The 1897 klinkhamer canopy

By the mid-1890's the political and economic trends in South Africa were being determined by events on the Witwatersrand. The Golden City, enjoying all this economic activity, was rapidly outgrowing its' rail facilities: Park Station and Braamfontein Yard could no longer cope with the onslaught of passengers and goods from all directions.

Over the next four years the area between Park Halt and the main station at Braamfontein was transformed into a huge railway goods yard with large sheds, a locomotive depot with sufficient facilities and a new station for Johannesburg. With the introduction of steam locomotives, travellers from Europe could reach Johannesburg within four weeks.

The ZAR government commissioned a well-known Dutch architect, Jacob Klinkhamer, who had designed a number of stations in the Netherlands, to design a station befitting the new financial capital of Southern Africa. Klinkhamer's design was not built in full, but the canopy which arose was a fine example of the most advanced nineteenth-century building technology.

The canopy was an elegant cast-iron steel and glass structure, manufactured in Rotterdam and imported to Johannesburg, where it was carefully assembled to cover platforms two and three.

The buildings under the canopy - telegraph offices, bar, restaurant, waiting rooms, a tobacco and sweet shop - showed the pride in workmanship of the times. American pinewood on white sandstone base for exteriors, teakwood panelling and marble floors for the interior, marble fireplaces, artistic ceilings and coloured lead glass panes for the doors were the order of the day. Temporary structures for baggage and ticket offices had to be erected on the west end when work on the main station building was suspended. In line with the NZASM's execution of the State's laws, the design included two separate buildings as waiting rooms for 'coloureds', meaning black people. When the work was finally completed in May 1897, Johannesburg had the beginnings of a station which in contemporary building terms did the city proud. Increased tension between the ZAR government in Pretoria and the 'Uitlanders', as the community of foreign miners in Johannesburg was called, the Jameson Raid in 1896 and the outbreak of the South African War in October 1899 put a stop to all further developments at the station. The NZASM's efforts to shake off the digger tin town image with the new station were not entirely successful.

What happened to the 1897 station?

Its' design, which was based on the principle that the structure had various components which were assembled according to instructions, much like a children's Meccano set, saved it from destruction. In 1952, as part of the renewal of Park, the steel canopy was carefully dismantled, transported and re-assembled at Esselen Park, a training centre for railway personnel. In 1995 the old structure was once again dismantled and re-erected in Newtown, Johannesburg, to be used as a railway museum.

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