Wembley Stadium at Wembley Park in 1923. Empire Stadium A purpose-built "great national sports ground", called the Empire Stadium, was built for the Exhibition. This became Wembley Stadium. The first turf for this stadium was cut, on the site of the old tower, on 10 January 1922. 250,000 tons of earth were then removed, and the new structure constructed within 10 months, opening well before the rest of the Exhibition was ready. Designed by John William Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, and built by Sir Robert McAlpine, it could hold 125,000 people, 30,000 of them seated. The building was an unusual mix of Roman imperial and Mughal architecture. Although it incorporated a football pitch, it was not solely intended as a football stadium. Its quarter mile running track, incorporating a 220 yard straight track (the longest in the country) were seen as being at least equally important. The only standard gauge locomotive involved in the construction of the Stadium has survived, and still runs on Sir William McAlpine's private Fawley Hill railway near Henley. Exhibition station Wembley Park station was rebuilt for the British Empire Exhibition and a new station, Exhibition Station (Wembley), was built on a spur to connect the station to Marylebone. Exhibition station opened on 28 April 1923, the day of Wembley Stadium's first FA cup final. It was later renamed Wembley Exhibition, and then, in February 1928, Wembley Stadium. It was only really used to transport spectators to Wembley events. It stopped carrying passengers in May 1968 and officially closed on 1 September 1969. Design and construction The Exhibition presented a creative challenge, in that its concept required a large number of buildings in a variety of styles. This offered the architects a unique opportunity to experiment. To simplify construction, the main building material used for the Exhibition buildings was reinforced concrete, (then called "ferro-concrete"), selected for its speed of construction. Wembley Park thus earned the title of the first "concrete city" the world had ever seen. Like the stadium, the other exhibition buildings were designed by John William Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, assisted by engineer Owen Williams. All three had considerable previous experience of using concrete. Nearly 2,000 men were employed in constructing the Exhibition buildings during 1923-4. The Indian pavilion had towers and domes, the West African pavilion looked like an Arab fort, the Burmese pavilion was a temple and the South African building reflected