elaborate, the Grand Trunk’s Bonaventure station in Montreal was never a “union” station. Photo courtesy of CNR Archives, 44365.
By contrast, Montreal, Toronto’s metropolitan rival, never had a union station. Like Toronto, Montreal was the hub of many railway lines. The Grand Trunk; the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental; the CPR; and the Canadian Northern all had terminals in or near central Montreal, some more than one. Even as late as the 1920s, after the Canadian National Railway had absorbed the Grand Trunk and Canadian Northern Railways, central Montreal could still count nine stations, four of which belonged to the CPR alone.
The Grand Trunk began operations between Toronto and Montreal in 1856 and constructed a wooden station at the corner of St. Antoine and Bonaventure. Prior to building their magnificent Windsor station, the CPR used the Dalhousie Square station at the end of a spur line into the city centre from the Hochelaga station on its newly acquired QMO and O line. (The Dalhousie Square station has managed to survive and today houses a circus company.)
In downtown Montreal, Windsor Station was the stub station for CPR lines going west, Viger for those leading east. Following its creation in 1918, The Canadian National still maintained the former Grand Trunk Bonaventure Station and the Canadian Northern’s Tunnel Station. Around the periphery of the core the CPR had stations at Westmount, Montreal West, and Mile End, while the CNR stations were on St. Henri and Moreau Street.
Then, in the 1930s, the CNR began to dig up the ground at the site of the Tunnel Station and proposed a union station for Montreal. With two solid downtown stations already in place, the CPR rejected the idea. A depression and a war intervened and the new station remained just a hole in the ground. Finally, following the war, the Gare Centrale opened, but it accommodated only the CNR. Although it is now Montreal’s main railway terminal, it never became a union station.
Named after a nearby village, the flag stop station at Union was never a “union” station. Photo by author.
Vancouver’s first union station was not even Canadian. In 1915 the Great Northern Railway, an American line, opened a large building to replace an earlier shack. For a number of years it shared the building with another American line, the Northern Pacific. By the 1950s passenger traffic had declined to a trickle and the GNR moved in with the CNR in a grand station next door. Then, in 1964, the GNR demolished the remarkable old structure in order to unburden itself of high land taxes.
Ottawa’s first union station was not the better-known structure that stands today as a convention centre, but an earlier station built by the CPR. Designed in its trademark château-esque style, the Broad Street building housed both the CPR and the New York Central Railway. Then, after the Grand Trunk opened its new neo-classical station on the site of the Canada Atlantic Railway station, the CPR shut its Broad Street station and moved into the new building.
Between 1890 and 1920, several Canadian cities gained handsome union stations. A CPR “chateau” replaced two earlier stations in Quebec City, while large “classical” union stations served Thunder Bay, Regina, Halifax, and Saint John, New Brunswick.
North Bay’s stone CPR divisional station (right) replaced the first station (left), which gave birth to the town of North Bay. Photo courtesy of CPR Archives, A 1120.
Size, however, had little to do with a station becoming a union station. The delightful little wooden station at Jarvis, Ontario, hosted the Great Western’s “Air Line” and Hamilton and Lake Erie railways. The Grand Trunk station in Brockville and the Canadian Northern station in Belleville both hosted CPR trains, while the Grand Trunk station in North Bay was also the home base for the Ontario government’s Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway trains. The smallest union station in Canada, however, was that on the London and Port Stanley Railway. About the size of a large outhouse, this “Union” station never served more than one railway line at a time. Rather, it was named after the nearby village of Union.
The “Grand Centrals”: Canada’s Grand Urban Stations
The most specialized stations of them all, those that occupied the top of the pyramid, were the city stations, the “Grand Centrals” of Canada. Indeed, these were cities unto themselves. In them a person could buy a newspaper, have a haircut, and then relax over a seven-course meal served on china and silverware at tables covered with linen cloths. One could spend a day in them and never see a train.
The operations here were complex. With hundreds of trains huffing in and out each day, tracks had to be allocated, baggage sorted and passengers pampered. An army of personnel, two thousand in Toronto’s Union Station alone, bustled along corridors, platforms, and secret passageways to ensure that baggage met the right train, that parcels got to the post office, and that crew members showed up on time. It was a city that never stopped.
In 1915 thirty cents bought a full meal at the Winnipeg station lunch counter. Photo courtesy of CPR Archives, A 1120.
One of the busiest organizations to inhabit the urban station was the Travellers’ Aid Society. This wonderful organization, an offspring of the YWCA and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, helped the hungry and the helpless. On one occasion, staff of the Travellers’ Aid spotted a mother with four children waiting to board a westbound train, carrying only a few loaves of bread to feed themselves. Thanks to the network of Travellers’ Aids, she was cared for throughout her journey. During the war the society helped soften the stark cultural shock suffered by arriving British war brides, and, in the years that followed, they welcomed trainloads of confused immigrants. From a wartime high of one hundred thousand travellers helped, the Travellers’ Aid was helping fewer than five thousand annually less than three decades later.
Among the swirling crowds that converged onto the train platforms were pickpockets and pimps. Young girls fleeing the dead-end monotony of rural Canada were particularly easy prey for the bordello runners. These confused newcomers were susceptible to a smiling face and soothing words that led only to a cruel life of sexual slavery. Pickpockets also found countless victims, as strange surroundings and jostling crowds distracted arriving passengers from the light fingers that dipped into their purse or pocket. But among the crowd was another army, the railway police and security staff, alert and ready to pounce.
With as many as twelve platforms to sort and shuffle trains, switching was no simple matter. In the sprawling yards around the stations, signal towers controlled the all-important shuffling of the right trains onto the right tracks. Although computer technology has greatly simplified the process, signal towers still puncture the skylines of the railway yards at Toronto’s Union Station and in west-end Montreal.
If any Canadian station has changed very little, it is the urban station. Although trains are faster and fewer, Gare Centrale in Montreal and Union Station in Toronto remain as active urban hubs, but with a few new wrinkles. The traveller may still find a meal, a shave, and reading material while electronic voices intone train departures, but they may also shop in a vast underground city of stores and then ride home on a subway, all directly from a station.
Flag Stations
If the urban terminal marked the apex of the pyramid, the flag stations were the base. Passengers travelling on lightly used branch lines, or leaving quiet country areas, were more likely to say their farewells from a flag station than from a busy operator station. Railway companies seldom spent money where it wasn’t necessary and areas that didn’t need operators didn’t get them. Because these
