is called the “Ticket Lobby.” Its towering walls contain decorative windows and the faraway ceiling is a patterned arch of surpassing loveliness. I would like to say at once that, throughout the whole building, up to the last stairway to the top storey, there is not one jarring note of colour. Mild browns, gentle green, low toned yellows and creams and soft rose are the main flower hues in this garden of human making. The effect of the mural decoration on the soaring walls and ceiling of the entrance hall is that of cloudy precious stones, glowing but restful.

On the rich floor of this hall (I refuse to call it a “ticket lobby”) is a huge inlaid compass dial and many a traveller will pause to locate the North or the West. I suppose the original name was conferred to remind us that all the conveniences for making a trip are here. There are conveniently situated offices all about, a room, for the taxi drivers, one for the “redcaps,” an interview room, reservation and bookink offices, and offices for the station-master and his staff. Over to the right a forest of neat steel shelving shows the extensive checked luggage and parcels areas.

The next hall is called the “Concourse.” This is the circulating area for the whole station and has many of the features of a small town; barbers shop with bathrooms and dressing rooms; fruit and soft drink shops; a row of telephone booths; and a Post Office all complete.

The fine dining room opens from the concourse and general waiting room. There is a large refreshment booth and these are served by a nest of rooms dealing with washing up, sandwich making and a dozen other things, all equipped with marvels of intricate labour-saving devices.

An easy stairway from the concourse gives access to the exquisitely fitted up ladies' restrooms, toilet, a hospital, and a trip in the lift will find on the top floor a well furnished nursery opening out on a flat roof play area amply protected by wire netting. From here as from so many of the windows in the building there is a view which banishes for ever the idea that Wellington is without great beauty.

The experience of arriving at Wellington or leaving the capital city is going to take new shape in the minds of all railway users. It will be a minor voyage through a happy land of enchantment. Always, however, the blazonry of lofty ceiling, the host of colours in wall and window, and the giant sweeping curves of arches in hall and concourse, all work together to give entire restfulness.

The very nature of this building has enabled those who planned it to escape adherence to classic severity. Its shining distinction is that, on the other hand, they have avoided garishness and meretricious brilliance.

The entrance to the Head Office floors is to the left of the facade. Here the objectives are far different from those which dictated the design of the station itself.

The tour is a constant reminder that the railway transport system is a matter of profound and practical scientific knowledge. Its bias is towards engineering, but it takes in its orbit almost every avenue of human ingenuity and every branch of man's technical craftsmanship. I am one of those folk whose attempt at a library shelf always results in the thing behaving evilly if it has to bear one extra book and so perhaps my everlasting amazement at the work of mechanical wizardry is greater than usual. I was shown the neat little file lifts that run up and down from the main records room, delivering the wanted bundle of documents in a few seconds; I was told that there were 23 miles of cable, 8 miles of conduit and 300 units of G.E.C. iron-clad switch gear. The figures of steel furniture (all made in the Railway Workshops), the dimensions of record rooms, the numbers of filing shelves, and so on are astronomical.

But certain definite and inescapable impressions remain etched in my memory. First of all, is the feeling of airiness, white light, and spaciousness in all those rooms which are devoted to drawing, designing or the keeping of records. Their colossal size is, of course, imposing; but the lasting impression that remains is that of the combination of slender steel divisions, wide window panes, clear glass and quiet tones in wall and ceiling. Edmund Bruke argued with force that no building could partake of the sublime unless it was pervaded in gloom, wrapped in the majesty of darkness and the colours should be “black, brown or deep purple, and the like.” This modern building of ours converts the eminent orator into a plain fibber, I will not weary readers with a long detailed directory of the streets and avenues in this miniature city but we will take a brief tour. The arrangement is logical and designed with a forethought that amounts to wizardry.

Here are the nerve centres of the telephone equipment, one of the major marvels of the building. There are 400 telephones with 500 lines, electrical clocks throughout, and many loud speakers. I have commented before on the extreme modernity and distinctive nature of the New Zealand Railways telephone system. For instance, out of the Wellington centre proceed two direct lines to Auckland, four to Palmerston North, one to Wanganui, one to Woodville and two to the world outside.

Shorn of technical terms, the Department has a self-contained talking system of complete efficiency. It is provided with the latest uncanny “step up” devices where the machine makes its own selection of a disengaged wire. Amplification is possible to meet the needs of lines that are growing busier and to increase the possibilities of prompt connections. The exchange attendants are provided with the means of readily answering the usual enquiries and in cases of difficulty they promptly switch through to the proper source. Outwards and inwards facilities are so ample that in practice the only reason a connection is not possible is that an actual talk is in progress.

On the third floor are the Road Services, the Library (selectively situated in the corner facing the Parliamentary Buildings), the Law officer, the Conference and Suggestions and Inventions Rooms, and the Refreshments Branch. The rest of the floor is occupied by the record room of very large dimensions. On this floor also dwell the Commercial Manager and his staff.

However, the Olympian storey is the fourth. Here the General Manager and his staff are placed with the Transportation Superintendent at the city end. The whole of the front and left portion is occupied by the Accountancy Division with its mammoth array of records, its large staff, its multitude of calculating and sorting machines, and all the complex structure which is needed for the proper accounting and financial control of the far flung operations of New Zealand's greatest business undertaking.

By way of contrast, in between is placed the Publicity Department where (inter alia) this magazine is edited and planned, and a hundred and one of the publicist activities necessary to the whole Transport organisation are carried on.

On the fifth floor are the staff social hall, the splendid tea room for women, rest rooms and the whole range of offices, dark rooms and other essentials for the photographic staff. Still higher up are the nursery, the railway correspondence school and sleeping and other rooms.

Throughout the whole building are evidences of care for the comfort of every human unit in this huge army of New Zealand citizen workers. There is the universal beauty of lamp and light fittings and the master comfort of treading on soundless and pliant floor coverings. Rest rooms, tastefully tiled toilet rooms and lavatories, enclosed cupboards for wash basins and so on as in a modern flat, and all modern amenities are in plenty to make working conditions easy and working hours pleasurable.

However, my own opinion is that though these material comforts are important and have their own meaning and influence in providing happiness, far more vital in the forwarding of the ideals of human progress, is the ceaseless working of the effect of the dignity and beauty of the building itself. (Continued on page 57.)

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A Latin writer of centuries ago said that beauty of life derived only from beauty of life surroundings. Ruskin said that no craftsman could be capable of beautiful invention who did not live daily in the midst of beauty. There is no need for the continuance of the tradition that we should tread our daily round in a dingy and saddening environment. Work will always contain elements of drudgery, hours of weariness and boredom, sickness of heart and soul, and times of the wildest desire to escape its tyranny.

The mere magnitude of the new Wellington Railway Station will fill beholders with wonder; its warm and tender beauty will satisfy and delight tens of thousands; it is the greatest achievement of its type in the history of the work of New Zealand hands and brains; it ranks in modernity of design and equipment with the best in the whole world; it has culled ideas and material from all parts of the globe; it has already evolved its own personality, a building which is distinctively a temple of industry, a proper fane to express in pillared stone and glowing brick the glory and romance of steel and steam; it has even traces of a national character in its delicately indicated Maori outlines in mural decorations; it stands as the greatest single edifice erected for any purpose in our country.

I would still like to say, however, that its larger and increasing purpose will yet be far different. Dean Inge said recently that “the notion that a town must be a blot on the landscape is quite modern.” Montaigne said “The want of goods is easily repaid, but the poverty of souls is irreparable.”

The gesture made by this last and greatest work of building should be interpreted by our New Zealand fellowship of men and women in this way; here is the exemplar of what is needed to invest both work and leisure with dignity and beauty; here is an industrial hive of gargantuan proportions which nevertheless is a matchless spectacle of softly bright colour, of symmetry, harmony and comfort; here the day's work will absorb from the loveliness all around, solace and joy, satisfaction and mental health.

The new Wellington Railway Station is an expression of the ordered grace which should be implicit in the working hours and the playing time of every human being in a land like New Zealand where Nature's gifts are of prodigal richness. It is a symbol that the days of irrational and escapable misery are passing and that we are on the march to the happy human brotherhood that is the right of everyone born under the sun.

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