The structural retrofit is still in progress at King Street Station. The new seismic steel installation will help the station withstand future earthquakes. The series of pictures below capture some of the activities that have been taking place.
In this picture below, the interior original columns are being wrapped with thick steel for greater strength. Thus, a new support system is built around the original ones.
The work to preserve the exterior brick-covered historic columns is quite amazing. Workers need to saw along each side of the columns in order to add the steel so that the original columns are not disturbed. Wooden formwork is erected and holds grout used to infill around new steel.
Each new 30 foot long continuous steel column is lifted into place by an “air tugger” connected to a pulley system on the floor above. The steel plating is then welded onto these beams encapsulating the column.
Watch this video for a peek at this work: