Next up the pyramid were the regional headquarters. More wide-ranging in function than divisional stations, these housed the railway bureaucracy. To administer the complicated business of running a railway, they divided the country into regions, each with its own headquarters. Station plans were often devised in the regional headquarters. Here, too, executives huddled in panelled boardrooms while department heads tallied statistics for the year.
While stations were usually part of the headquarters building, they were secondary at best. The CPR’s Windsor Station in Montreal, originally the national head office, the Algoma Central’s Bruce Street in Sault Ste Marie, and the Newfoundland Railway’s St. John’s terminal are all examples of station/headquarters. By contrast, the handsome limestone head office of the Ontario Northland Railway in North Bay never contained a station, the railway sharing a station with CN elsewhere in town.
Many divisional yards remain in use across Canada, as do their historic divisional stations. Although in many cases those functions have been reduced, or ceased, these stations still stand in places like Senneterre in Quebec, Schreiber, Kenora, and Thunder Bay (Fort William CP) in Ontario, and Wynyard, Humboldt, and Wainwright in Saskatchewan. In other instances, while the yards remain, the histrionic stations no longer survive, having been replaced with newer structures.
Special Stations
Commuter Stations
The success of Ontario’s GO commuter system and Montreal’s SCTUM are really nothing new. More prevalent in the United States, where urban sprawl had despoiled the landscape even in the 1860s, commuter stations began to appear in Canada toward the end of the nineteenth century. In Fredericton, New Brunswick, workers would cluster in the pre-dawn at the Queen Street station to board the train that would take them to the mills at Marysville. At 8:30 a.m. the same train would return to Fredericton filled with restless students for the high school.
TOP: One of Toronto’s suburban stations was this delightful station at Davenport. Photo courtesy of City of Toronto archives, Salmon, 1057A. BOTTOM: In 1913 the Toronto Belt Line’s commuter station at Moore Park reflected the upscale neighbourhood that surrounded it. The line lasted only months. Photo courtesy of the Metro Toronto Reference Library, T 12185.
During the 1880s and 1890s, when Montreal was becoming a booming port, commuter lines radiated out from the city, north to suburbs like Mount Royal and Roxboro, and west to places like Westmount, Beaconsfield, Valois, and Pointe-Claire.
Suburban lines were initially less successful around Toronto — one was a failure nearly from the day it commenced operations. In 1888, a group of Toronto land speculators, anxious to encourage a housing boom around the city, built the Toronto Beltline Railway. Large, elaborate stations were built at Moore Park and Lambton Mills while smaller structures appeared in Forest Hill beside Bathurst Street, at Fairbanks beside Dufferin Street, at Lambton Mills near Scarlet Road, and at Rosedale in the Don Valley. Rather than radiate from the core of the city, the line ignored commuting patterns and encircled it. It failed within two years and was leased to the Grand Trunk for freight operation. Short sections continued as CN freight stubs until the 1970s. Of the six stations, none have survived and only three — Moore Park, Lambton Mills, and Davenport (Bathurst Street) — were even photographed. Moore Park burned following the Second World War, Rosedale burned around the same time, while the station at Lambton Mills stood as a residence until the 1960s.
The early CNR industrial station at Leaside is now privately owned. Photo by author.
Like Montreal, a number of Toronto’s main line stations served double duty as commuter stations. Those at Main Street (known as York), Riverdale, St. Clair, Sunnyside, Davenport, two at West Toronto, and two at Parkdale, all served this function.
A brief commuter service on Vancouver Island once shuttled wealthy lakeside residents from Shawinigan Lake into Victoria to work, but the service was dropped in 1907.
The early Great Western station at Niagara Falls holds an Amtrak train for its customs inspection while a VIA train waits to head back to Toronto. Photo by author.
Industrial Stations
Although fewer in number than commuter stations, another form of special station was the industrial station. These were never intended to be passenger stations, nor did they offer the range of functions of the way stations. They were intended purely to control the heavy rail traffic in and out of industrial complexes.
The Clarabelle station near Sudbury was one. Originally a way station on the Algoma Eastern Railway, it became an industrial station when the CPR acquired that line, stubbed it, and turned it into an industrial spur to serve the huge nickel smelters. Because of the enormous flow of traffic, the station became one of the busiest in Canada. In the 1980s the old wooden structure was replaced by one of aluminum, serving only as a shelter for maintenance workers.
In 1912, the CNoR laid out a huge industrial and residential area northeast of Toronto’s then urban fringe. It would later develop into the upscale village of Leaside, one of Canada’s first railway-planned towns. To access the industries, the railway obtained running rights over CPR trackage and, in the shadow of the factories, built an industrial station. A functional but solid brick building, CN’s Leaside station retained its railway function until the early 1980s before becoming a retail office. That structure now serves as an office for Safe Passage Canada. Meanwhile, the CNoR’s former engine repair shop, long abandoned, was designated as a heritage building and now houses a Longo’s supermarket. Much of the interior still reflects its original purpose.
Special Operations
Some special stations were added for specific operational functions. Port Union, Ontario, a small lake port, sat at the base of steep grades in both directions. Engines strained to haul long trains up the hills. To ease the operation, the Grand Trunk built a station and yards to store special helper engines that supplemented the power of the regular engines. While a new GO station stands nearby, the site of the GTR station and yards have been replaced by new suburban development.
The Canadian Northern station in Rainy River Ontario was built at the border with Minnesota. Photo by author.
Customs Stations
With the world’s longest undefended border existing between Canada and the US, dozens of railway lines once crossed from one country into the other. Customs and revenue procedures needed to be followed. All border crossings therefore needed facilities for customs and revenue officers, even though the stations may not be needed for revenue or operational purposes. At many of the prairie crossings, stations literally sat across the invisible line from each other. Solid brick customs stations built by the Canadian Northern Railway occupied opposite sides of the Rainy River, in Baudette, Minnesota, and Rainy River, Ontario.
Lacolle, Quebec, boasts a unique castle-like station built by the Delaware and Hudson Railway. Being a customs point for incoming US tourists, the company splurged on a chateau-esque stone “castle” that they believed would give their passengers a flavour of old Quebec.
Possibly the widest range of uses found in what was otherwise a simple small-town station were those contained in the White Pass and Yukon Route railway station in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Built from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900, the railway actually crossed into Canada near a place called Carcross. However, because most travellers were bound for Whitehorse, the customs offices were located there. Possibly to conveniently apprehend miscreant