The following article on the history of the Port Elizabeth Railway Station was originally published in the October 1986 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). It formed part of a larger piece titled "The coming of the Railway to the Cape". Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.
The aesthetic appearance and the functional lay-out of passenger stations in the longer established cities in Europe became a new challenge to architects and civil engineers alike in the last century. Passenger termini are composed essentially of two elements, firstly the platforms and railtracks in the arrival and departure hall and secondly the station entrance building, in which the booking hall, waiting rooms, baggage room, buffet, restaurant and shops are normally all situated at ground level. This is a convenient arrangement for passengers and staff, providing quick and easy movement between the platforms and the facilities in the entrance building.
The first major railway terminal in South Africa was completed in Cape Town in 1878, fifteen years after the railway to Wellington had been opened. It was designed by Mr A.W. Ackerman, architect and civil engineer, who had arrived at the Cape from England in 1875. He had left the Government Service in 1878 to start his own practice in Cape Town. The station, designed in the Victorian style of the period, served the public for more than eighty years, only being replaced...
