И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT В. REBUILDING
THE BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET STATION

(1) The Birmingham New Street Station was built as far back as 1854. While erecting the building the designers gave particular attention to its outward appearance. Being richly decorated, however, the station in many respects was not convenient for passengers. Moreover, in the course of time as the number of arriving trains increased the station building could not cope with the growing flow of passengers. So the terminal had to be rebuilt.

(2) The new Birmingham Station is of recent construction. Wide application of modern materials for finishes enabled the designers to make the building remarkably attractive. Unlike the old station the new one has been greatly expanded (расширять). No wonder that a large volume of work was involved in its reconstruction. The whole process of con­struction being mechanized, the hard labour of the workers was greatly facilitated. The rebuilding" of the station was considerably speeded up thanks to a wide application of prefabricated units.
(3) Both the tracks and the platforms are now located below the street level. A great concrete building erected above them is supported by more than 200 columns. Large double glass doors lead to the main hall with the information centre, the ticket office, the waiting-rooms and other con­veniences for passengers. In order to get to the platforms the passengers use escalators. Now the Birmingham New Street Station is regarded one of the most remarkable railway terminals in Britain.
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TEXT С. THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF THE KURSKY TERMINAL IN MOSCOW

(1) As is known, all the nine railway terminals in Moscow were erected many years ago. As they were unable to cope with the increased flow of passengers, some of them were reconstructed whereas others are to be rebuilt in the near future.

(2) The Kursky terminal was the first to be reconstructed. While designing the new building the civil engineers and architects faced a lot of problems which were to be solved in order to make the terminal convenient for passengers and attractive. One of the, most important tasks was to make it capable of servicing a great flow of passengers going to the Black Sea Coast. For this purpose the main hall was considerably expanded, and now it can accommodate up to 6,000 passengers.
(3) The travelling public is provided with numerous con­veniences: the information centre, the waiting-rooms, the restaurant, a large number of automatic baggage cells (камера хранения багажа), etc. There are enough ticket windows so that passengers can reserve tickets in a few minutes.
(4) The station handles now about 40,000 long-distance passengers and 750,000 suburban passengers daily. The designers provided for different platforms to service subur­ban and long-distance passengers thus facilitating the problem of train operation.
(5) Being finished with glass and aluminium, the new building of the Kursky terminal is now regarded one of the most remarkable and modern buildings in Moscow.