New heritage-style information cube at Wellington Station
Wellington Station concourse is now sporting its brand-new information cube in the shape of a totem, filled to the brim with news on the extensive upcoming rail projects.
The totem gives rail passengers a thorough understanding of what is being done and why, and the benefits that rail projects will deliver to train users and the wider community. Projects under the Future Rail programme of work – one of Metlink and KiwiRail’s long-term plans.
You can expect to see information such as an outline of the Wellington Metro Upgrade which will add capacity and increase resilience on the Wellington rail network.
This project will have significant long-term benefits for reliability, and will increase capacity for passenger and freight trains. The totem will also explain how and when work will be delivered and how long disruptions will last.
A lot went into the design of the totem.
A heritage architect was involved upfront to ensure it was in line with the style of Wellington Station. The tiles surrounding the bottom half have been digitally printed, to match the station’s existing heritage tiles, and the fonts used match the platform numbers and ticketing signage. The totem really does feel like “part of the furniture”!
The construct is an impressive piece of engineering.
A trap door exposes the totem’s wheels, allowing it to be moved around as required, while also ensuring the station floor wouldn’t be affected by more traditional ways of securing a structure such as this.
The information “real estate” includes one large A1 poster holder, six A3 poster holders, tonnes of room for informational brochures, and some helpful station directory information for good measure.
The marketing material will be updated frequently, informing rail users of upcoming works, and reflecting on how far we’ve come with these large programmes of work. We look forward to people understanding more about what’s to come on Wellington’s rail network.