Toronto’s first Union Station was a passenger rail station located west of York Street at Station Street, south of Front Street in downtown Toronto. It was built by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and opened in 1858.
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Toronto’s first Union Station was a passenger rail station located west of York Street at Station Street, south of Front Street in downtown Toronto. It was built by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and opened in 1858.
Railways arrived in Toronto in 1853, when the first passenger train left Toronto from a wooden depot located near Bay and Front Streets. [1] This was the line of the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railway. [1] This was followed in 1855 by Great Western Railways (GWR), which connected Toronto to the west along the waterfront, [2] from a station at the Queen's Wharf. [3] The Grand Trunk Railway completed its Montreal–Toronto mainline one year later. The three railways now converged at the Toronto waterfront, a narrow strip of land south of Front Street. They were forced to share the limited real estate available. [2]
As a consequence, the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) built the first union station in Toronto in 1858 at a location just west of the present Union Station train shed. [4] The location was landfill, south-west of Front and York Streets, then the intersection of York Street and The Esplanade along the water. [5] The station consisted of three wooden structures and was initially shared with the Northern Railway of Canada (as the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron was renamed) and the Great Western Railway, although both railways had already built their own stations along the Toronto waterfront. [2] It was Canada's first union station. [2]
It opened on June 21, 1858, known simply as the "New Station". [5] [6] Three GTR trains departed daily to the east (to Montreal and Kingston) and two to the west (through Guelph, Berlin and Stratford). [5]
In 1864, delegates from the Charlottetown and Quebec City conferences on the Canadian Confederation were welcomed at this station by a huge crowd which then escorted the delegates to the Queen's Hotel on Front Street. [6] In 1866, the Great Western opened its own station at Yonge Street. [7] It was the first station in Toronto to provide a covered train shed. [7] In 1867, the Northern opened its City Hall station at Jarvis Street. [8]
By the 1870s, the 1858 station was inadequate. The station was demolished in 1871 and a temporary station was used while the Grand Trunk built a much larger, second Union Station at the same location, opening in 1873. [9] [2] The other railways continued to use their own stations but stopped at the Union Station as a courtesy to passengers.
The location of the railway station is now buried under the 17 feet (5.2 m)-high railway viaduct on the western approach to the current Union Station. [9]
Union Station is a major railway station and intermodal transportation hub in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The station is located in downtown Toronto, on Front Street West, on the south side of the block bounded by Bay Street and York Street. The municipal government of Toronto owns the station building while the provincial transit agency Metrolinx owns the train shed and trackage. It is operated by the Toronto Terminals Railway, a joint venture of the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, which directs and controls train movement along the Union Station Rail Corridor, the largest and busiest rail corridor in Canada. Constructed in 1927, Union Station has been a National Historic Site of Canada since 1975, and a Heritage Railway Station since 1989.
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, United Kingdom. It cost an estimated $160 million to build. The Grand Trunk system and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of today's Canadian National Railway.
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Toronto’s second Union Station was a passenger rail station located west of York Street at Station Street, south of Front Street in downtown Toronto. It was built by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and opened in 1873, replacing the GTR's first Union Station, located at the same location.
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