Windsor Station (Montreal)
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Windsor Station is a former train station in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, formerly serving as the city's central station. The station is located at 1100 De La Gauchetière Street West.
Windsor Station was the Canadian Pacific Railway's (CPR) headquarters built between 1887 and 1889. The Romanesque Revival building was built by New York architect Bruce Price.[1] It constructed at a cost of $300,000 CAD. In 1916, Windsor Station was enlarged upwards with its main tower rising to 15 stories, dramatically altering Montreal's skyline.
VIA Rail was created in 1978 and took over the responsibility for operating intercity passenger trains of both CN and CPR. During VIA's first months there was no operational change for CPR or CN trains, as they used their respective crews, routes, equipment and stations. However, by the summer of 1979, the integration process began, and most of VIA's former CP trains that used Windsor Station were consolidated at CN's Central Station, including CP's former transcontinental passenger services such as The Atlantic Limited and The Canadian, both of which were also renamed to be bilingually appropriate. VIA dayliners (Budd rail diesel cars) operating between Windsor Station and St-Foy (near Quebec City) via the CP route north of the St. Lawrence River continued to use Windsor Station until 1983. Amtrak's daily Montreal-New York City train (The Adirondack) continued to use Windsor Station until 1986. Both the dayliners and The Adirondack were switched to Central Station. Local services to Ottawa via Montebello and to Mont-Laurier, both of which had been transferred from CPR to VIA, continued to use Windsor Station until they were cancelled in 1981.
After intercity passenger service was removed, Windsor Station continued to be a commuter rail terminal for the STCUM's (now the AMT's) Dorion/Rigaud suburban train line.
In 1993, construction began on the Molson Centre, a hockey arena to replace the Montreal Forum. The arena site was located immediately west of Windsor Station on the trackage which served the station platforms, resulting in the historic station being severed from the rail network. Molson Centre (now Bell Centre) opened its doors on March 16, 1996, and the new Lucien-L'Allier Station was opened at the western end of the arena structure to replace the now-closed suburban train terminal at Windsor Station. Until 2001, the new train station was called Terminus Windsor, but this was changed to reduce confusion with the original station building and to indicate a link to the Lucien-L'Allier metro (subway) station which is below the station building. It is still possible to walk through the Bell Centre to connect with Windsor Station and the Lucien L'Allier metro station.
Windsor Station, and now Lucien-L'Allier Station (known officially in French as 'Terminus Lucien-L'Allier'), are at the eastern end of CPR's Westmount Subdivision.
Windsor Station also housed the headquarters of CPR and its parent company Canadian Pacific Limited until a corporate restructuring in the mid-1990s saw the railway abandon or sell most of its trackage east of Montreal and focus its activities in Western Canada. In 1996, CP moved its headquarters to Gulf Canada Square in Calgary.
Today the structure no longer is connected to the rail network. However, CPR still uses part of the building for some of its operations, such as CPR police offices, the rail traffic control for Quebec and southern Ontario, as well as the offices of one of its vice presidents, the corporate real estate division, and the corporate archives. The railway still owns the building, but announced [2] it was for sale on August 1st 2007.
The rest of Windsor Station been redeveloped into an office and hotel complex as well as restaurants. The interior concourse, which is open to the public and connects the metro station with the commuter rail station as well as the Bell Centre, is famous for hosting an annual beer festival. The 13 terminal tracks running into Windsor Station have been removed along with the overhead canopy and now comprise a public square.
Windsor Station was designated in 1990 as a heritage railway station by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.[3]
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