The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-01
OFFICES FOR THE RAILROADS.

VI 1OE10 FUN IlA1lkINOAOO.
Other rooms on the main floor are retir-
ing roora for women, % by 34l5 feet; wom-
ems layatory, 40 by IA feet; restaurant, c.
by 70 feet; barber shop, 3 by 42ta feet;
smoking room, 81 by 60 feet; mems lavatory
30 by 70 feet; parcel room, AZ by 81 feet and
| carriage offices, kitchens, lunch counters
news stands, ETC.
In the upper part of the main building are
offices for the terminal company and the
railroads which will use the station, permit
ting them to abandon their present offices
altogether.
II the midway, which is the one-hundred-
foot-wide space between the headhouse and
the gates leading to the trains, are a num-
| Der Of wide stairways leading to the SubSta-
ton. In this substation are baggage rooms
ticket offices, waiting rooms, ETC., making
1t complete for the work it will have to do
From the outside the building presents a
quiet and d1gnlf1ed appearance. Its principal
attractions are presented in the rounding
} portion at the junction of Sumner and Cove
streets. The first two stories are simple
strong treatment Of masonry, the only rich
| ness being at the three great arches of the
main entrance. At the level of the third
floor begins the great colonnade of columns,
four and a half feet in diameter and reach
ing up to the cornice of the building. This
| colonnade extends across the whole width
or the circular portion, rs feet.
The train shed is the great feature of the
statron. Here the most absorbing problems
! have been met by the engineers and solved
Ii is probable that nowhere in America are
| Such populouS suburbs extending in so many
| directions. Therefore study had TO be made
| for the greatest development of trackage,
taking into consideration the high cost OF
real estate IN this section. In the 1our OLD
| stations about twenty-five tracks were in
| use and greatly oVertaxed. The largest num-
| Der OF tracks that the new station can con-
| tain is only thirty-one, no more than the
| number needed at once, and not permitting
of future growth.
|
| loops in the substation, it being well known
| that the greatest speed can be obtained by
| means of these instead of switches, which
most terminals are obliged to use. The low
| er level Of the new station will be used ex-
| clusively for suburban service, and the
| trains, of about three cars each, will run
! into it from either side, swing around the
| loops to the platforms, be loaded and sent
away again. These loop tracks will begin
| the descent to the lower level about half a
mile from the station, and can, if necessary
| run one-minute Roadway. Fourteen
| trains Of three cars each can be loaded al
one time and allowing four minutes to un-
! load and load two thousand trains can be
| handled in eighteen hours.
| OF course, steam could not be used in this
| substation on account of the smoke ano
! gases from the locomotives, but the third
| rail system has been so far developed and
| successfully used in and about Boston fol
| some years that it will for the present be
| employed in the suburban service, the same
| tracks and cars being used for both steam
| and electric power AS the tracks in the
| iIldin Sii6Q are IlOIe anu IUOIt CTOWueu IIOkt
and more trains will be equipped with the
| third-rail motors and run from the sub
| station until in a few years it is expected
! that all the suburban traffic from the south
| station will be handled in this way. The
| tracks in the train shed will suffice fol
| through business for many years to come
! certainly half a century.
This train shed is in three spans, with g
roof of one sweep. which, with the roofs over
| the baggage houses and one over the mid
! way, gives a roof area of more than 700 by
| go feet.
The switch system will be governed by the
| men in the towers through the pneumatic
! system of interloclxing, and accidents within
| the station or its yards will be well-nigh i'm
| possible.
| Until now cosmopolitan Bombay. in far
away India, has boosted OF the largest rail-
! road station in the world. The next in rank
! has been the one opened last year in St
! Louis. Then come the big union stations in
| London and Glasgow, with others trailing
/ in the rear.