Semi-weekly herald., 1912-12-19
THE WORLDS LARGEST
RAILROAD STATION

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tral station of the New York Contra
and Hudson River railroad. is nearl,
completed and may be considered II
the nature of a magnificent anC
princely holiday gift to the city
When fully completed the station,
with the additional improvements in
the form of office buildings, hotels
etc, will represent a cost of $780,
100000. 1t viii be by far the largest
railroad terminal station in the world
and will be able to accommodate with
out congestion 10000 outgoing pas
sengers per hour.
The gigantic work now almost com
pieted was begun in the spring of
last year and constitutes a remarka-
bic triumph of engineering skill and
enterprise. 1t would have been u
comparatively simple matter to tear
down the old terminal station and the
buildings connected with it and TO
erect upon the same site the new
terminal with all its magnificent con-
comitants in the form of skyscraper
hotels, office buildings, etc, had it not
been imperative to do the work with
out interruption of or interference
with the traffic of the railway, To
replace the antiquated structure with
n new one, however. without the
slightest interference with the enor-
nous traffic everlast.ngly going on nt
this terminal required engineering
skill and ingenuity of the highest or
der. The completion of such tre-
mendous task under the given condi-
tions would probably have been con-
sidered impossible anywhere else.
Hirhe preliminary work was begun
several years ago, when part Of the
passenger traffic was transferred to
a temporary station on Lexington,
avenue. Then several of the auxiliary
buildings and the office building on
Forty-second street were built and
the Grand Central Palace building.
north of the terminal, begun about
three years ago, was completed The
work on the terminal proper was not
begun until the spring of last year,
when the old terminal building was
torn down to make room for the new
structure, now almost completed. In
its outward appearance it is an i'm
posing structure, facing Forty-second
street and resembling more . puhlic
museum or library building than :.
railroad terminal in its architectural
beauty and magnificent proportions.
The terminal building is located on
the north side of Forty-second street,
between Vanderbilt avenue and Depew
place, rests upon terrace elevated
above the level of the street and its
main floor is reached from the street
by means of numerous inclined planes
The structure, above the ground, has a
length of 900 feet, a width of 300 feet
and rises to height of 105 feet But
only small part of the entire ter
minal structure is above ground. ByI
far the largest part of the terminal
is underground, distributed over seven
different levels, the lowest at depth
of more than fifty feet below the
street level.
The old terminal with its office
buildings, sheds, etc, covered an area
of twenty three acres, while the new
terminal with its additional improve
ments will cover seventy-nine acres,
with trackage of seventy acres. For
the construction of the building and
ub-structure 1lS,600 tons of steel and
more than 100000 cubic yards of con
crete were required.
The terminal building was planned
with view of facilitating as much
as possible the tremendous passenger
traffic going on there at all seasons Of
the year. With that object in view
the express train service and the su-
burban train service were placed upon
different levels, with separate waiting
rooms, each large enough to accom-
modate from 5000 to $4,000 persons
at one time. The tracks are located
on levels below the levels Of the wait
ing rooms and are reached by 3 to 4
per cent inclines. Steps are avoided
in every part of the terminal which
is used by the travelling public and
this constitutes remarkable feature
of the new building. Below the gen
eral concourse, which is upon the
same level as the terrace upon which
the building rests, is the suburban
concourse, each connected with Sc
ries of large and commodious wait
ing rooms and rest rooms on the one
side, with the lower track levels on
the other. There are entrances for
pedestrians on three sides Of the
building, for vehicles on two sides and
the lower levels are connected by un-
derground passages with the various
subway and street railway systems
centering around the terminal. Pas
sengers arriving at the station will
not be compelled to leave the protec-
tion of the building to reach any Of
the subway or other street railway
lines to take them to their destina.