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Fire at Railway Station.
A small fire occurred in one of the rooms of the engineer's department at the Roma street Railway station on Saturday night, at about 10 minutes past 9. A cabman on the stand near by saw the flames, and at once gave the alarm to the stationmaster, who sent for the fire brigade. The flames were quickly extinguished, and the only damage done was the burning of some paper and the charring of the walls. The origin of the fire is unknown. No one is supposed to have been in the room since 1 o'clock on Saturday.
Description source:
The Telegraph, 13 October 1890
View the original record at the Queensland State Archives:
Roma Street Railway Station occupies a 0.55ha site within the extensive Roma Street Station transit complex, located on the western side of the Brisbane central business district. The substantial masonry station building (1875) is set back from and faces Roma Street (although partially obscured by later development), and has a prominent centred entrance to the front (south) and a platform along the rear (north). A later platform and awning to the south is associated with the former Country Station development (1939/40).
Features of Roma Street Railway Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
Station building (1875)
Platform (1875)
Country Station platform and awning (1939)
Views
The state-level periods of significance of the place are layered and relate to its origins and use as a passenger station (1875-1940) and railway design, traffic and management offices (1875-1974), and the establishment of the former Country Station (1939/40).
A large iron-roofed shelter (c1980) to the east of the station, small buildings to the west, and a lift, stairs and escalators accessing the modern subway below, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
The Roma Street Railway Station was opened in 1875 as the first Brisbane Terminal Station for use on the Brisbane end of the Southern and Western Railway Line from Ipswich. The two-storey station building was designed by Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Public Buildings, in 1873 and built over the next two years by Brisbane builder, John Petrie. The station operated as the Brisbane terminal station until 1889, as a major passenger and administration station until 1940, and Brisbane’s primary railway goods facility until 1991. It served as offices for the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail) staff for over 100 years, and is the one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.
In the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers.[1] Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres. The first line, between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp, 34km west of Ipswich (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in 1865. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. New railways opened west from Rockhampton in 1867 (the Northern Line, later renamed the Central Railway), west from Townsville in 1880 (the Great Northern Line), Cairns in 1887, and south from Normanton in 1891.
The Southern and Western Railway served the pastoralists and industrialists of Ipswich and the Darling Downs, and was primarily for goods, rather than passengers. With the railhead at Ipswich, a railway to Brisbane was not initially considered essential, as goods could be shipped from Ipswich to Brisbane’s port for export. However, the Bremer and upper Brisbane rivers could not cope with large shipping, and lobbying began for an extension to Brisbane. A preliminary survey of possible lines was completed in 1865,[4] but concerns over the extension’s financial viability put work on hold. A Royal Commission on Railway Construction was called in the 1870s, and recommended the extension: the business generated by it was likely to be profitable, and the colony’s economy, which had collapsed in the mid-1860s, had been bolstered by the Gympie gold rush and was better able to afford new infrastructure.
The extension between Ipswich and Oxley was approved in August 1872,[6] and, the first sod on the extension was turned at Goodna in January 1873. From Oxley, two lines had been surveyed, terminating either at North or South Brisbane. After extensive debate, the route to North Brisbane, via a bridge at Oxley Point (Indooroopilly), was chosen as more cost-effective. The terminus of this route, selected by Railway Department Chief Engineer HC Stanley, was located within the Grammar School reserve at the base of the ‘Green Hills’ (Petrie Terrace). The site was unused by the school and was large enough for a major passenger station and goods yard.
The section between Oxley and Brisbane was approved in October 1873,[9] and the Government called for tenders for the construction of the railway terminus station in Brisbane. FDG Stanley, the recently-appointed Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Buildings within the Public Works Department, was the designer of the building. Stanley had commenced with the Public Works Department in 1863, serving as Superintendent of Buildings after Charles Tiffin vacated the Colonial Architect’s position. He was the official Colonial Architect from 1873-1883, when the colony, recovering from the economic collapse of the 1860s, began to invest in public buildings. Stanley’s designs, balancing classical styles and stylistic features with climate-appropriate adaptations and economic restraint, helped define public architecture in Queensland. Extant examples of major works, designed while he was Colonial Architect, include the original State Library (1876-9, QHR600177); Toowoomba Court House (1876-8, QHR600848); Townsville Magistrates Court (1876-7, QHR600929); Townsville Gaol (now part of Townsville Central State School, 1877, QHR601162); Brisbane’s Port Office (1880, QHR600088); Toowoomba Hospital (surviving kitchen wing 1880, QHR601296); post offices at Gympie (1878-80, QHR600534), South Brisbane (1881, QHR600302) and Toowoomba (1880, QHR600847); as well as the Brisbane Supreme Court (no longer extant). As Superintendent of Buildings he designed the Toowoomba Railway Station (1874, QHR600872), Government Printing Office (1873, QHR600114) and Lady Elliott Island Lighthouse (1872-3).
The Brisbane Courier provided a detailed description of the proposed Terminus Passenger Station in October 1873:
The general style of the building will be that known as the Italian Gothic order of architecture. The material used...will be pressed brick with cut stone facings, this being chosen on account of its durability and as also affording the greatest consonant with economy. The station will consist of a main building, two storeys high, flanked at each end by a single storey wing.
The building was designed to house both a passenger station and railway administrative offices. Passengers would access the station from Roma Street via a carriageway, disembarking at the station’s central carriage porch. The porch fronted a 10ft (3m) wide arcade running the length of the main building. From the arcade, passengers would enter either the first-class booking office on the east or the second-class booking office on the west, both served by a semi-circular ticket office on the rear (northern) wall. Female passengers travelling on second-class tickets could wait in a small room located along a western passage, while separate waiting rooms for first-class male and female passengers were east of the first-class booking office. Doorways in the rear wall of the booking offices and waiting rooms led directly onto the 190-foot (58m) long departure platform. Arriving passengers exited the station via a second platform across the rail line. Luggage was loaded onto trains via the luggage passage, on the eastern end of the building. The guards and porters room, staff facilities, a lamp room and stairs to the upper floor were situated in the eastern wing. The western side of the building held public services, including the telegraph office, station master’s office, and parcel and book office, accessible via a public lobby at the end of the arcade. A private staircase to the traffic managers’ office, a staircase to the traffic department, and toilet facilities were located in the western wing. An office or book stall space, in the northwestern side of the building, was accessible from the platform.
Upstairs, the offices of the traffic department, clerks, accountant, draughtsmen, Railways Engineer, Resident Engineer and contractors were accessed from a central passageway which ran almost the length of the building; with a small S-bend in the western end. An arch in the centre of the corridor marked the separation of the traffic department from the Chief Engineer’s office. Both wings hosted staircases.
The building included adaptations for the climate. The arcade sheltered the ground floor rooms from the sun, while skylights in the ceiling and a ventilated lantern provided light and ventilation to the upper floor. All public rooms and most of the offices were fitted with fireplaces. A platform shade, installed on the northern wall of the building over the platform, sheltered passengers from the weather, and was composed of material from an iron station building imported from England for use at Toowoomba. It was supported by brick buttresses at both ends of the building (extant) and on the arrivals platform (no longer extant).
Commensurate with Stanley’s design approach, materials used for the station reflected elegance but economy. Apart from the recycled iron roof trusses and columns, the building was constructed of machine-pressed bricks made from locally-sourced clay, more affordable than stone, and praised as ‘cleaner, sharper [and] finer’ than Brisbane bricks used in earlier buildings. Freestone for the building dressings and columns was sourced from Murphy’s Creek.
Construction work took place over two years, after contractor John Petrie’s tender of £11,845 was accepted in December 1873. Progress was slow, with the stonework foundations underway in June 1874, and the building only ten foot above the ground by September. The line from Ipswich to Brisbane was opened without ceremony on 14 June 1875. The platform at Brisbane Terminus Passenger Station was half-paved, the rooms and corridors incomplete, the roofing over the platform in progress and there was no permanent lighting. Nonetheless, an interested crowd gathered to watch the first outbound services leave the station. The building was sufficiently complete by August 1875 for the Brisbane Courier to describe it as ‘in all respects convenient, handsome, and well-designed’. The station’s arcade was later highlighted as one of Brisbane’s valued architectural features.
The Brisbane to Ipswich route quickly became the busiest section of line in Queensland. Merchandise and imported goods from the ports were despatched along the line, while produce from the Darling Downs and surrounds – including coal, flour, wool, hay, maize, livestock, vegetable and dairy produce – was brought to Brisbane. A central goods handling facility was opened at the Terminal Station, including a large (64m long) goods shed and two sidings, erected in 1875-6 (no longer extant), while railway produce markets opened outside the station, along George and Roma streets. A maintenance yard also operated at Roma Street, including locomotive and carriage sheds. By 1882 the Terminal Station platforms had been extended to cope with the traffic and trade. Traffic reduced slightly after some export goods were diverted to South Brisbane in 1884,[32] but expanded again.[33] Cattle yards, produce sheds, carriage sheds, gas works, goods sheds, coal stages, cold stores, additional locomotive sheds and siding extensions were all added to Roma Street’s goods yard. None of these structures survive in 2020.
Passengers also used the line. Residential occupation of Toowong and Indooroopilly boomed as middle-class city workers took advantage of the four daily train services. In 1882 rail lines were opened from the Terminal Station to Sandgate and the Racecourse, taking day-trippers to the seaside and races, and bringing northern suburbs passengers into Brisbane. In January 1888, the first through-service to Sydney departed from the Terminal Station. However, travellers criticised the lack of direct access from the Terminal Station to the central business district, and in 1889, the Brisbane Central Railway Station was opened. Central Railway Station (QHR 600073) – located closer to the General Post Office and city office buildings – became Brisbane’s main passenger station, and the original Terminal Station was renamed Roma Street Railway Station.
Despite its diminished status, Roma Street remained a major centre for passengers and travellers. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, guards of honour lined Roma Street to greet and farewell significant visitors and figures, including premiers Morehead and Griffith, governors Norman and Lamington; Governor-General Munro-Ferguson; the late politician JM Macrossan, who had died in Sydney; singer Nellie Melba; Lord Kitchener; and Salvation Army General Booth. Roma Street continued to operate as the Sydney Mail terminus until 1931, when the service shifted to South Brisbane. Crowds thronged to Roma Street Station as soldiers departed for the South African War and World War I. Travelling circuses performed in the Roma Street yards, and an historic parade in 1936 included a ‘Puffing Billy’ locomotive, which was displayed at the yards until 1959. Roma Street also continued as the city’s primary goods terminus.
The station building played an important role as office accommodation for Queensland railway staff. Internal rearrangements were made to the building to accommodate growing staff numbers, and improve their working conditions. It was one of the first buildings in Queensland to feature electric light, installed in 1884.[50] The Chief Engineer vacated the building in 1901 and was replaced by the general traffic manager’s department, with a telephonic system of communication installed the same year. Bunker, lumber and message rooms were added to the wings by 1907; a traffic collector’s office and new strongroom were installed in 1911; and parcels, printing offices and machine rooms replaced the first-class waiting rooms, guards’ room and lamp room by 1920. In 1915, an additional storey was constructed atop the central carriage porch, providing more accommodation for the Traffic Branch on the first floor. A traffic control system, coordinating trains between Brisbane and Gympie, was installed and operated from the additional storey in 1927.
Queensland’s railway network extended dramatically in the 20th century. The North Coast line connected Brisbane to Gladstone in 1898, Rockhampton in 1904, and Cairns in 1924, providing a direct rail link between Brisbane and Mackay, Townsville, Winton, Forsayth, Cloncurry and Blackall. Southern and western trains reached Dirranbandi, Surat, Cunnamulla and Quilpie. Central Station initially hosted ‘country’ services, but it lacked room for expansion, and Roma Street’s larger site was earmarked for a new country station. Roma Street’s locomotive, carriage and marshalling yard facilities were transferred to the Mayne Rail Yards between 1911 and 1927, and work began on the new station. A 350ft (106m) reinforced concrete, tiled passenger subway was constructed from Roma Street to the platforms in 1936-7, replacing an overhead walkway. A new steel awning was installed above the southern platform (Platform 3 in 2020), in approximately 1939. It was used in conjunction with two platforms at the new country station (no longer extant) for country and other passenger services.
On 30 November 1940 the Country Station was opened at Roma Street Station. This low-lying face brick building and its additional platform sat directly between the 1873-5 building and Roma Street. The new passenger station relieved congestion at Brisbane Central Station and made Roma Street the chief station for long distance travel north. The original station was refurbished, its roof re-clad with corrugated fibrous sheeting; and its brick walls painted red and lined in cream to match the new station building. The southwest pediment was removed and replaced by a new storey on the western end of the building. A covered area was added east of the building where the subway stairs emerged. The original station building was turned over to the General Manager, with offices for clerks, traffic-, livestock-, coach- and wagon staff, maintenance and locomotive staff, telephone and telegraph exchanges, and the train control section.
Further plans to upgrade and alter the building were postponed by World War II, during which time troop trains departed from Roma Street, and the pedestrian subway served as an air-raid shelter.[66] In 1945, plans were drawn to alter doors, windows and stairs in the wings, and partitions on the first floor. A second storey was added over the west wing in 1953 (later removed), and the General Manager’s staircase was repositioned in 1961. Externally, the iron carriage shed platform shade over the northern platform was removed in 1959.
Extensive change was undertaken at Roma Street around the original station building in the late 20th century. The southern and northern Brisbane railway systems were directly connected in the 1970s, with the opening of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. In 1985, the country railway station (1940 building) was demolished and replaced by a multi-storey centre incorporating new railway and bus facilities, a hotel, offices and function centre. The original station building was left intact, and two new interstate platforms with standard gauge rails were built on its southern side. The pedestrian subway was refurbished in 1986, with a broom finish concrete and expansion joints, and grated drains were laid on the floor, and a ceramic tile finish on the wall faces to match the subway tiles at Central Station. Roma Street’s rail freight facility was moved to Acacia Ridge in 1991. During the mid-1990s the platforms north and south of the early station building were re-arranged and extended. A bricked waiting area and new roof were added east of the station. Underground, a new concourse was constructed to replace the pedestrian subway, and a 19m section of the original subway converted to a storage room.
The station building remained the General Manager’s Office until 1974. The station master, staff workers and archive storage occupied the building in the 1990s. By 1993, Roma Street was acknowledged as the oldest surviving railway station building in an Australian capital city, and one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland. A new office fitout was installed on the ground floor for Queensland Rail and the Queensland Police Rail Squad in 1999. Stabilisation, waterproofing and reconstruction works commenced in 2012, including restoration of the brick, plaster, lead flashings, window joinery and stone works. Replacement bricks were custom made in England; Welsh slate was imported from the UK; replacement stone came from Helidon; and rolled lead from England was installed. In 2015, a new steel beams and suspension system was installed between the two storeys, to lift a 65mm bow in the timber floor beams fit amongst the existing timber structures. The second storey of the west wing was removed and the roofline reconstructed to its original configuration. The restoration received an Australian Institute of Architects Queensland award in 2015.
In 2020 the building is vacant, pending further repairs.
The Roma Street Railway Station was completed in 1875 as the terminus of the newly constructed railway line from Brisbane to Ipswich. It was a fine two-storey brick building with a large carriage shade designed by Queensland Colonial Architect FDG Stanley.
Originally the Station had direct vehicular and pedestrian access from Roma Street, but this changed in the late 1930s when new railway lines were installed between the building and Roma Street effectively turning the Station building into an island platform.
By the late 1990s the Station was in a poor state. It was largely unoccupied and suffered from a lack of maintenance. The rook leaked in many places due to damaged skylights, and there was considerable damp and termite infestation evident. Stage One Works commenced on site in 2012, and involved making the whole building structurally sound and watertight, as well as the restoration and reconstruction of external elements on the upper floor.
Description source:
View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM2149141
Roma Street Railway Station occupies a 0.55ha site within the extensive Roma Street Station transit complex, located on the western side of the Brisbane central business district. The substantial masonry station building (1875) is set back from and faces Roma Street (although partially obscured by later development), and has a prominent centred entrance to the front (south) and a platform along the rear (north). A later platform and awning to the south is associated with the former Country Station development (1939/40).
Features of Roma Street Railway Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
Station building (1875)
Platform (1875)
Country Station platform and awning (1939)
Views
The state-level periods of significance of the place are layered and relate to its origins and use as a passenger station (1875-1940) and railway design, traffic and management offices (1875-1974), and the establishment of the former Country Station (1939/40).
A large iron-roofed shelter (c1980) to the east of the station, small buildings to the west, and a lift, stairs and escalators accessing the modern subway below, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
The Roma Street Railway Station was opened in 1875 as the first Brisbane Terminal Station for use on the Brisbane end of the Southern and Western Railway Line from Ipswich. The two-storey station building was designed by Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Public Buildings, in 1873 and built over the next two years by Brisbane builder, John Petrie. The station operated as the Brisbane terminal station until 1889, as a major passenger and administration station until 1940, and Brisbane’s primary railway goods facility until 1991. It served as offices for the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail) staff for over 100 years, and is the one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.
In the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers.[1] Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres. The first line, between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp, 34km west of Ipswich (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in 1865. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. New railways opened west from Rockhampton in 1867 (the Northern Line, later renamed the Central Railway), west from Townsville in 1880 (the Great Northern Line), Cairns in 1887, and south from Normanton in 1891.
The Southern and Western Railway served the pastoralists and industrialists of Ipswich and the Darling Downs, and was primarily for goods, rather than passengers. With the railhead at Ipswich, a railway to Brisbane was not initially considered essential, as goods could be shipped from Ipswich to Brisbane’s port for export. However, the Bremer and upper Brisbane rivers could not cope with large shipping, and lobbying began for an extension to Brisbane. A preliminary survey of possible lines was completed in 1865,[4] but concerns over the extension’s financial viability put work on hold. A Royal Commission on Railway Construction was called in the 1870s, and recommended the extension: the business generated by it was likely to be profitable, and the colony’s economy, which had collapsed in the mid-1860s, had been bolstered by the Gympie gold rush and was better able to afford new infrastructure.
The extension between Ipswich and Oxley was approved in August 1872,[6] and, the first sod on the extension was turned at Goodna in January 1873. From Oxley, two lines had been surveyed, terminating either at North or South Brisbane. After extensive debate, the route to North Brisbane, via a bridge at Oxley Point (Indooroopilly), was chosen as more cost-effective. The terminus of this route, selected by Railway Department Chief Engineer HC Stanley, was located within the Grammar School reserve at the base of the ‘Green Hills’ (Petrie Terrace). The site was unused by the school and was large enough for a major passenger station and goods yard.
The section between Oxley and Brisbane was approved in October 1873,[9] and the Government called for tenders for the construction of the railway terminus station in Brisbane. FDG Stanley, the recently-appointed Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Buildings within the Public Works Department, was the designer of the building. Stanley had commenced with the Public Works Department in 1863, serving as Superintendent of Buildings after Charles Tiffin vacated the Colonial Architect’s position. He was the official Colonial Architect from 1873-1883, when the colony, recovering from the economic collapse of the 1860s, began to invest in public buildings. Stanley’s designs, balancing classical styles and stylistic features with climate-appropriate adaptations and economic restraint, helped define public architecture in Queensland. Extant examples of major works, designed while he was Colonial Architect, include the original State Library (1876-9, QHR600177); Toowoomba Court House (1876-8, QHR600848); Townsville Magistrates Court (1876-7, QHR600929); Townsville Gaol (now part of Townsville Central State School, 1877, QHR601162); Brisbane’s Port Office (1880, QHR600088); Toowoomba Hospital (surviving kitchen wing 1880, QHR601296); post offices at Gympie (1878-80, QHR600534), South Brisbane (1881, QHR600302) and Toowoomba (1880, QHR600847); as well as the Brisbane Supreme Court (no longer extant). As Superintendent of Buildings he designed the Toowoomba Railway Station (1874, QHR600872), Government Printing Office (1873, QHR600114) and Lady Elliott Island Lighthouse (1872-3).
The Brisbane Courier provided a detailed description of the proposed Terminus Passenger Station in October 1873:
The general style of the building will be that known as the Italian Gothic order of architecture. The material used...will be pressed brick with cut stone facings, this being chosen on account of its durability and as also affording the greatest consonant with economy. The station will consist of a main building, two storeys high, flanked at each end by a single storey wing.
The building was designed to house both a passenger station and railway administrative offices. Passengers would access the station from Roma Street via a carriageway, disembarking at the station’s central carriage porch. The porch fronted a 10ft (3m) wide arcade running the length of the main building. From the arcade, passengers would enter either the first-class booking office on the east or the second-class booking office on the west, both served by a semi-circular ticket office on the rear (northern) wall. Female passengers travelling on second-class tickets could wait in a small room located along a western passage, while separate waiting rooms for first-class male and female passengers were east of the first-class booking office. Doorways in the rear wall of the booking offices and waiting rooms led directly onto the 190-foot (58m) long departure platform. Arriving passengers exited the station via a second platform across the rail line. Luggage was loaded onto trains via the luggage passage, on the eastern end of the building. The guards and porters room, staff facilities, a lamp room and stairs to the upper floor were situated in the eastern wing. The western side of the building held public services, including the telegraph office, station master’s office, and parcel and book office, accessible via a public lobby at the end of the arcade. A private staircase to the traffic managers’ office, a staircase to the traffic department, and toilet facilities were located in the western wing. An office or book stall space, in the northwestern side of the building, was accessible from the platform.
Upstairs, the offices of the traffic department, clerks, accountant, draughtsmen, Railways Engineer, Resident Engineer and contractors were accessed from a central passageway which ran almost the length of the building; with a small S-bend in the western end. An arch in the centre of the corridor marked the separation of the traffic department from the Chief Engineer’s office. Both wings hosted staircases.
The building included adaptations for the climate. The arcade sheltered the ground floor rooms from the sun, while skylights in the ceiling and a ventilated lantern provided light and ventilation to the upper floor. All public rooms and most of the offices were fitted with fireplaces. A platform shade, installed on the northern wall of the building over the platform, sheltered passengers from the weather, and was composed of material from an iron station building imported from England for use at Toowoomba. It was supported by brick buttresses at both ends of the building (extant) and on the arrivals platform (no longer extant).
Commensurate with Stanley’s design approach, materials used for the station reflected elegance but economy. Apart from the recycled iron roof trusses and columns, the building was constructed of machine-pressed bricks made from locally-sourced clay, more affordable than stone, and praised as ‘cleaner, sharper [and] finer’ than Brisbane bricks used in earlier buildings. Freestone for the building dressings and columns was sourced from Murphy’s Creek.
Construction work took place over two years, after contractor John Petrie’s tender of £11,845 was accepted in December 1873. Progress was slow, with the stonework foundations underway in June 1874, and the building only ten foot above the ground by September. The line from Ipswich to Brisbane was opened without ceremony on 14 June 1875. The platform at Brisbane Terminus Passenger Station was half-paved, the rooms and corridors incomplete, the roofing over the platform in progress and there was no permanent lighting. Nonetheless, an interested crowd gathered to watch the first outbound services leave the station. The building was sufficiently complete by August 1875 for the Brisbane Courier to describe it as ‘in all respects convenient, handsome, and well-designed’. The station’s arcade was later highlighted as one of Brisbane’s valued architectural features.
The Brisbane to Ipswich route quickly became the busiest section of line in Queensland. Merchandise and imported goods from the ports were despatched along the line, while produce from the Darling Downs and surrounds – including coal, flour, wool, hay, maize, livestock, vegetable and dairy produce – was brought to Brisbane. A central goods handling facility was opened at the Terminal Station, including a large (64m long) goods shed and two sidings, erected in 1875-6 (no longer extant), while railway produce markets opened outside the station, along George and Roma streets. A maintenance yard also operated at Roma Street, including locomotive and carriage sheds. By 1882 the Terminal Station platforms had been extended to cope with the traffic and trade. Traffic reduced slightly after some export goods were diverted to South Brisbane in 1884,[32] but expanded again.[33] Cattle yards, produce sheds, carriage sheds, gas works, goods sheds, coal stages, cold stores, additional locomotive sheds and siding extensions were all added to Roma Street’s goods yard. None of these structures survive in 2020.
Passengers also used the line. Residential occupation of Toowong and Indooroopilly boomed as middle-class city workers took advantage of the four daily train services. In 1882 rail lines were opened from the Terminal Station to Sandgate and the Racecourse, taking day-trippers to the seaside and races, and bringing northern suburbs passengers into Brisbane. In January 1888, the first through-service to Sydney departed from the Terminal Station. However, travellers criticised the lack of direct access from the Terminal Station to the central business district, and in 1889, the Brisbane Central Railway Station was opened. Central Railway Station (QHR 600073) – located closer to the General Post Office and city office buildings – became Brisbane’s main passenger station, and the original Terminal Station was renamed Roma Street Railway Station.
Despite its diminished status, Roma Street remained a major centre for passengers and travellers. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, guards of honour lined Roma Street to greet and farewell significant visitors and figures, including premiers Morehead and Griffith, governors Norman and Lamington; Governor-General Munro-Ferguson; the late politician JM Macrossan, who had died in Sydney; singer Nellie Melba; Lord Kitchener; and Salvation Army General Booth. Roma Street continued to operate as the Sydney Mail terminus until 1931, when the service shifted to South Brisbane. Crowds thronged to Roma Street Station as soldiers departed for the South African War and World War I. Travelling circuses performed in the Roma Street yards, and an historic parade in 1936 included a ‘Puffing Billy’ locomotive, which was displayed at the yards until 1959. Roma Street also continued as the city’s primary goods terminus.
The station building played an important role as office accommodation for Queensland railway staff. Internal rearrangements were made to the building to accommodate growing staff numbers, and improve their working conditions. It was one of the first buildings in Queensland to feature electric light, installed in 1884.[50] The Chief Engineer vacated the building in 1901 and was replaced by the general traffic manager’s department, with a telephonic system of communication installed the same year. Bunker, lumber and message rooms were added to the wings by 1907; a traffic collector’s office and new strongroom were installed in 1911; and parcels, printing offices and machine rooms replaced the first-class waiting rooms, guards’ room and lamp room by 1920. In 1915, an additional storey was constructed atop the central carriage porch, providing more accommodation for the Traffic Branch on the first floor. A traffic control system, coordinating trains between Brisbane and Gympie, was installed and operated from the additional storey in 1927.
Queensland’s railway network extended dramatically in the 20th century. The North Coast line connected Brisbane to Gladstone in 1898, Rockhampton in 1904, and Cairns in 1924, providing a direct rail link between Brisbane and Mackay, Townsville, Winton, Forsayth, Cloncurry and Blackall. Southern and western trains reached Dirranbandi, Surat, Cunnamulla and Quilpie. Central Station initially hosted ‘country’ services, but it lacked room for expansion, and Roma Street’s larger site was earmarked for a new country station. Roma Street’s locomotive, carriage and marshalling yard facilities were transferred to the Mayne Rail Yards between 1911 and 1927, and work began on the new station. A 350ft (106m) reinforced concrete, tiled passenger subway was constructed from Roma Street to the platforms in 1936-7, replacing an overhead walkway. A new steel awning was installed above the southern platform (Platform 3 in 2020), in approximately 1939. It was used in conjunction with two platforms at the new country station (no longer extant) for country and other passenger services.
On 30 November 1940 the Country Station was opened at Roma Street Station. This low-lying face brick building and its additional platform sat directly between the 1873-5 building and Roma Street. The new passenger station relieved congestion at Brisbane Central Station and made Roma Street the chief station for long distance travel north. The original station was refurbished, its roof re-clad with corrugated fibrous sheeting; and its brick walls painted red and lined in cream to match the new station building. The southwest pediment was removed and replaced by a new storey on the western end of the building. A covered area was added east of the building where the subway stairs emerged. The original station building was turned over to the General Manager, with offices for clerks, traffic-, livestock-, coach- and wagon staff, maintenance and locomotive staff, telephone and telegraph exchanges, and the train control section.
Further plans to upgrade and alter the building were postponed by World War II, during which time troop trains departed from Roma Street, and the pedestrian subway served as an air-raid shelter.[66] In 1945, plans were drawn to alter doors, windows and stairs in the wings, and partitions on the first floor. A second storey was added over the west wing in 1953 (later removed), and the General Manager’s staircase was repositioned in 1961. Externally, the iron carriage shed platform shade over the northern platform was removed in 1959.
Extensive change was undertaken at Roma Street around the original station building in the late 20th century. The southern and northern Brisbane railway systems were directly connected in the 1970s, with the opening of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. In 1985, the country railway station (1940 building) was demolished and replaced by a multi-storey centre incorporating new railway and bus facilities, a hotel, offices and function centre. The original station building was left intact, and two new interstate platforms with standard gauge rails were built on its southern side. The pedestrian subway was refurbished in 1986, with a broom finish concrete and expansion joints, and grated drains were laid on the floor, and a ceramic tile finish on the wall faces to match the subway tiles at Central Station. Roma Street’s rail freight facility was moved to Acacia Ridge in 1991. During the mid-1990s the platforms north and south of the early station building were re-arranged and extended. A bricked waiting area and new roof were added east of the station. Underground, a new concourse was constructed to replace the pedestrian subway, and a 19m section of the original subway converted to a storage room.
The station building remained the General Manager’s Office until 1974. The station master, staff workers and archive storage occupied the building in the 1990s. By 1993, Roma Street was acknowledged as the oldest surviving railway station building in an Australian capital city, and one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland. A new office fitout was installed on the ground floor for Queensland Rail and the Queensland Police Rail Squad in 1999. Stabilisation, waterproofing and reconstruction works commenced in 2012, including restoration of the brick, plaster, lead flashings, window joinery and stone works. Replacement bricks were custom made in England; Welsh slate was imported from the UK; replacement stone came from Helidon; and rolled lead from England was installed. In 2015, a new steel beams and suspension system was installed between the two storeys, to lift a 65mm bow in the timber floor beams fit amongst the existing timber structures. The second storey of the west wing was removed and the roofline reconstructed to its original configuration. The restoration received an Australian Institute of Architects Queensland award in 2015.
In 2020 the building is vacant, pending further repairs.
In 1906 telephony was still in many ways in its infancy - the final takeover of the National Telephone Company by the Post Office was still a few years away and telephones were mostly for business, residential numbers being rare. This is the first page of the Rochdale area exchange listing - with public call offices at the NTC's offices and Rochdale Railway Station, then run by the Lancashire & Yorkshire. A few names I recall from later years - the Balderstone Mill, including the Managers Residence ("Sir, there's trouble at t'mill") and many of Rochdale's then numerous textile businesses are listed. These include the famous company of John Bright & Bros up Whitworth Road and these were the mills of THE John Bright. 'Bolton, Fletcher" were best known to me as Fletcher Bolts, and their timber yard was at the junction of Milnrow and Oldham Roads for many years. A couple of my 'family' appear to have been well enough off to have a home phone - JK, Miles and Martin appear to have residential connections!
Ad from a 1982 Telephony Magazine for GTE voice/data systems, when 2.4 to 56Kbps data transmission was the norm.
Creative Valley offices, Papendorp, Utrecht, The Netherlands - Monk Architects - 2010
A work environment has diversity, mutual dependence, individual growth and movement. This requires a building which adapts to the requirements of the ecosystem. The ability to move is essentially the sum of bits, bricks and brains. The building must have a clean climate to prevent illness and be good for the climate as a greater whole. It must offer smart spaces attuned to the pace of work and the various work moments. This is supported by high-end technology like WIFI-network and wireless IP telephony. The innovative way of working must be guarded and protected, both literally as in a human guiding way, because the transition from traditional work to innovative work is a journey. Creative Valley is designed to embody all of this. Floor area: 5200 m2 .
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name comes from one of the historic names for the city of Pyongyang, and means "capital of willows"; the building is also known as the 105 building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years, until construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries.
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009.
In november 2012, Kempinsky annouced they planned to open the hotel in 2013.
© Eric Lafforgue
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name comes from one of the historic names for the city of Pyongyang, and means "capital of willows"; the building is also known as the 105 building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years, until construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries.
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009.
In november 2012, Kempinsky annouced they planned to open the hotel in 2013.
© Eric Lafforgue
Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, President of Carers Trust, recognised the work of The Co-operative’s charity champions at a “Dinner of Dreams” event.
It was revealed that The Co-operative’s staff, members and customers have now raised over £5 million for its Charity of the Year, Carers Trust, and, five employees – nominated by colleagues – were given a chance to meet Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal in recognition of their fundraising feats.
The special evening, held at Event City, Manchester, and hosted by actor, comedian and presenter Rob Brydon, highlighted how the money raised by The Co-operative will provide desperately needed breaks, information, advice, support and services for unpaid young adult carers – 14 to 25 year-olds facing the challenges of caring for a family member or friend unable to cope without their support.
The event was also attended by young adult carers from the region and the charity’s community ambassador of the year.
Thea Stein, Chief Executive of Carers Trust, said: “I continue to be overwhelmed by our partnership with The Co-operative. At the start of the year we dared to dream of a transformative year for Carers Trust and for the young people in our communities who desperately need our support and services.
“Staff at The Co-operative have carried out all kinds of amazing activities including mountain climbing, abseiling, running marathons, sky-diving and a host of local branch and store events. They have involved their local communities and really highlighted the issue of young adult carers – a group that has until recently fallen between two services, being: adult carers and young carers.
“I am delighted to say that the money raised is already making a difference with young people across the country telling us how thrilled they are that this hidden issue is now being recognised.”
Michael Fairclough The Co-operative Group’s Head of Community and Co-operative Investment, said: “There are young people in our communities taking on incredible levels of practical and emotional caring responsibilities, often at the expense of their own schooling, further education and aspirations, who desperately need our support. I am extremely proud of the fantastic commitment and support shown by The Co-operative’s staff, members and customers as they work together to make a difference to the lives of thousands of young adult carers who care, unpaid, for a family member or loved one.”
There are an estimated 500,000 unpaid young adult carers (14-25 year-olds) in the UK who take on practical and emotional caring responsibilities for a family member or friend who are ill, frail, disabled or have mental health or addiction problems and cannot cope without their support. For more information visit www.co-operative.coop/charityoftheyear
Carers Trust formed last year when The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care came together. For more information about the support and services available visit www.carers.org
Additional Information:
The Co-operative Group is the UK’s largest mutual business, owned by nearly eight million members. It is the UK’s fifth biggest food retailer operating across the country with almost 2,800 local, convenience and medium-sized stores, and is also one of Britain’s leading farming operations. The Group’s banking business operates through over 300 high street branches and 22 corporate centres with telephony and online channels. Among its other businesses are the number one funeral services provider, the third largest pharmacy chain and a growing legal services provider. As well as having clear financial and operational objectives, the Group is a recognised leader and pioneer in its social goals and community-led programmes. The Group operates 4,800 retail trading outlets, employs more than 95,000 people and has an annual turnover of more than £13bn. Further information is available at www.co-operative.coop
Contact Information:
Andrew Torr
The Co-operative Group Press Office
Tel: 07702 505551
Email: andrew.torr@co-operative.coop
I tantalized you all with tasty Trabant treats. I soothed your tired eyes with glorious vintage telephony. Were you happy? No. Of course you weren't...
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name comes from one of the historic names for the city of Pyongyang, and means "capital of willows"; the building is also known as the 105 building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years, until construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries.
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009.
In november 2012, Kempinsky annouced they planned to open the hotel in 2013.© Eric Lafforgue
Elberon Memorial Church
70 Park Avenue
Elberon, New Jersey 07740
(732) 870-2241
The Elberon Memorial Church is a beautiful summer sanctuary located one block from the beach in Elberon, NJ. All denominations are welcome. Located one block from Ocean Avenue in the Elberon section of Long Branch, NJ, it opened on June 16, 1886 as a summer church for the many members of wealthy New York society that summered in the Long Branch area. The church was built by the widow of Moses B. Taylor, Catherine Wilson Taylor as a memorial to her late husband.
The architecture of the building was designed by the eminent New York architect Stanford White. White was a friend of Louis Tiffany of Tiffany Glass. The rose window at the narthex of the church is an original Tiffany Glass Window. Experts have described the other windows in the church as the finest 14th Century style stained glass in the country. Each window is a memorial presented by a child of Moses Taylor. The beautiful cobalt window could not be replaced today because the manufacture of blue stained glass of that type has become a "lost art".
A gothic structure, it boasts unusual woodwork, an historic tracker action pipe organ built by Hilborne Roosevelt, a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, and windows executed by the Mayer Brothers in Munich, Germany. It should be noted that it was through his work as an organ builder that Hilborne Roosevelt applied his knowledge of mechanical organ switches to the new field of telephony and developed an early switching system for the newly formed New York Telephone Company of which he was also a founding member. The Mayer Brothers windows have been described by experts as among the finest examples of fourteenth century stained glass window design in America.
Moses Taylor (January 11, 1806 – May 23, 1882) was a 19th-century New York merchant and banker and one of the wealthiest men of that century. At his death, his estate was reported to be worth $70 million, or about $1.7 billion in today's dollars. He controlled the National City Bank of New York (later to become Citibank), the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad, the Moses Taylor & Co. import business, and he held numerous other investments in railroads and industry.
Faraday Building (A.R.Myers, 1933), site of the first London telephone exchange. The building was very tall for the time and blocked the view of St Paul's from the river, leading to the current sight-line restrictions.
Key stone carvings represent aspects of telephony at the time.
Avaya Business Communications Manager (BCM) is the award-winning Linux based IP/TDM PBX convergence system that delivers excellent productivity-driving unified communications (UC) capabilities, proven and reliable voice processing, and an extensive range of feature-rich business telephony applications. The BCM 50 is ideal for deployments of 5 to 30 users and can expand to as many as 50 users.
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name comes from one of the historic names for the city of Pyongyang, and means "capital of willows"; the building is also known as the 105 building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years, until construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries.
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009.
In november 2012, Kempinsky annouced they planned to open the hotel in 2013.
© Eric Lafforgue
Another Querétaro Utility Cover.
Telecable is a subsidiary of Spanish telecommunications company Euskaltel and has positioned itself as one of the most important cable operators in Mexico.
Telecable offers cable television services (basic, digital and premium plans), local telephony, long distance and double and triple play packages.
Telecable offers areutil available in Aguascalientes, Colima, Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Querétaro, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.
Wall-mounted BT 741 telephone.
I bought this for a couple of quid in a clearing house - it had a few things that needed doing to it. Sadly it's still not very healthy: we fixed the call cut-off microswitch, but discovered that the bell-hammer-powering solenoids are super weak (so the bell doesn't ring as loud as it should) and the voice transmitter doesn't work either. :-(
Found at an aircraft scrapyard in Tuscon. With the housing removed, it looks like this.
Someday, I'd like to figure out how to make this passive loudspeaker function as a radio receiver for our local air traffic control center, so the sound of pilots and ATC controllers would play from the speaker when you turn the volume switch on -- all without altering the exterior housing, which looks wonderful. But that's another project for another day...
UPDATE: Research into the model number suggests that this loudspeaker was formerly used in Boeing 707s. That makes sense, since I found this one lying in the dust a few dozen yards from this spot.
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years. Construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries. The company expects to complete exterior work on the building in 2010, with interior work taking until 2012 or later.
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of Pyongyang's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009. The Ryugyong is currently the world's 30th tallest building, a title it shares with the China World Trade Center Tower III.
Source: Wikipedia
Well its another day of product development here at oomlout. Well product development with a healthy dose of procrastination.
As part of that procrastination we happened across a talk given by David Rowe (via make). His open telephony project is quite amazing and while no where close to the scale of his efforts we fancy ourselves at least burgeoning "open hardwarists".
After watching the talk it struck me as silly; the three of us working away on a product, with plans of a standard monolithic product roll out. So as such we thought we'd procrastinate a bit more and bring you up to speed (and show you our in progress files to boot) on what we're currently working on.
What it is:
ARDX - Arduino Experimentation Kit
The Idea:
We all purchased our first Arduinos only to have it sit around on our desk for days maybe even weeks before we got around to even playing with the Blink program. As for starter kits they are lovely (both ADA fruit industries and Make produce a very nice kit), but well at oomlout we like more. So what's being developed is a fully contained Arduino experimentation kit, with lights, dials, buttons, motors, transistors oh my along with a guide to introduce each of their usages. Also it's no fun to be tethered to the wall or using 9 volt batteries so a 6 AA battery backpack as well.
A Few Things Different:
The changes are more evolutionary than revolutionary, however the hope is to make the whole kit feel like something special.
1. It's all open. We'll post all our files (or watch the product develop the current versions of files can be found at www.oomlout.com/ARDX/ (this is just a dump of our current development folder so errors and unfinished files abound)). When its done, feel free to make and package your own (perhaps a nice fundraiser for robotics club?) or help us out by developing more circuits and providing feedback both of which we can roll into future upgrades.
2. To keep things nice and clean we're working on a machine to bend and snip all the leads to appropriate breadboard length.
3. Breadboard guidance sheets ( oomlout.com/ARDX/CIRC05/CIRC05-sheet.pdf ) for each circuit there's a lovely colourful sheet that can be pinned to your breadboard and then making the circuit is simply a matter of popping the components into their printed outlines.
4. Included battery box to let your projects operate away from the wall and computer.
5. Online backup. As many of you have noticed we mad heart Instructables.com around these parts. So we'll be publishing an Instructable with a page for each circuit with extra info, links to more info, where to buy the parts (cheaply) and to help in troubleshooting a video of each circuit being assembled.
6. Each circuits pieces will be separately packaged (so no squinting to look at resistor codes) or wondering if that really is the right piece.
Well that's what were upto, check out our progress and give us a shout if you spot any horrendous errors (Stuart does need to be watched), or if you have ideas on changes to make, or things to add we'd love to hear them.
The oomlout team.
(shameless plug)
check out our blog www.oomlout.com/blog
Excelcube 2.1 ™ is India's leading software for Readymade Garments showrooms for Men /women /Kids [Babies/infants]. 100s of retailers from various cities in India have bought the software for managing their stores in a very effective way & found great success in it.
This extremely easy to use software helps the shop owner in many ways. It takes care of
** Supplier information & and its management like purchases made from them and their stock available, etc..
** Inventory classification like Shirts, Trousers, T-shirts, Cargos, Jeans, Caps,Shorts, Innerwear, Belts, Tops, Stoles, Half pants,Casuals,Chudidars, Sarees many others & its sub classifications (up to 2 levels) possible in very easy manner. Example can be :: T-shirts -> Duke -> Dus 132 .. & added parameters like Size, Length, Design, Wash, Color, Style, Necksize.
** Inventory Search engine to look for products -> category wise, company wise, price range wise, supplier wise, Date wise, color, size wise etc
** Maintains stock position on sales, new stock arrivals, with 100% precision.
** Barcoding facility - with Barcode printers & scanners of all types
** Orderform for Jobwork on Sarees , Delivery process & its accounts.
** Approval of Garments to different stores & individuals & later approved items only can be billed.
** Job work on men's name & the job details, its accounts are available.
** Extremely simple 2 step Billing - Scan, print at the counter with easy discount options like %, Rs., Round off.
** Accounting reports (150 ) for various business intelligence requirement helps to take business decisions. ** Security of data by multiple Login users to manage different cccess permissions of the software. It enables Managers and other employees to use different parts of the software
** CRM (Customer Relationship Management) takes care of Customer history by their Name, Photo, Date of Birth, Customer code, Previous dealings, Exchanges.
Customers can be classified into different categories of your choice such as (for example) - Casuals, VIP, Friends & relatives, Areawise & etc. No limit on the number of customer records or his dealings.
** SMS module is integrated with billing, approval after each bill, customer gets an SMS to his mobile from a predefined content. Billing person need not do anything to generate SMS.
** Automatic Date of birth, Marriage Anniversary dates pop up facility on screen each day. User can send greetings by E-mails, SMS, Letters
** Sales offers communication to existing customers by SMS, e-mail, letters
** Accounts is taken care of as per the latest VAT & other Govt. guidelines
** Special Billing features - Two selling prices (For ex, MRP & NET price) can be shown on the bar-code & the bill as well, if needed.
** Aging report of garments & others can be taken out to identify the Old item , New Item.
** Works with any computer & windows operating system. Integrates with any printer for billing & barcoding in the world.
** Local installation & training is available in all cities of India.
** After sale support available by many means- Telephonic, remote desktop help (Online Help),E-mail, Personal visit. We innovate each day to improve and find new means to offer great support.
** Please feel free to call 080-65624106, 23157611, Mobile: 9845549083 ☺
Pls visit some of the customers using Excelcube 2.1 profitably here.
www.flickr.com/photos/anushinfobase/sets/7215762598537016...
Note : Our engineers can come to your store & install, set up & train your staff for 2-3 days anywhere in India, if needed.
Our sincere comment: 100s of retailers have achieved increased profitability, huge savings in lakhs of rupees in theft of its inventory over the years, improved their customer satisfaction levels to high degree, obtained repeated sales from increased regular customers.
Popular phrases : Software for readymade garments store at Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune,Vishakapatnam, all cities of India & outside india. Billing & Barcoding Software for Men/women/Kids[Babies / infants], Barcoding software for Cloth shop, Clothing shop software, Automate a an apparel shop, Software to computerize Garments store, Simple POS Billing & inventory software for Garments store, Barcoding for women's fashion retail store, Billing Software for Retail designer’s clothing shop, Software for Readymade Garments shops / showrooms ,Billing Software for exclusive retail apparel store/shop
This image has been digitised from Queensland State Archives, Series ID S2149: Railway Glass Plate Negatives - Queensland Rail Heritage Collection. It is one of the images depicting the many stations, bridges and tracks that people and goods travelled from, on and through all over the Queensland Rail network.
Roma Street Railway Station occupies a 0.55ha site within the extensive Roma Street Station transit complex, located on the western side of the Brisbane central business district. The substantial masonry station building (1875) is set back from and faces Roma Street (although partially obscured by later development), and has a prominent centred entrance to the front (south) and a platform along the rear (north). A later platform and awning to the south is associated with the former Country Station development (1939/40).
Features of Roma Street Railway Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
Station building (1875)
Platform (1875)
Country Station platform and awning (1939)
Views
The state-level periods of significance of the place are layered and relate to its origins and use as a passenger station (1875-1940) and railway design, traffic and management offices (1875-1974), and the establishment of the former Country Station (1939/40).
A large iron-roofed shelter (c1980) to the east of the station, small buildings to the west, and a lift, stairs and escalators accessing the modern subway below, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
The Roma Street Railway Station was opened in 1875 as the first Brisbane Terminal Station for use on the Brisbane end of the Southern and Western Railway Line from Ipswich. The two-storey station building was designed by Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Public Buildings, in 1873 and built over the next two years by Brisbane builder, John Petrie. The station operated as the Brisbane terminal station until 1889, as a major passenger and administration station until 1940, and Brisbane’s primary railway goods facility until 1991. It served as offices for the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail) staff for over 100 years, and is the one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.
In the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers.[1] Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres. The first line, between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp, 34km west of Ipswich (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in 1865. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. New railways opened west from Rockhampton in 1867 (the Northern Line, later renamed the Central Railway), west from Townsville in 1880 (the Great Northern Line), Cairns in 1887, and south from Normanton in 1891.
The Southern and Western Railway served the pastoralists and industrialists of Ipswich and the Darling Downs, and was primarily for goods, rather than passengers. With the railhead at Ipswich, a railway to Brisbane was not initially considered essential, as goods could be shipped from Ipswich to Brisbane’s port for export. However, the Bremer and upper Brisbane rivers could not cope with large shipping, and lobbying began for an extension to Brisbane. A preliminary survey of possible lines was completed in 1865,[4] but concerns over the extension’s financial viability put work on hold. A Royal Commission on Railway Construction was called in the 1870s, and recommended the extension: the business generated by it was likely to be profitable, and the colony’s economy, which had collapsed in the mid-1860s, had been bolstered by the Gympie gold rush and was better able to afford new infrastructure.
The extension between Ipswich and Oxley was approved in August 1872,[6] and, the first sod on the extension was turned at Goodna in January 1873. From Oxley, two lines had been surveyed, terminating either at North or South Brisbane. After extensive debate, the route to North Brisbane, via a bridge at Oxley Point (Indooroopilly), was chosen as more cost-effective. The terminus of this route, selected by Railway Department Chief Engineer HC Stanley, was located within the Grammar School reserve at the base of the ‘Green Hills’ (Petrie Terrace). The site was unused by the school and was large enough for a major passenger station and goods yard.
The section between Oxley and Brisbane was approved in October 1873,[9] and the Government called for tenders for the construction of the railway terminus station in Brisbane. FDG Stanley, the recently-appointed Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Buildings within the Public Works Department, was the designer of the building. Stanley had commenced with the Public Works Department in 1863, serving as Superintendent of Buildings after Charles Tiffin vacated the Colonial Architect’s position. He was the official Colonial Architect from 1873-1883, when the colony, recovering from the economic collapse of the 1860s, began to invest in public buildings. Stanley’s designs, balancing classical styles and stylistic features with climate-appropriate adaptations and economic restraint, helped define public architecture in Queensland. Extant examples of major works, designed while he was Colonial Architect, include the original State Library (1876-9, QHR600177); Toowoomba Court House (1876-8, QHR600848); Townsville Magistrates Court (1876-7, QHR600929); Townsville Gaol (now part of Townsville Central State School, 1877, QHR601162); Brisbane’s Port Office (1880, QHR600088); Toowoomba Hospital (surviving kitchen wing 1880, QHR601296); post offices at Gympie (1878-80, QHR600534), South Brisbane (1881, QHR600302) and Toowoomba (1880, QHR600847); as well as the Brisbane Supreme Court (no longer extant). As Superintendent of Buildings he designed the Toowoomba Railway Station (1874, QHR600872), Government Printing Office (1873, QHR600114) and Lady Elliott Island Lighthouse (1872-3).
The Brisbane Courier provided a detailed description of the proposed Terminus Passenger Station in October 1873:
The general style of the building will be that known as the Italian Gothic order of architecture. The material used...will be pressed brick with cut stone facings, this being chosen on account of its durability and as also affording the greatest consonant with economy. The station will consist of a main building, two storeys high, flanked at each end by a single storey wing.
The building was designed to house both a passenger station and railway administrative offices. Passengers would access the station from Roma Street via a carriageway, disembarking at the station’s central carriage porch. The porch fronted a 10ft (3m) wide arcade running the length of the main building. From the arcade, passengers would enter either the first-class booking office on the east or the second-class booking office on the west, both served by a semi-circular ticket office on the rear (northern) wall. Female passengers travelling on second-class tickets could wait in a small room located along a western passage, while separate waiting rooms for first-class male and female passengers were east of the first-class booking office. Doorways in the rear wall of the booking offices and waiting rooms led directly onto the 190-foot (58m) long departure platform. Arriving passengers exited the station via a second platform across the rail line. Luggage was loaded onto trains via the luggage passage, on the eastern end of the building. The guards and porters room, staff facilities, a lamp room and stairs to the upper floor were situated in the eastern wing. The western side of the building held public services, including the telegraph office, station master’s office, and parcel and book office, accessible via a public lobby at the end of the arcade. A private staircase to the traffic managers’ office, a staircase to the traffic department, and toilet facilities were located in the western wing. An office or book stall space, in the northwestern side of the building, was accessible from the platform.
Upstairs, the offices of the traffic department, clerks, accountant, draughtsmen, Railways Engineer, Resident Engineer and contractors were accessed from a central passageway which ran almost the length of the building; with a small S-bend in the western end. An arch in the centre of the corridor marked the separation of the traffic department from the Chief Engineer’s office. Both wings hosted staircases.
The building included adaptations for the climate. The arcade sheltered the ground floor rooms from the sun, while skylights in the ceiling and a ventilated lantern provided light and ventilation to the upper floor. All public rooms and most of the offices were fitted with fireplaces. A platform shade, installed on the northern wall of the building over the platform, sheltered passengers from the weather, and was composed of material from an iron station building imported from England for use at Toowoomba. It was supported by brick buttresses at both ends of the building (extant) and on the arrivals platform (no longer extant).
Commensurate with Stanley’s design approach, materials used for the station reflected elegance but economy. Apart from the recycled iron roof trusses and columns, the building was constructed of machine-pressed bricks made from locally-sourced clay, more affordable than stone, and praised as ‘cleaner, sharper [and] finer’ than Brisbane bricks used in earlier buildings. Freestone for the building dressings and columns was sourced from Murphy’s Creek.
Construction work took place over two years, after contractor John Petrie’s tender of £11,845 was accepted in December 1873. Progress was slow, with the stonework foundations underway in June 1874, and the building only ten foot above the ground by September. The line from Ipswich to Brisbane was opened without ceremony on 14 June 1875. The platform at Brisbane Terminus Passenger Station was half-paved, the rooms and corridors incomplete, the roofing over the platform in progress and there was no permanent lighting. Nonetheless, an interested crowd gathered to watch the first outbound services leave the station. The building was sufficiently complete by August 1875 for the Brisbane Courier to describe it as ‘in all respects convenient, handsome, and well-designed’. The station’s arcade was later highlighted as one of Brisbane’s valued architectural features.
The Brisbane to Ipswich route quickly became the busiest section of line in Queensland. Merchandise and imported goods from the ports were despatched along the line, while produce from the Darling Downs and surrounds – including coal, flour, wool, hay, maize, livestock, vegetable and dairy produce – was brought to Brisbane. A central goods handling facility was opened at the Terminal Station, including a large (64m long) goods shed and two sidings, erected in 1875-6 (no longer extant), while railway produce markets opened outside the station, along George and Roma streets. A maintenance yard also operated at Roma Street, including locomotive and carriage sheds. By 1882 the Terminal Station platforms had been extended to cope with the traffic and trade. Traffic reduced slightly after some export goods were diverted to South Brisbane in 1884,[32] but expanded again.[33] Cattle yards, produce sheds, carriage sheds, gas works, goods sheds, coal stages, cold stores, additional locomotive sheds and siding extensions were all added to Roma Street’s goods yard. None of these structures survive in 2020.
Passengers also used the line. Residential occupation of Toowong and Indooroopilly boomed as middle-class city workers took advantage of the four daily train services. In 1882 rail lines were opened from the Terminal Station to Sandgate and the Racecourse, taking day-trippers to the seaside and races, and bringing northern suburbs passengers into Brisbane. In January 1888, the first through-service to Sydney departed from the Terminal Station. However, travellers criticised the lack of direct access from the Terminal Station to the central business district, and in 1889, the Brisbane Central Railway Station was opened. Central Railway Station (QHR 600073) – located closer to the General Post Office and city office buildings – became Brisbane’s main passenger station, and the original Terminal Station was renamed Roma Street Railway Station.
Despite its diminished status, Roma Street remained a major centre for passengers and travellers. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, guards of honour lined Roma Street to greet and farewell significant visitors and figures, including premiers Morehead and Griffith, governors Norman and Lamington; Governor-General Munro-Ferguson; the late politician JM Macrossan, who had died in Sydney; singer Nellie Melba; Lord Kitchener; and Salvation Army General Booth. Roma Street continued to operate as the Sydney Mail terminus until 1931, when the service shifted to South Brisbane. Crowds thronged to Roma Street Station as soldiers departed for the South African War and World War I. Travelling circuses performed in the Roma Street yards, and an historic parade in 1936 included a ‘Puffing Billy’ locomotive, which was displayed at the yards until 1959. Roma Street also continued as the city’s primary goods terminus.
The station building played an important role as office accommodation for Queensland railway staff. Internal rearrangements were made to the building to accommodate growing staff numbers, and improve their working conditions. It was one of the first buildings in Queensland to feature electric light, installed in 1884.[50] The Chief Engineer vacated the building in 1901 and was replaced by the general traffic manager’s department, with a telephonic system of communication installed the same year. Bunker, lumber and message rooms were added to the wings by 1907; a traffic collector’s office and new strongroom were installed in 1911; and parcels, printing offices and machine rooms replaced the first-class waiting rooms, guards’ room and lamp room by 1920. In 1915, an additional storey was constructed atop the central carriage porch, providing more accommodation for the Traffic Branch on the first floor. A traffic control system, coordinating trains between Brisbane and Gympie, was installed and operated from the additional storey in 1927.
Queensland’s railway network extended dramatically in the 20th century. The North Coast line connected Brisbane to Gladstone in 1898, Rockhampton in 1904, and Cairns in 1924, providing a direct rail link between Brisbane and Mackay, Townsville, Winton, Forsayth, Cloncurry and Blackall. Southern and western trains reached Dirranbandi, Surat, Cunnamulla and Quilpie. Central Station initially hosted ‘country’ services, but it lacked room for expansion, and Roma Street’s larger site was earmarked for a new country station. Roma Street’s locomotive, carriage and marshalling yard facilities were transferred to the Mayne Rail Yards between 1911 and 1927, and work began on the new station. A 350ft (106m) reinforced concrete, tiled passenger subway was constructed from Roma Street to the platforms in 1936-7, replacing an overhead walkway. A new steel awning was installed above the southern platform (Platform 3 in 2020), in approximately 1939. It was used in conjunction with two platforms at the new country station (no longer extant) for country and other passenger services.
On 30 November 1940 the Country Station was opened at Roma Street Station. This low-lying face brick building and its additional platform sat directly between the 1873-5 building and Roma Street. The new passenger station relieved congestion at Brisbane Central Station and made Roma Street the chief station for long distance travel north. The original station was refurbished, its roof re-clad with corrugated fibrous sheeting; and its brick walls painted red and lined in cream to match the new station building. The southwest pediment was removed and replaced by a new storey on the western end of the building. A covered area was added east of the building where the subway stairs emerged. The original station building was turned over to the General Manager, with offices for clerks, traffic-, livestock-, coach- and wagon staff, maintenance and locomotive staff, telephone and telegraph exchanges, and the train control section.
Further plans to upgrade and alter the building were postponed by World War II, during which time troop trains departed from Roma Street, and the pedestrian subway served as an air-raid shelter.[66] In 1945, plans were drawn to alter doors, windows and stairs in the wings, and partitions on the first floor. A second storey was added over the west wing in 1953 (later removed), and the General Manager’s staircase was repositioned in 1961. Externally, the iron carriage shed platform shade over the northern platform was removed in 1959.
Extensive change was undertaken at Roma Street around the original station building in the late 20th century. The southern and northern Brisbane railway systems were directly connected in the 1970s, with the opening of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. In 1985, the country railway station (1940 building) was demolished and replaced by a multi-storey centre incorporating new railway and bus facilities, a hotel, offices and function centre. The original station building was left intact, and two new interstate platforms with standard gauge rails were built on its southern side. The pedestrian subway was refurbished in 1986, with a broom finish concrete and expansion joints, and grated drains were laid on the floor, and a ceramic tile finish on the wall faces to match the subway tiles at Central Station. Roma Street’s rail freight facility was moved to Acacia Ridge in 1991. During the mid-1990s the platforms north and south of the early station building were re-arranged and extended. A bricked waiting area and new roof were added east of the station. Underground, a new concourse was constructed to replace the pedestrian subway, and a 19m section of the original subway converted to a storage room.
The station building remained the General Manager’s Office until 1974. The station master, staff workers and archive storage occupied the building in the 1990s. By 1993, Roma Street was acknowledged as the oldest surviving railway station building in an Australian capital city, and one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland. A new office fitout was installed on the ground floor for Queensland Rail and the Queensland Police Rail Squad in 1999. Stabilisation, waterproofing and reconstruction works commenced in 2012, including restoration of the brick, plaster, lead flashings, window joinery and stone works. Replacement bricks were custom made in England; Welsh slate was imported from the UK; replacement stone came from Helidon; and rolled lead from England was installed. In 2015, a new steel beams and suspension system was installed between the two storeys, to lift a 65mm bow in the timber floor beams fit amongst the existing timber structures. The second storey of the west wing was removed and the roofline reconstructed to its original configuration. The restoration received an Australian Institute of Architects Queensland award in 2015.
In 2020 the building is vacant, pending further repairs.
Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Summary
The Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex of buildings, occupying an entire city block in Manhattan’s Far West Village, is highly significant as the site of one of the world’s most prestigious telecommunications research organizations, and later, as the first and largest publically- and privately-funded artists’ housing project in the United States, as well as a pioneering large-scale industrial rehabilitation project. The oldest structure is the vernacular Italianate style Hook’s Steam-powered Factory Building (c. 1860) at 445-453 West Street, one of the few extant 19th-century industrial buildings along the Hudson River waterfront, which housed a number of significant manufacturers over the decades. The Western Electric Co. built an office and factory building for telephone-related equipment (1896-1903) at 455-465 West Street, 149 Bank Street, and 734-742 Washington Street. Designed by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz in a restrained neo-Classical style and clad in buff-colored brick and terra cotta, the building was constructed by Marc Eidlitz & Son. After 1913, the building ceased as a manufacturing plant and was largely the headquarters ofWestern Electric’s Engineering Department. In 1925, it became Bell Telephone Laboratories for research and development
for both the American Telegraph & Telephone Co. and Western Electric Co. Bell Labs’ facilities were expanded with the construction of 744-754 Washington Street (1924-26, by McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin) and the Moderne style 151 Bank Street (1929, Warren B. Sanford, engineer), a pioneering experimental sound motion picture studio, and by the incorporation into the complex of the c. 1860 factory building. Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker was responsible in 1931-34 for alterations to the sections of the complex on Washington Street for the New York Central Railroad’s elevated freight railway. Research work that resulted in many significant innovations and inventions was conducted here. After Bell Labs vacated the property in 1966, Roger L. Stevens, first chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, conceived of the complex as a pilot project of subsidized, affordable studio living quarters for artists, which was substantially supported and inaugurated by the J.M. Kaplan Fund. It was converted in 1968-70 into Westbeth Artists’ Housing, the first major work by architect Richard Meier, with 383 residential and work studio units, as well as gallery, performance, and commercial spaces, and a park. Westbeth Artists’ Housing continues to occupy the site.
DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
Development of Far West Greenwich Village Prior to World War I
By the 1840s, New York City saw a rapid increase in domestic and foreign trade through the Erie Canal, transatlantic shipping, and the railroads, and after the Civil War, the city flourished as the commercial, financial, and manufacturing center of the country. The far western section of Greenwich Village developed with mixed uses, including residences, industry, and transportation- and maritime-related commerce. The North (Hudson) River shoreline had been regularized and landfilled to West Street, and by 1840, over fifty wharves were constructed along the river from Lower Manhattan to Gansevoort Street. In 1846, the Hudson River Railroad was incorporated, and was constructed along West Street, terminating in a station at Chambers Street in 1851 (this was replaced by the St. John’s Park Terminal for freight in 1868). In 1869, an elevated railroad line was completed along Greenwich Street, providing a rapid connection to lower Manhattan but also limiting (or directing) the development possibilities along the street. In the later 19th century, this section of Greenwich Village continued its mixed-use character through construction of factories, stables, and multiple dwellings. To the northwest, roughly north of Horatio Street, a market district developed after the City’s creation of the Gansevoort Market (1879), for regional produce, and the West Washington Market (1889), for meat, poultry, and dairy products [today this area is largely the Gansevoort Market Historic District]. New York had also developed as the largest port in the United States by the early 19th century, and in the early 20th century emerged as one of the busiest ports in the world. While South Street along the East River had earlier been the primary artery for maritime commerce, West Street became a competitor in the 1870s and supplanted the former by about 1890.
A major public undertaking that had a profound impact on this section of the Hudson River waterfront was the construction, by the New York City Department of Docks, of the Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, with Warren & Wetmore), between West 11th and West 23rd Streets. These long docks accommodated the enormous trans-Atlantic steamships of the United States, Grace, Cunard White Star, Panama Pacific, and American Merchant lines. This area was described in 1914 as “in the heart of the busiest section of the port, adjacent to the transatlantic liners, coast and gulf vessels, between Christopher and 23rd Streets, surrounded by 5,000 seamen of all nationalities” of the half a million seamen that came into the harbor each year. Beginning in the 1890s, this area became the locus for a number of large storage warehouses, as well as transportation-related commerce, firms associated with food products, and assorted industries. The U.S. Appraisers Store (later U.S. Federal Building) (1892-99, Willoughby J. Edbrooke), 641 Washington Street, was constructed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as a warehouse for imported goods awaiting customs appraisal. Financier-brewer James Everard built an enormous 12- story structure at 277-283 West 10th Street (1894-96, Martin V.B. Ferdon) that became known as the Everard Storage Warehouse. Brothers-in-law Edmund Coffin and Henry Thompson Sloane, of the intermarried families descended from the founder of W. & J. Sloane & Co., the home furnishings and carpets firm, constructed adjacent warehouses at 726-736 Greenwich Street (1897-98, Gilbert A. Schellenger) and 720-724 Greenwich Street (1901-02, James B. Baker). Fleischmann & Co., producers of America’s first distilled gin and commercial yeast, built No. 701 Washington Street (1887-88, Theodore G. Stein; demolished), described in the New York Times in 1897 as Fleischmann’s “Eastern offices... and the headquarters of [its] yeast business”; the national headquarters was moved here from Cincinnati in 1919. Surviving are the firm’s stables building and factory (1908-09 and 1910-11, Arthur M. Duncan), 140-144 Perry Street and 695-697 Washington Street.
Gulian Hook’s New-York Planing Mill and Steam-powered Factory Property
The extant building (c. 1860) at today’s 445-465 West Street/165-167 Bank Street was but one portion of a large parcel (152 by 210 feet) at the northeast corner of West and Bank Streets acquired in 1845 by William Van Hook (1782-1864), a wealthy and well-connected lawyer and president of the Phoenix Bank. An 1851 city directory indicated that Van Hook operated a planing mill at (then) 141-149 Bank Street; the adjacent blockfront on West Street contained lumber and lime yards, while the rest of Bank Street had vacant lots and a whiting factory (producing powdered chalk used for paints and inks). An 1854 map of this block depicted two lumber yards on West Street; rowhouses and a saw mill on Bethune Street; a coal yard, houses, and an alley leading to a putty factory on Washington Street; and an iron foundry and “New York Saw Mills” on Bank Street. By 1858, there were two two-story structures on Van Hook’s lot, identified in the 1860 tax assessments as a planing mill. In 1860, additional construction resulted in, on the corner, a four-story vernacular Italianate style steam-powered factory structure (today’s 445-465 West Street/165-167 Bank Street), built as a speculative rental property, as well as a three-story mill, and a two-story office. In July 1860, Gulian Hook advertised “TO LET, WITH STEAM POWER - The whole or portions of the handsome brick BUILDING, now being erected in the most substantial manner, on the corner of Bank and West sts. ... with power to the extent of 100 horses,” and in 1862 the entire property was transferred to him. Gulian Hook (1822-1901) was, since 1856, the husband of nee Josephine Throckmorton Roach (1830-1916), a niece of William Van Hook who was her uncle’s sole heir (William and Catherine Throckmorton Van Hook had adopted Josephine as a baby after her mother’s death). According to the 1860 Census, the Hooks lived with Van Hook at his residence at 5 Fifth Avenue. Both Hook and Van Hook were listed in city directories in association with the New- York Planing Mill (No. 163 Bank Street after c. 1865), until Van Hook’s death in 1864; Hook’s listings continued until 1870. According to the New York Times in August 1868, “a fire occurred in the large three-story [sic] brick buildings... and caused the destruction of the greater part of the buildings and their contents.” Suffering a number of financial setbacks, the Hooks moved to Schenectady.
In 1870, Gulian and Josephine Hook, and John de Witt and Louisa B. Hook, sold this property, which changed hands a number of times until 1874, when it was acquired through foreclosure sale by Ambrose C. Kingsland (1804-1878), a wealthy merchant, real estate investor, and former New York City Mayor (1851-53), with sons George L. and Ambrose, Jr. The auction advertisement specified “four-story brick buildings ... on West st. and three-story brick buildings... on Bank st.” Another fire occurred in 1880 in the corner building (445 West Street), with the roof burned off. Following Ambrose C. Kingsland’s death, the property was advertised at an 1881 executor’s sale: “The valuable property north-east corner of West and Bank sts., embracing about 12 City lots, covered with substantial four-story buildings... on West st., and a three-story building... adj oining on Bank st., together with other buildings recently erected. ... Producing at present a rental of about $17,000 per annum.” The Kingsland family, however, did not sell the property until 1891, as a speculative investment to George Frederick Morgan (1846-1925), president of Enoch Morgan’s Sons Co. (established 1809), one of the largest American manufacturers of soap products (including “Sapolio” soaps), located at the southeast corner of West and Bank Streets since 1844.
Landfill between 1854 and 1865 resulted in the creation of several entirely new blocks to the west of West Street extending to 13th Avenue (this landfill was removed in the early 1890s for the steamship piers’ construction); confusingly, the buildings across West Street from the Hook’s Steam-powered Factory Building employed the same range of addresses. During the three decades from 1860 through 1892, the Hook-Kingsland-Morgan complex of buildings at the northeast corner of West and Bank Streets housed a very wide variety of industrial concerns. Early tenants of the
corner building, from the 1860s through the 80s, included, among other concerns, woodworking firms, and manufacturers of fire escapes; children’s rocking horses, carriages, and toys; tanks; and paints.
After Morgan’s purchase of the property in 1891, the corner building (443-447 West) was from 1892 to c. 1901 the New York Car Wheel Works, the New York factory of a Buffalo-based company, touted in an advertisement as “Makers of High Grade WHEELS for Electric and Cable Tramway and Steam railway Service . ... Largest and Most Complete Equipment and Plant...” During Morgan’s lifetime, he commissioned and had constructed three additional buildings on the parcel (now demolished). Tenants of the c. 1860 corner building included an iron and steel commission merchant, a paper box and mailing tube manufacturer, and dealer in asbestos materials.
Following George F. Morgan’s death in 1925, a 100-year lease was signed in December 1927 between Morgan’s heirs (wife Helen de Wolfe Morgan and son John W. Morgan) and Bell Telephone Laboratories. This included the surviving corner building at 445-465 West Street/165-167 Bank Street, one of the oldest extant industrial buildings along the Hudson River waterfront, and three other structures at 151-163 Bank Street (now demolished). This property remained in the ownership of Morgan family heirs until 1968, when it became part of Westbeth Artists’ Housing.
Western Electric Co.
A small telegraph supply company, started in Cleveland in 1869 by Enos. M. Barton and Elisha Gray and moved to Chicago in 1872, became the Western Electric Manufacturing Co., merging with the Ottawa shop of the Western Union Telegraph Co. Between 1875 and 1882, Western Electric expanded through acquisition of a number of other firms, including the George H. Bliss Co., Electrical Improvement Co., Western Union’s New York shop, Chicago Telegraph Supply Co., and the Gilliland and Charles Williams plants in Indianapolis and Boston. Following Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876, the American Bell Telephone Co. was organized in 1880, and in November 1881 purchased a controlling interest in the Western Electric Manufacturing Co. The latter’s name was changed to the Western Electric Co., with its headquarters and factory (1883) in Chicago. As the official manufacturing unit of the Bell System, Western Electric’s original function was to provide a dependable source of telegraph and telephone instruments and apparatuses of reliable quality that were compatible system-wide. Western Electric greatly expanded over the years through its telephone, electrical light, electric railway, and other lines of business. King’s Handbook of New York in 1892 described the Western Electric Co. as
one of the foremost electrical supply and manufacturing companies of the world,
[which] has been closely identified with the wonderful development of electrical science in the last fifteen years. From small beginnings in Chicago it has risen to the dignity of an international organization, having its plants scattered over both continents. Its dynamos, its arc and incandescent lights, its annunciators and fire- alarm systems, its telephone and telegraph instruments, its aerial, underground and submarine cables are practical testimonials to its enterprise and mechanical skill.
A mechanical department, established in 1884 in Boston, was responsible for research and product development.
In March 1885, the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) was incorporated in New York as a subsidiary to expand the long-line connections of American Bell, and to assist in
maintaining the parent company’s virtual monopoly control of telephony through low-cost “universal service,” as well as through technological improvements. AT&T assumed all assets and became the parent company of the Bell System in 1899.
In New York City, a ten-story Western Electric office and factory building was constructed in 1888-89 at 127-131 Greenwich Street (aka 22 Thames Street) (Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, architect). King’s Handbook mentioned that this facility “turns out the smaller electrical instruments, such as telephones and transmitters, telegraph and testing instruments, annunciators and call-bells,” compared with the heavier equipment manufactured in Chicago.
Western Electric Co. Building in Greenwich Village
Beginning in January 1896, the Western Electric Co. of Illinois began to acquire parcels of land on the block of the Far West Village waterfront bounded by West, Bethune, Bank, and Washington Streets. Architect Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz filed in June for a large ten-story office and factory building for Western Electric, at the southeast corner of West and Bethune Streets, projected to be about four times larger than the company’s downtown factory, at a cost of one million dollars. The Superintendent of Buildings approved the application in September. An account of the beginning of the project stated that “an extensive job of piling was necessary before the foundations could be built because of the sandy nature of the soil and the proximity of the river.” The plan of the main part of the building was divided into four distinct sections (Sections A, B, C, and D) separated by fire walls and located around a courtyard. Section B was begun first in September 1896 and nearly completed in early 1897, when Section C was started, both at the middle of the block along Bethune Street. Electrical Engineer in February 1897 announced that “C.L.W. Eidlitz, the architect, has planned an immense combination office and factory building for the Western Electric Company. When the structure is completed it will have a frontage of 145 feet on West street and 285 feet on Bethune street. ... At present, owing to an unexpired lease of the corner property, only the rear section is to be erected.” Western Electric moved in 1897 into Section B (57-67 Bethune Street), where it operated an electrical supply store while also maintaining one at Thames Street.
Section E (149 Bank Street) was built in 1897 to Eidlitz’s design for lumber storage and a dry kiln. In 1900, Eidlitz connected Section E to Section B and added a two-story extension on Bank Street, similar in design to the lower portion of Sections B-C. With setbacks on the third and fourth stories, the expanded Section E was later said to have been “designed to house the machinery for making iron-covered submarine cable.” Between April 1898 and June 1899, Western Electric completed acquisition of much of the block, aside from George F. Morgan’s large lot (which included the Hook’s Steam-powered Factory Building) at the northeast corner of West and Bank Streets, and three lots at Washington and Bethune Streets. In a letter to the Commissioner of Buildings in February 1899, Eidlitz requested “to resume building operations under the original permit” considering that only “Sections ‘B’ and ‘C’ were built” ... “owing to an unexpired lease, possession could not be obtained of the property fronting on West Street.” Sections A and D were built at the same time in 1899. American Electrician in July 1900 commented:
The new factory of the Western Electric Company... now approaching completion, was... planned in its entirety before work upon it was commenced, so that all its parts are properly designed for the work which will be called upon to perform for some time at least. The factory is as highly developed, organized and specialized as though it were a manufacturing establishment in a much older line of work, and possesses many points of interest... The entire factory is contained in one building about 150 x
275 ft. in size, and with a height of 10 stories in one part and 13 stories in another part. This building, with a three-story annex, houses some 3400 employees on its 11 acres of floor space. The isolated plant which supplies electric current for lighting and all power in the building is probably the largest plant delivering its output to one building in the world.
The Western Electric Co. Building, designed in a restrained neo-Classical style and clad in buff- colored brick with buff-colored terra-cotta ornament above a grey granite watertable, was of fireproof steel skeletal construction and cost $1.136 million. This location was probably the largest manufacturer of telephone apparatus in the world, with a foundry, forge shop, and cable department in the basement, and the rest of building housing various stages of manufacture, with the engineering department and offices above the tenth story. With completion of this plant, Western Electric’s downtown building ceased as a factory.
Also in 1899, Eidlitz filed for Section G at the northwest corner of Washington and Bank Streets, as a cable making plant. Designed at ten stories to match Sections A-D, construction was started in 1899 but disapproved by the Buildings Dept., and this section was abandoned for a number of years; only three stories were built as needed, completed in October 1903. The entire Western Electric Co. Building (Sections A-D, E, and G) was constructed by the firm of Marc Eidlitz & Son. A Section H, built in 1906 (Eidlitz & McKenzie; now demolished) at the southwest corner of Washington and Bethune Streets, was a three-story reinforced concrete storehouse for pig lead, paper, and copper wire used in the cable plant. In 1908, however, the cable making operation was moved to Western Electric’s Hawthorne (Cicero, Illinois) plant.
In 1907, under Theodore Newton Vail, the new president of AT&T (whose headquarters moved from Boston to New York), the research, design, and engineering departments of the Bell System were consolidated into a single organizational entity at 463 West Street (the corporate address used for the Greenwich Village plant), now the Engineering Dept. of the Western Electric Co. As the manufacturing arm of Bell, Western Electric designed and produced the equipment that Bell sold to home consumers, including telephones, as well as the components of the whole telephone network (such as central switches, fuses, protection devises, wire, repeaters, and amplifiers). The manufacture of transmitters and receivers at 463 West Street was second in volume only to the Hawthorne plant. After 1907, Western Electric’s general offices in Chicago were merged with its New York executive offices, and located on the upper stories at 463 West Street. A Research Branch was organized within Western Electric’s Engineering Dept. in 1911. This building continued to serve mainly as a factory until the end of 1913, with day and night shifts and some 8,000 employees, but by early 1914, the last manufacturing functions here were moved to Hawthorne. In November 1915, the Western Electric Co. of Illinois transferred this property to Western Electric Co., Inc. (of New York). The building was jointly occupied by Western Electric’s Engineering Dept., New York Distributing House, and General Administrative Offices. During World War I, with the growth of the engineering divisions, 463 West Street became overcrowded, and Western Electric’s executive departments moved to the AT&T Building at 195 Broadway in 1916; the Distributing House was relocated in 1918; and by 1921, the building was used solely by the Engineering Dept. In August 1923, the Western Electric Co. acquired three lots at Washington and Bethune Streets (then a six-story warehouse owned by the American Distributing Co.), and in December filed for the construction of a large addition to its plant [Section H, see below], to replace this warehouse and Western Electric’s older Section H.
The 463 West Street facility of Western Electric’s Engineering Dept. was the site of research
that led to many significant and pioneering electrical innovations and inventions. Harold D. Arnold developed the first vacuum tube amplifier (1913), a technological breakthrough that provided stability and control, making possible long-distance (1915) and, later, international telephone transmission. Edward C. Wente in 1916 produced the condenser microphone, which could transmit the entire range of the human voice, leading to its eventual use for radio, electrically cut recordings, and sound motion pictures. Western Electric research led to advances in loudspeakers, public address systems, and hearing aids. In 1920 and 1922, experimental radio stations 2XS and WEAF broadcast here; highly popular, the operation was sold in 1926 to Radio Corporation of America (RCA). After a decade of research, a sound-on-disc film projector was developed in 1923, a technique that allowed synchronized sound for motion pictures - Western Electric interested Warner Brothers in 1925 in this technology, which was jointly licensed to the Vitaphone Corp. for its exclusive use.
Architect: Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz/ McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin/ Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker
Cyrus Lazelle Warner Eidlitz (1853-1921) was born in New York City into a family of eminent architects, engineers, and builders. He was the son of the distinguished architect Leopold Eidlitz (1823-1908), born in Prague of Austrian Jewish heritage, who was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects (1857) and was particularly noted for his involvement in the design of the Produce Exchange, New York County (Tweed) Courthouse, and Temple Emanu-El in New York City, and New York State Capitol, Albany. Cyrus was named for his grandfather, Cyrus Lazelle Warner, also an architect, who is best known for the design of the Beth Elohim Synagogue (1840-41), Charleston, S.C. His uncle, Marc Eidlitz [see below], was the head of one of the most prominent building concerns in New York, while two other uncles, Samuel A. and Benjamin W. Warner, were architects specializing in commercial work. His brother, Leopold, and a cousin, Charles S. Warner, were engineers.
- From the 2011 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
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Tantalum Memorial
Harwood, Wright und Yokokoji
uk, 2008
WINNER OF THE TRANSMEDIALE.09 AWARD
Jury Statement:
"Profound and dense, this work will be remade for transmediale after showings in 2008 in San Jose at 0l and in Italy at Manifesta7. It has been nominated for its quality of execution, density of imagination as well as conceptual and metaphorical strengths. It operates on many levels – casting light on the memory of the more than three million people who have died in wars in the Congo over the last ten years—through the use of telephony combined with computation. A rack of electromagnetic Strowger telephony switches is triggered by a computer that tracks calls from the 'Telephone Trottoire,' a 'social telephony' network designed for an international Congolese diaspora. This project builds on the Congolese practice of 'radio trottoire' – passing news and hearsay on street corners by word-of-mouth to avoid state control. Its imaginative breadth and its integration of socio-political objectives were seen by the jury as exceptional. The artists have established a substantial track record in engaging with subjects that impact us globally but are initially manifested locally, and their work is well-deserving of acknowledgement within transmediale 09."
Find out more about Tantalum Memorial at: www.transmediale.de/en/tantalum-memorial
Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake
Perry Bard (2008)
The video artist Perry Bard invites people to a collaborative web-based, database-generated montage experiment. Using Dziga Vertovs masterpiece from 1929 as direct inspiration, participants from all over the world can upload footage on the website next to the corresponding scenes from the original film. Uploaded digital media from photo cameras, video recorders and screen-grabs form part of the new interpretation. The lengths and images of submitted videos are synchronised with the original scenes through software, which then rotates the added material every day, ensuring the film may never be the same twice. Bard’s project transports Vertov’s impressions about the Soviet cities in his experimental silent film into the 21st century and becomes, in Vertov’s terms, the “decoding of life as it is.”.
View a clip from the film at: www.transmediale.de/en/man-movie-camera-global-remake-tagr
Join the facebook event for a retrospective of the festival, videos, photos and other relevant material - www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=47750112630
Eric Goodyear of Teratech (center) receives his certificate of completion from Ross Ryding (left) and Bill Soto (right).
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This image has been digitised from Queensland State Archives, Series ID S2149: Railway Glass Plate Negatives - Queensland Rail Heritage Collection. It is one of the images depicting the many stations, bridges and tracks that people and goods travelled from, on and through all over the Queensland Rail network.
Roma Street Railway Station occupies a 0.55ha site within the extensive Roma Street Station transit complex, located on the western side of the Brisbane central business district. The substantial masonry station building (1875) is set back from and faces Roma Street (although partially obscured by later development), and has a prominent centred entrance to the front (south) and a platform along the rear (north). A later platform and awning to the south is associated with the former Country Station development (1939/40).
Features of Roma Street Railway Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
Station building (1875)
Platform (1875)
Country Station platform and awning (1939)
Views
The state-level periods of significance of the place are layered and relate to its origins and use as a passenger station (1875-1940) and railway design, traffic and management offices (1875-1974), and the establishment of the former Country Station (1939/40).
A large iron-roofed shelter (c1980) to the east of the station, small buildings to the west, and a lift, stairs and escalators accessing the modern subway below, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
The Roma Street Railway Station was opened in 1875 as the first Brisbane Terminal Station for use on the Brisbane end of the Southern and Western Railway Line from Ipswich. The two-storey station building was designed by Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Public Buildings, in 1873 and built over the next two years by Brisbane builder, John Petrie. The station operated as the Brisbane terminal station until 1889, as a major passenger and administration station until 1940, and Brisbane’s primary railway goods facility until 1991. It served as offices for the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail) staff for over 100 years, and is the one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.
In the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers.[1] Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres. The first line, between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp, 34km west of Ipswich (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in 1865. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. New railways opened west from Rockhampton in 1867 (the Northern Line, later renamed the Central Railway), west from Townsville in 1880 (the Great Northern Line), Cairns in 1887, and south from Normanton in 1891.
The Southern and Western Railway served the pastoralists and industrialists of Ipswich and the Darling Downs, and was primarily for goods, rather than passengers. With the railhead at Ipswich, a railway to Brisbane was not initially considered essential, as goods could be shipped from Ipswich to Brisbane’s port for export. However, the Bremer and upper Brisbane rivers could not cope with large shipping, and lobbying began for an extension to Brisbane. A preliminary survey of possible lines was completed in 1865,[4] but concerns over the extension’s financial viability put work on hold. A Royal Commission on Railway Construction was called in the 1870s, and recommended the extension: the business generated by it was likely to be profitable, and the colony’s economy, which had collapsed in the mid-1860s, had been bolstered by the Gympie gold rush and was better able to afford new infrastructure.
The extension between Ipswich and Oxley was approved in August 1872,[6] and, the first sod on the extension was turned at Goodna in January 1873. From Oxley, two lines had been surveyed, terminating either at North or South Brisbane. After extensive debate, the route to North Brisbane, via a bridge at Oxley Point (Indooroopilly), was chosen as more cost-effective. The terminus of this route, selected by Railway Department Chief Engineer HC Stanley, was located within the Grammar School reserve at the base of the ‘Green Hills’ (Petrie Terrace). The site was unused by the school and was large enough for a major passenger station and goods yard.
The section between Oxley and Brisbane was approved in October 1873,[9] and the Government called for tenders for the construction of the railway terminus station in Brisbane. FDG Stanley, the recently-appointed Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Buildings within the Public Works Department, was the designer of the building. Stanley had commenced with the Public Works Department in 1863, serving as Superintendent of Buildings after Charles Tiffin vacated the Colonial Architect’s position. He was the official Colonial Architect from 1873-1883, when the colony, recovering from the economic collapse of the 1860s, began to invest in public buildings. Stanley’s designs, balancing classical styles and stylistic features with climate-appropriate adaptations and economic restraint, helped define public architecture in Queensland. Extant examples of major works, designed while he was Colonial Architect, include the original State Library (1876-9, QHR600177); Toowoomba Court House (1876-8, QHR600848); Townsville Magistrates Court (1876-7, QHR600929); Townsville Gaol (now part of Townsville Central State School, 1877, QHR601162); Brisbane’s Port Office (1880, QHR600088); Toowoomba Hospital (surviving kitchen wing 1880, QHR601296); post offices at Gympie (1878-80, QHR600534), South Brisbane (1881, QHR600302) and Toowoomba (1880, QHR600847); as well as the Brisbane Supreme Court (no longer extant). As Superintendent of Buildings he designed the Toowoomba Railway Station (1874, QHR600872), Government Printing Office (1873, QHR600114) and Lady Elliott Island Lighthouse (1872-3).
The Brisbane Courier provided a detailed description of the proposed Terminus Passenger Station in October 1873:
The general style of the building will be that known as the Italian Gothic order of architecture. The material used...will be pressed brick with cut stone facings, this being chosen on account of its durability and as also affording the greatest consonant with economy. The station will consist of a main building, two storeys high, flanked at each end by a single storey wing.
The building was designed to house both a passenger station and railway administrative offices. Passengers would access the station from Roma Street via a carriageway, disembarking at the station’s central carriage porch. The porch fronted a 10ft (3m) wide arcade running the length of the main building. From the arcade, passengers would enter either the first-class booking office on the east or the second-class booking office on the west, both served by a semi-circular ticket office on the rear (northern) wall. Female passengers travelling on second-class tickets could wait in a small room located along a western passage, while separate waiting rooms for first-class male and female passengers were east of the first-class booking office. Doorways in the rear wall of the booking offices and waiting rooms led directly onto the 190-foot (58m) long departure platform. Arriving passengers exited the station via a second platform across the rail line. Luggage was loaded onto trains via the luggage passage, on the eastern end of the building. The guards and porters room, staff facilities, a lamp room and stairs to the upper floor were situated in the eastern wing. The western side of the building held public services, including the telegraph office, station master’s office, and parcel and book office, accessible via a public lobby at the end of the arcade. A private staircase to the traffic managers’ office, a staircase to the traffic department, and toilet facilities were located in the western wing. An office or book stall space, in the northwestern side of the building, was accessible from the platform.
Upstairs, the offices of the traffic department, clerks, accountant, draughtsmen, Railways Engineer, Resident Engineer and contractors were accessed from a central passageway which ran almost the length of the building; with a small S-bend in the western end. An arch in the centre of the corridor marked the separation of the traffic department from the Chief Engineer’s office. Both wings hosted staircases.
The building included adaptations for the climate. The arcade sheltered the ground floor rooms from the sun, while skylights in the ceiling and a ventilated lantern provided light and ventilation to the upper floor. All public rooms and most of the offices were fitted with fireplaces. A platform shade, installed on the northern wall of the building over the platform, sheltered passengers from the weather, and was composed of material from an iron station building imported from England for use at Toowoomba. It was supported by brick buttresses at both ends of the building (extant) and on the arrivals platform (no longer extant).
Commensurate with Stanley’s design approach, materials used for the station reflected elegance but economy. Apart from the recycled iron roof trusses and columns, the building was constructed of machine-pressed bricks made from locally-sourced clay, more affordable than stone, and praised as ‘cleaner, sharper [and] finer’ than Brisbane bricks used in earlier buildings. Freestone for the building dressings and columns was sourced from Murphy’s Creek.
Construction work took place over two years, after contractor John Petrie’s tender of £11,845 was accepted in December 1873. Progress was slow, with the stonework foundations underway in June 1874, and the building only ten foot above the ground by September. The line from Ipswich to Brisbane was opened without ceremony on 14 June 1875. The platform at Brisbane Terminus Passenger Station was half-paved, the rooms and corridors incomplete, the roofing over the platform in progress and there was no permanent lighting. Nonetheless, an interested crowd gathered to watch the first outbound services leave the station. The building was sufficiently complete by August 1875 for the Brisbane Courier to describe it as ‘in all respects convenient, handsome, and well-designed’. The station’s arcade was later highlighted as one of Brisbane’s valued architectural features.
The Brisbane to Ipswich route quickly became the busiest section of line in Queensland. Merchandise and imported goods from the ports were despatched along the line, while produce from the Darling Downs and surrounds – including coal, flour, wool, hay, maize, livestock, vegetable and dairy produce – was brought to Brisbane. A central goods handling facility was opened at the Terminal Station, including a large (64m long) goods shed and two sidings, erected in 1875-6 (no longer extant), while railway produce markets opened outside the station, along George and Roma streets. A maintenance yard also operated at Roma Street, including locomotive and carriage sheds. By 1882 the Terminal Station platforms had been extended to cope with the traffic and trade. Traffic reduced slightly after some export goods were diverted to South Brisbane in 1884,[32] but expanded again.[33] Cattle yards, produce sheds, carriage sheds, gas works, goods sheds, coal stages, cold stores, additional locomotive sheds and siding extensions were all added to Roma Street’s goods yard. None of these structures survive in 2020.
Passengers also used the line. Residential occupation of Toowong and Indooroopilly boomed as middle-class city workers took advantage of the four daily train services. In 1882 rail lines were opened from the Terminal Station to Sandgate and the Racecourse, taking day-trippers to the seaside and races, and bringing northern suburbs passengers into Brisbane. In January 1888, the first through-service to Sydney departed from the Terminal Station. However, travellers criticised the lack of direct access from the Terminal Station to the central business district, and in 1889, the Brisbane Central Railway Station was opened. Central Railway Station (QHR 600073) – located closer to the General Post Office and city office buildings – became Brisbane’s main passenger station, and the original Terminal Station was renamed Roma Street Railway Station.
Despite its diminished status, Roma Street remained a major centre for passengers and travellers. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, guards of honour lined Roma Street to greet and farewell significant visitors and figures, including premiers Morehead and Griffith, governors Norman and Lamington; Governor-General Munro-Ferguson; the late politician JM Macrossan, who had died in Sydney; singer Nellie Melba; Lord Kitchener; and Salvation Army General Booth. Roma Street continued to operate as the Sydney Mail terminus until 1931, when the service shifted to South Brisbane. Crowds thronged to Roma Street Station as soldiers departed for the South African War and World War I. Travelling circuses performed in the Roma Street yards, and an historic parade in 1936 included a ‘Puffing Billy’ locomotive, which was displayed at the yards until 1959. Roma Street also continued as the city’s primary goods terminus.
The station building played an important role as office accommodation for Queensland railway staff. Internal rearrangements were made to the building to accommodate growing staff numbers, and improve their working conditions. It was one of the first buildings in Queensland to feature electric light, installed in 1884.[50] The Chief Engineer vacated the building in 1901 and was replaced by the general traffic manager’s department, with a telephonic system of communication installed the same year. Bunker, lumber and message rooms were added to the wings by 1907; a traffic collector’s office and new strongroom were installed in 1911; and parcels, printing offices and machine rooms replaced the first-class waiting rooms, guards’ room and lamp room by 1920. In 1915, an additional storey was constructed atop the central carriage porch, providing more accommodation for the Traffic Branch on the first floor. A traffic control system, coordinating trains between Brisbane and Gympie, was installed and operated from the additional storey in 1927.
Queensland’s railway network extended dramatically in the 20th century. The North Coast line connected Brisbane to Gladstone in 1898, Rockhampton in 1904, and Cairns in 1924, providing a direct rail link between Brisbane and Mackay, Townsville, Winton, Forsayth, Cloncurry and Blackall. Southern and western trains reached Dirranbandi, Surat, Cunnamulla and Quilpie. Central Station initially hosted ‘country’ services, but it lacked room for expansion, and Roma Street’s larger site was earmarked for a new country station. Roma Street’s locomotive, carriage and marshalling yard facilities were transferred to the Mayne Rail Yards between 1911 and 1927, and work began on the new station. A 350ft (106m) reinforced concrete, tiled passenger subway was constructed from Roma Street to the platforms in 1936-7, replacing an overhead walkway. A new steel awning was installed above the southern platform (Platform 3 in 2020), in approximately 1939. It was used in conjunction with two platforms at the new country station (no longer extant) for country and other passenger services.
On 30 November 1940 the Country Station was opened at Roma Street Station. This low-lying face brick building and its additional platform sat directly between the 1873-5 building and Roma Street. The new passenger station relieved congestion at Brisbane Central Station and made Roma Street the chief station for long distance travel north. The original station was refurbished, its roof re-clad with corrugated fibrous sheeting; and its brick walls painted red and lined in cream to match the new station building. The southwest pediment was removed and replaced by a new storey on the western end of the building. A covered area was added east of the building where the subway stairs emerged. The original station building was turned over to the General Manager, with offices for clerks, traffic-, livestock-, coach- and wagon staff, maintenance and locomotive staff, telephone and telegraph exchanges, and the train control section.
Further plans to upgrade and alter the building were postponed by World War II, during which time troop trains departed from Roma Street, and the pedestrian subway served as an air-raid shelter.[66] In 1945, plans were drawn to alter doors, windows and stairs in the wings, and partitions on the first floor. A second storey was added over the west wing in 1953 (later removed), and the General Manager’s staircase was repositioned in 1961. Externally, the iron carriage shed platform shade over the northern platform was removed in 1959.
Extensive change was undertaken at Roma Street around the original station building in the late 20th century. The southern and northern Brisbane railway systems were directly connected in the 1970s, with the opening of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. In 1985, the country railway station (1940 building) was demolished and replaced by a multi-storey centre incorporating new railway and bus facilities, a hotel, offices and function centre. The original station building was left intact, and two new interstate platforms with standard gauge rails were built on its southern side. The pedestrian subway was refurbished in 1986, with a broom finish concrete and expansion joints, and grated drains were laid on the floor, and a ceramic tile finish on the wall faces to match the subway tiles at Central Station. Roma Street’s rail freight facility was moved to Acacia Ridge in 1991. During the mid-1990s the platforms north and south of the early station building were re-arranged and extended. A bricked waiting area and new roof were added east of the station. Underground, a new concourse was constructed to replace the pedestrian subway, and a 19m section of the original subway converted to a storage room.
The station building remained the General Manager’s Office until 1974. The station master, staff workers and archive storage occupied the building in the 1990s. By 1993, Roma Street was acknowledged as the oldest surviving railway station building in an Australian capital city, and one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland. A new office fitout was installed on the ground floor for Queensland Rail and the Queensland Police Rail Squad in 1999. Stabilisation, waterproofing and reconstruction works commenced in 2012, including restoration of the brick, plaster, lead flashings, window joinery and stone works. Replacement bricks were custom made in England; Welsh slate was imported from the UK; replacement stone came from Helidon; and rolled lead from England was installed. In 2015, a new steel beams and suspension system was installed between the two storeys, to lift a 65mm bow in the timber floor beams fit amongst the existing timber structures. The second storey of the west wing was removed and the roofline reconstructed to its original configuration. The restoration received an Australian Institute of Architects Queensland award in 2015.
In 2020 the building is vacant, pending further repairs.
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-floor skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name comes from one of the historic names for the city of Pyongyang, and means "capital of willows"; the building is also known as the 105 building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987, but was halted in 1992 due to the economic disruptions that afflicted the country following the fall of the Soviet Union. The hotel stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years, until construction resumed in April 2008, under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries.[
The hotel rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), and it contains 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have become the world's tallest hotel. The unfinished structure was not surpassed in height by another hotel until the completion of construction on the Rose Tower in Dubai, UAE in 2009.
© Eric Lafforgue
Building Radio Kootwijk, Veluwe NL - 1922 - architect Julius Maria Luthmann.
The housing accommodations of Radio Kootwijk arose as a result of the building of a shortwave transmitter site with the same name, starting in 1918. The transmitters played an important role in the 20th century as a communication facility between the Netherlands and its colony of Dutch East Indies. In 1923 Dutch PTT (Post, Telegraph and Telephone Company) started trans-oceanic telegraphy using a longwave transmitter, a 400 KW high frequency alternator, from the German Telefunken company under the call sign PCG, in the 24 kHz and 48 kHz. By 1925 the longwave transmitter was changed by a shortwave tube based, electronic transmitter which had a much better performance due to the better propagation of short waves. With this new technology, in 1928 a radio-telephonic connection was established. At the end of World War II, the German occupying forces blew up the transmitter. Afterward some of the radio towers were rebuilt. Due to the development of new technologies like satellite communication, Radio Kootwijk lost its position as main overseas wireless connection point of the Netherlands. In 1980, the last transmission mast was blown up. In 2004 the park lost its last transmitter functions, and was transferred from the telephone company to the State Forestry Commission, which started attracting new buyers. The main building of the former transmitter park and named 'Building A', 'The Cathedral' or sometimes 'The Sphinx', was officially appointed as a monument. It is used as venue and scenery for several cultural events and productions, including the American film Mind Hunters in 2004.
Radio Kootwijk is a small town in the Dutch municipality of Apeldoorn, with (in 2006) ca. 120 inhabitants. It is situated in a heather- and forest-rich territory in the Veluwe region, east of the sandhills of the Kootwijkerzand and the town of Kootwijk.
The housing accommodations of Radio Kootwijk arose as a result of the building of a shortwave transmitter site with the same name, starting in 1918. The transmitters played an important role in the 20th century as a communication facility between the Netherlands and its then colony of Dutch East Indies. In 1923 Dutch PTT started trans-oceanic telegraphy using a longwave transmitter (a 400KW high frequency alternator) from the German Telefunken company under the callsign PCG, in the 24 kHz and 48 kHz. By 1925 the longwave transmitter was changed by a shortwave tube based, electronic transmitter which had a much better performance due to the better propagation of shortwaves. With this new technology, in 1928 a radio-telephonic connection was established. At the end of World War II, the German occupying forces blew up the transmitter. Afterward some of the radio towers were rebuilt.[1]
Due to the development of new technologies like satellite communication, Radio Kootwijk lost its position as main overseas wireless connection point of the Netherlands. In 1980, the last transmission mast was blown up. In 2004 the park lost its last transmitter functions, and was transferred from the KPN company (successor to PTT) to the State Forestry Commission, which started attracting new buyers. The main building of the former transmitter park, designed by Dutch architect Julius Maria Luthmann and named 'Building A', 'The Cathedral' or sometimes 'The Sphynx', was officially appointed as a monument. It is used as venue and scenery for several cultural events and productions, including the American film Mindhunters in 2004.
Visiting 'my' cell tower
("How do you know it's there?" the woman working for the customer service asked me. Yeah, how do I know? I mean it's almost invisible, isn't it?)
A few days ago my great internet (UMTS) stopped working again. I don't get why it's impossible to get any real help from their customer service - instead they keep coming up with (the same old) excuses every time there is a problem. Wouldn't it be cheaper to work on fixing the problem faster? Or, while we're at it, start with admitting there was a problem at all?
Of course they blamed it on my connection (broken hardware, weak signal blah blah blah), and of course it was a problem on their side again. Luckily, it looks like it's fixed now. For this time.
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Building Radio Kootwijk, Veluwe NL - 1922 - architect Julius Maria Luthmann.
The housing accommodations of Radio Kootwijk arose as a result of the building of a shortwave transmitter site with the same name, starting in 1918. The transmitters played an important role in the 20th century as a communication facility between the Netherlands and its colony of Dutch East Indies. In 1923 Dutch PTT (Post, Telegraph and Telephone Company) started trans-oceanic telegraphy using a longwave transmitter, a 400 KW high frequency alternator, from the German Telefunken company under the call sign PCG, in the 24 kHz and 48 kHz. By 1925 the longwave transmitter was changed by a shortwave tube based, electronic transmitter which had a much better performance due to the better propagation of short waves. With this new technology, in 1928 a radio-telephonic connection was established. At the end of World War II, the German occupying forces blew up the transmitter. Afterward some of the radio towers were rebuilt. Due to the development of new technologies like satellite communication, Radio Kootwijk lost its position as main overseas wireless connection point of the Netherlands. In 1980, the last transmission mast was blown up. In 2004 the park lost its last transmitter functions, and was transferred from the telephone company to the State Forestry Commission, which started attracting new buyers. The main building of the former transmitter park and named 'Building A', 'The Cathedral' or sometimes 'The Sphinx', was officially appointed as a monument. It is used as venue and scenery for several cultural events and productions, including the American film Mind Hunters in 2004.
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Avaya's cost-effective IP DECT telephone for office usage. Features a black-and-white display with a graphical user interface, a speakerphone and a four-way navigation key.
Learn more about Avaya IP DECT Phones
The Avaya G450 Media Gateway provides a scalable, reliable, and secure platform for delivery of Avaya Communication Manager-based IP telephony applications. It is targeted for mid to large sized branch offices, medium sized standalone businesses, or small campus environments.
Business Benefits:
• Robust Resliency features help maintain business continuity
• Deployment Flexibility helps lower Total Cost of Ownership through hardware standardization
• Scalable, High Capacity Platform provides Investment Protection
• Enhanced Serviceability lowers Total Cost of Ownership
• Enhanced Security protects Sensitive Information
Visit Avaya.com for more information about Avaya Media Gateways.