THE TWENTY MILLION DOLLAR CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN STATION COMPLETE. View from the southwest. Madison and Clinton Streets. TWENTY MILLIONS FOR A STATION By JOHN ANSON FORD The OW let me see if I have this tendent for the 'I. C.' railroad during story straight"-it was a Civil War times and the story is that in young school mistress who the midst of a big rush of business his was speaking. "You say he division got orders from Washington to sat at the train dispatcher's 'transport those troops at once.' keyboard for thirty-six hours; he personally directed the transportation of those thousands of troops, then just as the whole army had arrived at its destination, an order came to carry it back; and this same young man did not give up until the job was finished. How long did you say he was at his post, seventy-two hours?" "Yes," repeated the man of affairs. who had been relating the incident, "that young fellow was a division superin overworked train dispatchers went all to pieces and the rest of the trainmen had a panic. Things looked pretty blue. But one fellow kept his head-the division superintendent. He sat down at the dispatcher's key, rolled off those trains one by one, and never gave up, they say, until every Yankee soldier was past the last switch. Then, like lightning out of a clear sky, came the order 'Move troops back at once.' Was that fellow floored? Not much! He did not AMPLE PROVISION IS MADE IN THE TRAIN SHEDS FOR ENGINE SMOKE AND SKYLIGHTS. of the entire road. His name was Marvin Hughitt, and for the past twentyfour years he has been president of the Chicago and Northwestern road. The other day he retired at the age of 73 to become chairman of its board of directors." The brains, perseverance and natural force combined in the person of Marvin Hughitt have been the chief factor in the phenomenal success of this transportation system which has spread over the northwest. Without such success it would not be able today to spend $24,000,000 in perfecting its terminal facil pedestrians pass over the narrow Fifth Avenue bridge daily, most of them to and from the depot, with the result that traffic is terribly congested during rush hours. As the main stream of the Chicago river has been an obstacle to pedestrians going to and from the depot, so North Branch of the river has been an unending cause of delay, as all Northwestern trains must cross a jack-knife bridge spanning it. Trains to the new terminal will not cross the river. In the office of one of the high officials of the road there has stood for months, on a great oak easel, a huge architect's THE STATION WITH TRAIN SHEDS. AS SEEN FROM THE NORTH. sketch of the new terminal, a beautiful portrayal in colors. Even before the wrecking crews had begun to clear the thirty-seven acres of city property to make way for this mammoth structure and its approaches, directors and messenger boys alike would steal up to the eighth floor of the general offices on Jackson Boulevard to admire that sketch. To them it was more beautiful than a copper etching or Turner landscape, and each one felt that he was helping make it possible. The great station with its six gigantic Doric columns is now a reality, and within a few weeks the millions of suburban and transcontinental passengers who formerly crowded up and down "the annex" stairs or through the old station, will be hurrying through the exquisite marble corridors of Chicago's newest and greatest portal to the west. Entering the building from Madison Street, one passes huge granite columns sixty-one feet high and finds himself in the public concourse, occupying a large part of the street-level floor. Here also are the ticket offices, information bureau, tele graph offices, baggage rooms, etc. The groined arches remind one of the crypts beneath the cathedrals of Durham or York. Mounting the majestic staircase one stands in the great waiting room, the most striking feature of the building. Its barrel-vaulted ceiling rises forty or fifty feet above one's head, like the nave of St. Peters. It is supported on either side by highly polished pillars of Greek Cappolino marble. The walls are of dull finished pink Tennessee marble and contrast strikingly with the green of the pillars. Semi-circular windows sixty feet in diameter light the room from either end and ten smaller lunettes pierce the vault on either side. The ceiling and walls are fitted with incandescent lamps, aggregating 75,000 candle power. The waiting room is directly connected with the train platforms, of which there are eight, with a combined length of over 7,000 feet. The sixteen tracks are covered by roofs of steel and cement, with a total area of over six acres, making it one of the largest in the world. The total area of the terminal in question is almost identical with the total area of A CORNER OF THE GREAT WAITING ROOM-UNCOMPLETED. Highly polished pillars of Greek Cappolino marble-green in color-support a barrel-vaulted ceiling. the arches of which are of pink Tennessee marble. the new Pennsylvania terminal in New York. In the general offices of the road on Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, there is a good deal more than the architect's water color to guide the terminal engineers. The eighth floor is given over almost wholly to the engineering department and in the days when draftsmen were preparing the detailed sketches for terminal construction work half a hundred men were needed for the task. In a very real sense the atmosphere in this department is "blue." Here are blue prints showing details of 530 working levers for high and dwarf signals, for switches, double slip switch points and movable frogs. Here are blue prints of the eighteen miles of tracks, included in the terminal section and the west and north approaches; here one can learn the location of the 186 caissons which were sunken, many of them 120 below the terminal to solid rock. There are all of these things and thousands more that the average man does not understand. But there is one man who does understand that is W. C. Armstrong, terminal engineer. After the "boys" of the engineering office have gone home, you can find him still at his desk; often he is poring over those blue prints. He is not given to talking about himself, this great engineer upon whom rests the responsibility for this costly terminal. "Yes," he said, leaning back in his chair and looking mildly at his questioner from under shaggy eye-brows, "I presume it does look like a big proposition to build a terminal such as ours and I suppose it is, but it does not seem very big. You see we began a long while ahead," he said slowly, "and then did one thing at a time." Unconsciously he had revealed |