Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-03-28
CAPITALS UNION DEPOT
Fine Features of Washington's
 Vast Railway Station.
R1oH IN ARTISTIC ARRANGEMENT

R1OH IN ARTISTIC ARRANGEMENT Structure Is to De Model of Terminal
 Facilities and Architecture-Main
 Building VIII Be Built of White
 Granits-Gensral Waiting Room to
 Be One of the Finest In the Land.
 One of the largest and most inn portant piece of railroad work now in progress in the country is the cree tion of a new Union station in Wash ington and the construction of the necessary approaches to 1t, says the New York Tribune. These terminal improvements will cost about $16,0OO,- 900, and the Baltimore and Ohio rail road will bear large proportion of the expense. In addition it will have to lay a lot of new tracks and make other improvements required in the new terminal scheme, involving an expendi- ture of about $4,000,000. This means that the Baltimore and Ohio railroad will spend about S10,O0O,00O on the en- tire work. The present expectation is that the work will be completed by the fall of 1906, and one of the greatest achievements and benefits will be the elimination of every grade crossing, as all tracks will go either over or under the street crossings. The terminal i'm provements are being made by the Bal timore and Ohio railroad and the Penn sylvania railroad.
 The new station will be of monu- mental design and will stand on low ground at Massachusetts and Dela- ware avenues. It's construction in- wolves some decided changes in street grades. To simplify these changes to some extent a plaza 800 feet wide by 1000 feet long will be formed in front of the building. It will be decorated with balustrades, terraces and foun- tains. To form the plaza and bring the streets to the proposed new level will require about 75,OOO cubic yards of earth, the fill being thirty-five feet over . considerable area. Nine streets will lead into the grounds, three of which will be new and two modified to better fit the plaza scheme. Through these radiating streets and avenues large crowds will be able to enter or leave the station without difficulty, while the plaza will provide ample space for massing troops and taking care of the crowds upon occasions of public cere- monies.
 The station will face the dome of the capitol and be less than half a mile from 1t. The architectural treatment will be in keeping with it's character as the vestibule or gateway to the Capi- tai City. With this view its architec- tural motives have been drawn from the triumphal arches of Rome. The main building will he 6o0 feet long and from 85 to 120 feet in height. It Is be- ing built of white granite. The three entrance arches will be fifty feet In height and thirty feet in width. These central doorways will lead into an open air vestihule and thence into the main waiting room. At the end pavilions will be two forty-foot arched carriage entrances, one leading to suit of apartments for the president of the United States and his guests and the other to a general carriage porch near the ticket and baggage lobby. The cen tral vestibule and the paviliOns are connected by an open air portico and constitute a continuous covered porch along the front of the entire building.
 The general waiting room will be one of the finest in the country. It will be 20 feet long by 130 feet wide and GOV. cred with Roman barrel vault 90 feet high that will be decorated with sunk en coffers or panels after the man. ner of the baths of Diocletian. Plenty of natural light will be supplied by a semicircular window at each end sev- enty-five feet in diameter and by five semicircular windows thirty feet across on each side. At the east end of this hall will be the dining room, lunch room and women's waiting room. At the west end on opposite sides of lob by fifty feet wide are to be the ticket offices and baggage checking room, with the smoking room and package room adjacent. Telephone and tele- graph booths will be provided in the general waiting room. The baggage room will be in the basement and reached from the west side of the sta ton. To avoid conflict between pas sengers and baggage on the train plat forms certain platforms will be set aside exclusively for use in handling baggage.
 The passenger concourse, or lobby, will be 700 feet long and 130 feet wide and will be covered by an arched cell ing in . single span decorated with panels, part of which will transmit the light. The lobby will be divided by the usual fence, providing width of about eighty feet for handling outgo. ing passengers, while the remaining if. ty feet between the fence and ends of the tracks will afford ample facilities for the passengers arriving on trains The train yard will be 76o feet wide.
 The new freight terminal is being constructed at New York and Florida avenues. The passenger yards and shops will be east of the freight ter minal and consist of joint passenger coach yard. roundhouse. shops, engine yards and repair tracks. Two tracks between the terminal train yard and