| Kitchener GO Via Rail and GO Transit Station |
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Kitchener Station |
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| Station statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Address | 126 Weber St. West Kitchener, ON |
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| Structure | Heritage station | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Platforms | 1 side platform | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Tracks | double | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Parking | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Other information | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Opened | 1897 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Accessible | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Code | GO Transit: KITC | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Owned by | Via Rail | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Fare zone | 27 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Formerly | Grand Trunk Railway CN Rail |
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| Services | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Kitchener GO station is a railway station in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. It is located slightly to the northeast of downtown Kitchener, at 126 Weber Street West, near the corner of Victoria Street. It is essentially a waiting room and ticket stand built beside a set of tracks also used as a freight yard. A separate building to the east of the passenger area, originally built in 1925 as a freight building,[1] now serves as the headquarters for the Goderich–Exeter Railway.
The station is served by six Via Rail trains daily (three in each direction) running between Sarnia (via London) and Toronto. One Grand River Transit bus route stops next to the station.
The station was built in 1897 by the Grand Trunk Railway to replace a smaller station built in 1856. The station originally included a prominent clock tower. A second tower was added to the station after a 1908 fire. In 1966, Canadian National Railway (CN), by this point the owner of the station, removed the clock tower and the other roof features. In 1983, CN threatened to demolish the station, but Via Rail, who had assumed responsibility for CN's passenger services in 1978, opted to retain it. Under the provisions of Canada's Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, it was designated a railway heritage structure as of February 15, 1994.[2]
As part of a plan which also includes building a light railway through Kitchener and north to Waterloo, Grand River Transit have proposed relocating Via to a new station closer to their Charles Street bus terminal in downtown Kitchener, where they would interchange with a number of GRT routes, intercity buses, and possibly also GO Transit. An environmental assessment for the light railway is currently underway, but there is as yet no funding or construction schedule for the project as a whole.
In November 2010, a partial rollout of GO train service was announced to be in place by late 2011. Two Kitchener line trains daily are planned to serve Acton, Guelph and Kitchener with layover for those trains at a small facility in Kitchener. $18 million would be spent to get this first stage operational, with further upgrades to come.[3] Service is set to begin December 19, serving only Kitchener and Guelph to begin with.[4]
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