NEW PICADILLY CIRCUS

Hokitika Guardian, 25 January 1929, Page 8

NEW PICADILLY CIRCUS

FOUR YEARS OF WORK. -MARRLE PALACE UNDERGROUND. LONDON, December 11. Three years ago the statue .of Eros in the middle of Piccadilly Circus was removed, and a shaft IS foot wide Was sunk. All that the public have seen of a wonderful engineering feat has' been a timber covering over that IS foot shaft. To-day there is a new Piccadilly Circus beneath the ground. What has been constructed' is the largest underground station in tiie world, ft is capable c'f dealing with 50,000,000 passengers a year and of maintaining a daily service of 7000 trains at a rate of 120 per hour during the rush hours. It has cost £SOO-,000. The station is the acme of underground luxury. One may enter it by any of seven entrances in Piccadilly, and find oneself m a palatial marble ball. Tliis is the booking ball. Oval in shape, it is 155 feet long and 140 feet wide, and it is illuminated by the mellow glow of opal lamps hung from red columns. Between the columns and the outer wall, which is set with showcases and telephone cabinets, giving the impression of a street of shops, is an ambulatory which can he used by the public for crossing the Circus in safety. The floor is of white tiles. T R.A VE R T IN E.M AR ill ,F.. The showcases are oil’ bronze, with a frieze and skirting of Travertin* marble, brought from the quarries at Tivoli which the Romans worked for the material for their temples. In the wall, too. there is set a fascinating apparatus to show how the trains run. Half a dozen dock-like dials indicate the interval which trains are passing through the station. Each train lias to pass over an electrical contact which operates a little printing m°clrne behind each dial. Inside the circle of columns is an array of 2d ticket machines'—these will ultimately be self minting—and behind them a battery of five escalators. The escalators lead to a lower hall, where six other escalators lead to the labyrinth of white tunnels connecting with the platform. By this means the public will roach their trains with a saving of twe minutes and a-lialf compared with the old station. ’ TANGLE OF PIPES, CARLES AND DRAINS. As an engineering achievement the station is certainly one cjf the sights o* London. The engineers had one piece of good fortune in the fact that they found practically no water in the workings. Otherwise their undertakings presented difficulties at almost every stage. The service shaft was sunk tc a depth of 92 ifeet. To-day it contains the only staircase that does not move —a long spiral staircase from the lowest level to the hooking hall. From that shaft all the other operations were carried out and the work proper had t> wait until the area under the circus could he cleared laboriously of flu tangle of pipes, cables, drains and mains which occupied the site wlier< the booking stall is now. The service equipment has now been gathered together and placed in one subway nslarge as the normal railway tube -Measuring 550 feet, it passes round the edge df the circus on an undulatory course, rising and falling to avoid sewers, subways, and other obstructions in its path. MAN POWER. When the four main central columns, each capable of bearing a load of 30!' tons, had been put in position, the work was undertaken of driving out smaller headings to the places where the 50 smaller pillars wore to he set in a double row round the edge of tlv hall. Then began a series of night operations, carried out to a careful schedule, so that some definite detail in the transference of the road weight to steel supports was completed every night when the flow of traffic has fallen to its smallest proportions. The work was done in the confined space of the narrow headings through which groat girders and columns had to he diagged by man-power, with no other tackk than rollers and levers, and at the end rif which they were erected witfi tbr aid only of blocks and falls and jacks. It was arranged so that a definite operation could lie completed every night in the few hours’ lull, s 0 i» smal l sections the work was finished without any interruption or threat to the tiaf flc. The new station is the embodiment of the mechanical spirit of to day. That is probably the impression which the public will 'form of it as they use it from now onward. It makoi easy all tilings they want to do ai travellers, and yet leaves them to dr these things for themselves.