The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-05-14
'ATLANTA'S STATION
WILL OPEN TODAY
Handsome New Structure Has
Cost S1,5QO,000
IS OF BEAUTIFUL DESIGN
Old Station Will Not Go Out of Com
mission Altogether, As Some
Roads VIII Use 1t For
Several Years Yet.
IS OF BEAUTIFUL DESIGN

Atlanta. May l)-Atlanta'
new union passenger station. Mt Mitchell
street and Madison avenue, will be for
maly opened for incoming and outgoing
passenger trains on Sunday morning,
May a. Mt $40 O'clock The first train to
| ignore the old union station and pass on
to the new one to discharge passengers,
mail baggage and express, will be South
ern train No. IS from New York which
Is due to arrive in the city at that hour,
and from that time all trains arriving
over the Southern railway. the Central
of Georgia and the tlanta and West
Point. will make the new station their
stopping point
While the old station will by no means
go out of business, for 1t will continue
to receive the trains of the Seaboar6 Air
Line. the Western and Atlantic the
Louisville and Nashville and the Georgia
railroad, more than half of It's present
life and actively will disappear and the
lively monday scenes incident to the
rival and departure of the New York
vestibule and other trains, will be trans
ferred from the center of the city to
point half a mile away and rather out
of the business section.
This change will prove awkward at first
as the people have been accustomed for
the past half century and more. ever
since Atlanta came into existence, to
getting on ana off trains right in the
heart of the city OF course they will
accustom themselves to new conditions
readily as they always do but 1t will
take little time to get used to a depot
60, ha hot oil nd 6p ma
residence section.
Beautiful Architectural Design.
Atlanta's new depot is a beautiful archi-
tectural design. 1t is practically perfect
in its appointments, and is no doubt, the
finest and best equipped passenger sta
ton south of Washington and st. Louis.
The waiting rooms. baggage room, restau
rant, offices and other adjuncts are in
separate building adjoining the train shed,
and the latter is 20 arranged that the
passenger walks right from the depot
to the platform by which his train Is
standing without crossing a track ex-
cept overheard and thereby avoiding all
danger. There are twelve tracks under
this train shed, but owing to the great
length of the shed more than this number
of trains can be accommodated as two
short trains especially where they are
going In different directions can occupy
the same track.
The continued use of the old passenger
station by the roads named is necessitated
by the fact that the Nashville, Chatta-
nooga and ST Louis has a lease on the
| Western and Atlantic railroad the prop
| erty of the state which has about fifteen
! years to run. and the other lines have
contracts with the lessee which they pre-
| Ter to carry out Ultimately, however It
is believed all passenger trains coming
! 20 tI,o al will hn fhatr
stopping point, though that time may yet
be decade off.
Cost $1,5oo,ooo.
! The new station, including the ground
upon which it is located was built at a
cost of 81, 500, 600. 1t is returned to the state
for taxes at 100000 while the value placed
| on the franchs- of the Atlanta Terminal
| company which built and will control it,
! is only 5000.
/ An army of employees all in green uni
! forms will swarm ;,bout the new sta
! ton. These number nearly 200 from sta
ton master down to scrub women. j.
d. Patterson an old and efficient South
d ern railway conductor, has been appointed
/ station master while w h. Blount will
! be night station master. D. b. Howard,
/ recently with the city ticket office of the
/ Atlanta and West Point, has been made
| baggage master and w. c. Wilson, chief
| operator. D. X. Hickey, LOT iols llhe
| in charge of Southern and West Point
dining ears, will have charge of the
restaurant and f.. w. Carter, former
| ticket agent at the old station will have
charge of the ticket office at the new
one President C. A. Wickersham of the
| Atlanta and West Point railroad Is chair
man of the depot board of control.
The new depot was built by the three
| roads named only after the railroads
entering the city had failed to make an
| agreement with the state for the con-
struetion of a new passenger station upon
| It's property in the center of the city.
low the efforts to secure new station