Vacation in Canada, eh? 6: The Promise of the Train
A few embers of the great age of rail still glow in our railway stations and hotels
By Peter Coffman
And a train rolls out of the station
That was really something in its day
Picking up speed on the straight prairie rails
As it carries the passengers away
It’s gone, it’s only a dream
And it’s fading now, fading away
Only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay
(Neil Young, “It’s a Dream”)
Geography has always been one of Canada’s biggest challenges. We have a population of just over 40 million, spread across 10 million square kilometres (compare that to England, which has nearly 50% more people in less than 2% of the area). The first systematic attempt to meet that challenge was the railway. The train, and only the train, could move goods and people across the vast dominion. It promised to help forge a nation from Canada’s disparate regions. It promised to make it possible for us to meet each other, do business with each other, and prosper together. It promised opportunity, adventure, and, for those who could afford it, even luxury.
A few embers of that promise still glow in the railway stations and hotels bequeathed to us by the great age of rail.
Here’s a personal, unsystematic, and unapologetically romantic take on a few of them.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
For Canadians traveling east by rail, Halifax is and always was the end of the line. For so many others, it has been the beginning. Immigrants disembarking at Pier 21 flowed into this station (and its predecessors, Richmond and North Street Stations), and from there to Montréal, or Ottawa, or Toronto, or Winnipeg and the prairies and mountains beyond. From here began the final leg of a journey that would transform their lives.
Today, the exterior’s a bit faded and the interior’s as quiet as you’d expect from a station that sees just a handful of departures and arrivals per week. But the architecture retains an elegance, a nobility even, that speaks of just how momentous an occasion it was to pass through its halls into a new life.
McAdam, New Brunswick
In the early part of the last century, travelling from Montréal to the Maritimes meant passing through McAdam Station. McAdam was the major junction for trains travelling east-west from Montréal to the Maritimes, or north-south from St. Stephen to Edmundston. It was a hotel and restaurant as well as a station, and even had one prison cell. At its peak, its lunch counter served over a thousand meals a day, mainly to passengers coming and going on sixteen daily trains.
Like many Canadian train stations McAdam’s is built in a picturesque Château Style, with dormers, pinnacles, and chimneys energizing its irregular roofline. This sumptuous building granted its New Brunswick village the prominence and dignity due a small but mighty hub for Maritime rail transportation.
Ottawa, Ontario
Ottawa is one of the best places to see the classic pairing of train station and railway hotel. They go together like pasta and wine (or to make an architectural analogy, like a Norman castle and cathedral). The Hotel Nova Scotian still looms above the adjacent train station in Halifax, and as we saw, McAdam put their station and hotel into one building.
Ottawa had, and still has, its glorious Union Station. Built in 1912, it hasn’t seen a train since the new station on Tremblay Road opened in 1966. Like Halifax (and unlike McAdam) it’s Classical in style, inspired by the huge public gathering spaces of ancient Rome: public baths. It currently serves as the Senate of Canada Building.
Just across the street is the storied Château Laurier, the architectural yin to the station’s yang. Where Union Station channels the order and discipline of Classicism, the Château is all picturesque romance and fantasy. Along with the Gothic buildings on the adjacent Parliament Hill, they form one of the most unforgettable architectural ensembles in the country.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
When Neil Young penned the lyrics quoted above, he must have had the city where he grew up in mind: Winnipeg. Its Union Station was the gateway to the Canadian West – the portal through which prairie-bound hope, energy and ingenuity flowed. The architecture reflects that. A huge central arch funneled people into and out of the building. Many would have been coming and going from the adjacent Fort Garry Hotel, long one of the city’s most opulent places to stay (and, I’m told, by far its most haunted building).
Today, Winnipeg’s Union Station is as quiet as Halifax’s. Locals warn you not to linger there, especially if you look like you might have much money in your wallet. The grand, central gathering space beneath the dome sits empty much of the time, and the once jam-packed waiting room is only full when used to swear in new Canadian citizens (an inspired adaptive re-use, I have to say).
But it was really something in its day.
Recently, the federal government launched a multi-year design and development phase for 1000 kilometres of high-speed passenger rail between Toronto and Québec City. The economic argument for it seems plausible. The environmental argument for it is beyond dispute. Maybe the time for another golden age of rail travel will come.
Peter Coffman, History & Theory of Architecture program
peter.coffman@carleton.ca
@petercoffman.bsky.social