Chapter Three

The Stations

The local nerve centres of the railways were the stations. They served many more functions than today’s generation could imagine, and the man (usually) in charge was the railway station agent. Therefore, one of the building’s main roles was to house the agent and his family, and this was almost always in an upstairs or rear apartment. The agent had to issue passenger tickets, as well as organize (and often solicit) freight shipments. To keep the trains moving, he issued train orders by “hooping” them up to the engineer on a long curved or forked stick known as a hoop. He also fixed the signal in front of the station to indicate to the engineer if he needed to slow down, stop, or continue through. Preparing the mail sack was still another duty for the agent, as many trains contained a mail sorting car right on board.

Agents also enjoyed a more aesthetic role — maintaining the station garden. Some of the earliest and largest gardens were those laid out beside the stations in Regina, Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, and Calgary. The CPR’s first nursery was established at Wolesley, Saskatchewan, under the direction of Gustaf Bosson Krook, a Swedish-born horticulturist who held the position for twenty years. During the First World War, the gardens switched from flowers to vegetables, and after the Second World War, to parking lots. Between the wars, greenhouses in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Moose Jaw were providing 125 different varieties of flowers and shrubs.

While a community’s first station was more likely than not to be either a converted boxcar or passenger coach, Canada’s railways quickly got down to building more substantial stations. How big depended upon the business emanating or projected from that location. Once the designs became more elaborate, the railway station became the signature of the rail line that was building it, which each line having distinctive patterns.

The CPR was the first railway to cross the Prairies. In its haste to reach the Pacific coast, which was the goal behind the company’s creation, it very quickly erected stations. Its first president, William Cornelius Van Horne, sent a common station plan to contractors along the line: a very simple full two-storey building with gable ends, usually with a single storey freight wing. These served for twenty years or so until the CPR, to attract more business, devised a greater variety of more aesthetically pleasing station designs, primarily for small-town way stations.

Many of these stations owe their appearance to Ralph Benjamin Pratt, the CPR’s main architect from 1898 to 1901, at which point he was hired away by the Canadian Northern Railway. He came up with two of the CPR’s more interesting styles. One such design, displaying an attractive mansard-style roof, appeared largely in Manitoba, although several were built along the CPR’s Calgary and Edmonton line and the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan lines. Rosthern, Saskatchewan; Didsbury, Alberta; and La Riviere, Manitoba, are surviving examples of the twenty such structures that were built on the prairies. Another of his classic styles consisted of a high pyramid above a second storey and featured pagoda-style flourishes on the roof tip and gables. Of twenty-two such CPR stations, sixteen were built in Manitoba.

This station in Theodore, Saskatchewan, was designed by R.B. Pratt and is one of the CPR’s more interesting designs, with its pagoda-like features.

With the next style the CPR introduced, in 1905, Pratt’s absence was noticeable. The first of these designs, which the CPR designated as “Standard # 5” and “Standard #10” (the only difference being in the size), appeared in 128 communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Consisting of a simple two-storey structure, the design’s only embellishment was a hip gable above a pair of second-storey windows.

In 1909 the CPR came up with the Western Line Stations (WLS), which were built exclusively across the Prairies. This style, known as “A-2 WLS,” was similar to its predecessor stations, the main difference being that the front gable on the second storey was peaked rather than hipped, and nearly all were built in Alberta and Saskatchewan (172 of 197 were found in these provinces). This style also appeared later, along the CPR’s new Toronto to Sudbury main line in Ontario.

This era of simpler stations was followed in the period of 1920–30, when the CPR introduced its A-3 WLS, which is considered to one of that line’s more interesting stations. Again the stations were two storeys in height, and the designers decided to bring the front gable down the full width of the second-storey facade. Sixty-one were built between 1920 and 1930, most along the new Lanigan to Melfort line and as replacement stations in Manitoba. A half-dozen survive, largely as museums or private homes.

Ogema’s “new” station displays one of the CPR’s most common and more simple styles introduced following the departure of R.B. Pratt.

But as the 1920s wound down, and the auto age diminished the prominence of the country station, the CPR’s final station design marked a return to simplicity. Erected between 1924 and 1931 in sixty-two locations, mostly on new branch lines, it was a two-storey structure with the second level appearing as a large dormer. A wide, sweeping roofline added a pleasing flourish to the building. Several of these now serve as museums.

Many stations were designed for divisional points, where more staff needed to be accommodated. These structures were surprisingly small, but in such locations, staff accommodation could usually be found in the community. A particularly pleasing style was allocated to more than a dozen divisional points throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan. This design consisted of only a single storey, and a large flared gable dominated the roof, both front and back, while a wide wrap-around eave displayed a similarly flared roof. The front entrance was by means of a porte-cochère, again with a flared roof.

With this station style at Oxbow, Saskatchewan, the CPR began to reintroduce more aesthetically pleasing buildings.

Finally, the grandest designs were reserved for the largest towns and cities. The popular Richardsonian Romanesque style influenced the CPR’s then-architect Edwin Colonna in places like Calgary, Swift Current, Regina (preceding the current building), and Portage la Prairie. The stations in Lethbridge, Strathcona, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, and Saskatoon all followed a common Château-style influence, while those grand urban terminals in Winnipeg, Brandon, and Regina were all custom-designed along neo-classical lines, using arches and pillars to mark the entrances. Altogether the CPR erected nearly 1,200 stations — more than half in Saskatchewan — roughly one third were portables.

The Canadian Northern Railway, which was building as many branch lines as it could as inexpensively as possible, came up with a mere three different styles. Created by CNo architect Ralph Benjamin Pratt — who, as mentioned, was lured from the CPR in 1901 — these designs included the common wayside station, which was a storey-and-a-half with a steep pyramid roof and a prominent dormer to represent the location of the agent’s quarters. The effect was pronounced, as these high roofs could be easily seen for a great distance, especially on the flat, treeless landscape — a design element which was intentional. These structures were labeled as “class 3” stations. Between 1901 and 1924, 293 CNo 3rd class stations were built (a few were also constructed by the CNR using the former plans), with 145 in Saskatchewan, sixty-nine in Alberta, and sixty-two in Manitoba.

The station in Outlook, Saskatchewan, now a museum, shows the divisional style of station used by the CPR across the prairies.

Less important locations received single storey structures, where the agent might enjoy only a small apartment at the rear. Known as “class 4” stations, hundreds still stand, though most were relocated to become homes or museums.

Divisional stations were likewise identical. While sporting the iconic pyramid roof, they were also given wings on each end of the main building, and these, too, would include dormer windows on the second level. Many of these survive, including several on site.

Between 1901 and 1916, the CNo constructed sixteen 2nd-class divisional stations in the Prairies, with five in Alberta and four in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

A small handful of grander custom-designed stations appeared in places like Dauphin, Manitoba (still standing); Saskatoon (removed, but a replica was later built); and Edmonton. Regina’s station became a union station with the CPR, and the Winnipeg station joined the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in building an exemplary union station there.

The station at Cudworth, Saskatchewan, was a style introduced by the CNR after it took over the CNo’s branch lines.

The third main line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, similarly kept its variety of station styles to a minimum. For the most part, it applied only two patterns to its way stations, and even those were nearly identical. Those country stations displayed attractive little designs, which featured wide overhangs and a bellcast roof, differing only as to whether they employed an octagonal or square dormer above an octagonal or square operator’s bay window. Of those that survive, most have been relocated to become homes or museums. Divisional stations offered more variety, ranging from full two-storey, half-timbered structures, such as that still standing in Melville to those with more prominent dormers. This line created 206 small town and rural stations.

The successor to the GTP and the CNo, namely the Canadian National Railway, while not needing to add many new stations, kept them simple — usually a full two storeys with little flair or embellishment. Towns with examples still standing on site include, in Saskatchewan, Glaslyn, Frenchman’s Butte, and Cudworth. After the CNR entered the picture, it added a further 103 stations in the towns and villages of the Prairies.[6]

The Big Valley station is the kind that the CNo used at their prairie divisional points. Along with the grain elevator, it presents a heritage railway landscape.

Saving the Stations

By the mid 1950s, railways were switching from coal-fired steam locomotives to those powered by diesel, and this dramatically altered the railway landscape of the Prairies. As diesels could travel farther and faster without refueling, every other divisional point shut down. Roundhouses, coal docks, and water towers no longer served a purpose, and centralized traffic control eliminated the need for station operators to pass along train orders to the engineers. In addition, the CN and CP introduced centralized service operations to process freight orders and shipping, and many station agents became redundant.

Although less glamorous than steam engines, diesels such as these on display in Medicine Hat hold considerable aesthetic appeal.

Then, with the end of the mail contracts and a sharp decline in passenger travel — thanks to the ever-present automobile — more stations went quiet. The decade that followed witnessed the elimination of 80 percent of the railway stations across the Prairies and indeed throughout the country. Of the nearly two thousand stations built across the three prairie provinces, only 720 remained as of the mid-90s, the last time a station census took place.[7] More than 90 percent of these had been dragged off to become barns, private homes, or restaurants. Only a small handful remained on site.

Farsighted municipalities saw the risk of losing their heritage and gobbled up the old buildings, primarily for museums but also for libraries and seniors drop-in centres. Regrettably, the railway companies usually forced the purchaser to remove the building from the station grounds, and all too many were ignored and demolished. The mass extermination these cherished heritage buildings, especially in the Prairies’ towns and villages, which would not have existed at all were it not for train stations, led to an outcry across the country. In 1988 the federal government passed into law the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act. Once designated as a protected structure under the act, a station could not be demolished or even significantly altered. In less than ten years, the environment minister, responsible for the legislation, granted more than 300 stations this designation.

In Saskatchewan, designated stations included the following:

• Biggar

• Broadview

• Humboldt

• Melville

• Two in Moose Jaw

• North Battleford

• Regina

• Two in Saskatoon

• Swift Current

• Wynyard

Manitoba also had several designated stations:

• Brandon

• Churchill

• Cranberry Portage

• Dauphin

• Emerson

• Gillam

• McCreary

• Minnedosa

• Neepawa

• Two in Portage La Prairie

• Rivers

• Roblin

• St. James

• The Pas

• Virden

• Two in Winnipeg

The following stations in Alberta were also designated:

• Banff

• Empress

• Hanna

• Jasper

• Lake Louise

• Medicine Hat

• Red Deer

• Strathcona

In all, thirty-eight stations have received federal protection across the Prairies. Many others have been designated under provincial statutes or municipal bylaws. Twenty seven stations are listed on Saskatchewan’s Register of Heritage Places.

Designations didn’t always save them, as many were simply left neglected. Some met their fate at the hands of arsonists, while others simply crumbled into rubble.

Survivors: The Urban Terminals

Many of the major urban terminals that dominated the Prairies’ urban landscapes are still around. Few original structures, however, have survived the need to enlarge or upgrade to meet the ever changing needs of the railways. Sadly, grand terminals that stood in places like Calgary and Edmonton are now gone, while the only such structure to still provide rail passenger service is the Union Station in Winnipeg. Others have earned new uses, as in Winnipeg’s CPR terminal, which is now an aboriginal centre; Regina’s Union Station, now a casino; Lightbridge’s CPR station, a health centre; and Saskatoon’s CPR station, now a tavern and travel office.

Lethbridge, Alberta

In 1895 the CPR extended a line south from of its main line tracks to a small village called Coalbanks in order to tap into the supply of coal in the area. In 1898 the line was further extended to the larger coal seams in the Crowsnest Pass. In 1905 the town of Coalbanks changed its name to Lethbridge. It then encouraged the CPR to relocate its divisional point from Fort Macleod by granting the railway a twenty-year exemption from taxes on 48.6 hectares of land near the downtown. The CPR agreed and built the current station, along with freight sheds and a roundhouse.

Its design is similar to several other such stations across the prairies — such as those in Strathcona, Red Deer, and Saskatoon — and it sports a row of dormers along the former trackside and an iconic octagonal tower on the street side. In 1980 the CPR relocated its yards to Kipp, and the station sat empty. With the redevelopment of downtown Lethbridge, and the relocation of the tracks farther north, the CPR station became a regional health centre and stands today as a designated provincial heritage resource. Despite the absence of tracks, the railway heritage is further enhanced by the placing of CPR steam locomotive 3651 beside what would have been the station’s platform and the placing of a caboose at the opposite end. Lethbridge is also the site of one of Canada’s most stunning railway trestles.

Red Deer, Alberta, CPR Station

In 1890s, the tracks of the Calgary and Edmonton finally arrived at the south bank of the Red Deer Creek. Although it had meant moving the village’s original buildings to trackside, the town of Red Deer began to boom. In 1904 the Canadian Pacific Railway took over the C&E and established Red Deer as a divisional point halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. In 1910 the CP replaced the simpler C&E station with one of their grander designs: built of red brick, the storey-and-a-half structure was topped by a large turret with several hipped dormer windows along the roofline. Divisional tracks sprawled before it, while a large garden with a central foundation was laid out on the streetside entrance. But in 1985, with a major redevelopment occurring in downtown Red Deer, the CPR relocated its tracks and the station became an office building.

Winnipeg’s Union Station

This gateway city to the Canadian Prairies was geographically the convergence of Canada’s three major east–west lines. While the CPR was content to enjoy its own station near the city’s north end, the CNo and the GTP, along with the GTP’s partner the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR), decided to construct a union station to serve both lines. It was, however, the CNo that actually built the structure, with the GTP and NTR as tenants. Accordingly, the CNo engaged the well-known New York firm of Warren and Wetmore to design a grand Beaux-Arts station.

As with many urban stations, the entrance was to be the building’s grandest feature. Just as the ancient Greeks and Romans used archways and pillars to mark the grand entrance to their cities, so too did the railway companies for their stations. In the case of the Winnipeg station, the grand arch extends the full three storeys and is topped by a dome. The waiting room, too, reaches the full height of the building and is finished in marble, with arched skylights containing the provincial coats of arms and gold leaf around the walls. While regular passengers could enjoy the amenities of the main hall, arriving immigrants were segregated into their own facilities on the lower level.

The station still serves VIA Rail passengers travelling on the train named Canadian and the Churchill trains. A museum on tracks 1 and 2 contains what is perhaps the most historic piece of railway equipment on the Prairies, the Countess of Dufferin, the first steam locomotive to enter service on the Prairies. A walkway leads from the waiting room beneath the tracks to the newly redeveloped Forks complex, where the Manitoba Children’s museum is housed in the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway engine house and car shop.

Winnipeg’s Union station was a collaboration between the CNo and the GTP, and is one of the few functioning stations left on the prairies.

Winnipeg CPR Station

The CPR’s then-main architects, Edward and W.S. Maxwell, chose to incorporate into the Winnipeg station the Beaux-Arts style school of architecture, which was then in vogue. This is a style that also appears in the CPR’s Vancouver’s station and in Montreal’s Windsor Station. The new station in Winnipeg was opened in 1914 and replaced an earlier brick station. Likewise constructed of brick with stone work around the windows and setting off the corners, the grand four-storey entrance is marked by two sets of twin pillars embedded in a concrete base. The top of the entrance is richly decorated, and much of the original fixtures still survive in the vast waiting room. Designated both federally and provincially as a heritage structure, the building now houses an aboriginal centre.

Saskatoon CPR

Another of the CPR’s grand prairie-chateau stations is that in Saskatoon. Being that city’s third rail line, following those of the CNo and GTP, it did not occupy a prominent location in the urban context. It was, however, accompanied by a roundhouse and rail yards, and twenty trains per day passed through the station. The large yellow brick building is two storeys high and displays a fifteen-metre trackside polygonal turret, which incorporates the operator’s bay window at track level and extends above the roofline. In 1960 the station was closed, although the CPR continued to use the building as an administrative centre. Finally, the station was vacated in 1972 and efforts for its preservation began. It was designated as a heritage structure under the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act in 1989, one of the first in the country to be so protected, and now houses a variety of businesses along with a grill and restaurant.

Saskatoon CNR

The CNo’s first station in Saskatoon was built at the west end of the city’s main street, 2nd Street. Later, the CNR would add the Bessborough Hotel at the opposite end of the street. The CNo station sported the line’s signature pyramid roof with gabled extensions to each side. The CNR replaced it in the 1930s with a neo-classical building with a flat roof, and it had pillars to mark its two-storey entrance. Later, in 1964, with the CNR looking to the expanding suburbs for clients, where it located today’s modern station, the CNR demolished its downtown station.

Saskatoon’s new CNR station reflects a more modern heritage. One of the few such post-war stations constructed in Canada, it was built at a time when the CNR was recognizing the role of the automobile. Its location on the western outskirts of the city was intended to appeal to the car-oriented suburban population. It is unusual to consider a building constructed as recently as 1964 to be a heritage resource, but that is nonetheless the case with this station. It was built in what is known as the International style. With its high ceiling and flat roof, and with its ample window area, it is very much the modern station. No longer needed by the CN, its sole remaining function is that of the station stop for VIA Rail’s Canadian. It was designated as a protected station under the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act in 1996.

Strathcona (Edmonton CPR)

When the Calgary and Edmonton Railway was completed to the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River in 1898, it went no farther, due to the costs of building a major bridge over the river. The first station was a small wooden standard plan CPR station, a replica of which is now a museum in the community of Strathcona. In 1912 the CPR replaced the simple station with one of its grand designs. Because of its status as a terminus, Strathcona grew into a significant-sized town. With a trademark polygonal turret on the building’s trackside, the two-storey structure housed waiting rooms, freight offices, and accommodations for the railway staff. The station’s walls are brick, while its corners and turrets are clad in Tyndall stone. It resembles other CPR stations in Red Deer, Saskatoon, and Lethbridge. Following the station’s closure in 1980, it was converted to a tavern and restaurant.

Edmonton CNR

The CNR, with R.B. Pratt its architect, built another of its stunning pyramid-roof urban stations. The centre portion was three storeys with a gable dormer front and back and small decorative turrets on the corners. The two wings, of two storeys each, featured three prominent dormers, three windows wide, set into the sweeping bellcast roof. Meanwhile, a wide overhand wrapped around the entire structure. Although the GTP built its own line well to the north of that of the CNo, it began to use the CNo station as well. In 1928 the CNR built a new International-style structure nearby to replace it, although the older station remained until 1952, when it was demolished. The newer building stood at two storeys, with a flat roof and a pair of pillars to guard the entrance. This building, like its predecessor, stood at the north end of 101st Street, looking south toward the Hotel MacDonald. In the 1960s, that structure, too, made way for a CN office and operations building of typical 60s design. It was nicknamed the “CN Tower,” and the passenger waiting room was at the ground level.

But even that building no longer houses railway operations. In 2008 the CN removed its operations to the massive Walker railway yards, while VIA Rail, too, vacated the premises for a location adjacent to the City Centre Airport. Its new facility is a bright and spacious structure with a wide awning over the entrance that sports the trademark blue-and-yellow VIA sign. This attractive modernistic building also features Wi-Fi. It is located on 121st Street, just south of the Yellowhead Highway.

Medicine Hat (CPR)

The 1906 CPR station in Medicine Hat, Alberta, copied the style found in Strathcona, Red Deer, and the other areas. The building featured the polygonal tower at trackside, with two prominent dormers on the second floor on each side of the tower. By 1911, the yards had become so busy, and the city had grown so quickly, that the station was in effect doubled in length by an identical addition to the east and a large addition between the two.

Today, the yards remain among the railway’s busiest, and yet an another addition was added on the street side to accommodate staff and operations. Designated as a heritage structure both federally and provincially, the station retains a number of interior features as well as a portion of its original garden, one of the first such station gardens in western Canada.

Calgary

Calgary, like Edmonton, had seen its stations come and go. It is hard to believe that its first station was in fact just a converted box car. That was quickly replaced with the more standard “Van Horne” station. It, too, was quickly outdated, and a pair of identical stone structures replaced it. These were wide and single storey. As Calgary continued to grow, it was soon obvious that the city needed something even larger, especially after the opening of the Pallisser Hotel in 1914. And so the CPR dismantled the twin stone stations — reconstructing them in High River and Claresholm — and built a large new neo-classical facility east of the hotel. Its central section with a flat roof stood three storeys high and featured extensive wings, which rose two storeys. In the end, even that facility gave way to the building boom that swept downtown Calgary, and eventually the station was relegated to the hotel itself. No passenger trains pass through Calgary anymore. Tourists riding the elegant Royal Canadian Pacific tour train now board through a glass-covered building.

Neither the Canadian Northern nor the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways built their own stations in Calgary. The GTP moved into a former RCMP barracks, which has long vanished beneath Calgary’s redevelopment. The CNo building, on the other hand, is still very much around. Built in 1905 as St. Mary’s parish hall, the building was the centre of a French-Canadian section of Calgary known as Rouleauville. The area never realized its cultural potential, and in 1911 the church sold the building to the CNo. Although the railway would have preferred to build a new station when it came time to expand, its precarious wartime finances forced it to instead add a brick extension to the rear of the building.

The hall itself is a three-storey sandstone structure with a mansard roof on three sides and a Boomtown-style facade. The CNR closed the station in 1971 and it remained vacant for a number of years. Despite being gutted by a fire, the building was restored and still stands today, but as a ballet school. Tracks still lead across a small bridge behind the building.

Saskatoon reflects one of the CPR’s grand urban styles found predominantly on the prairies.

Regina’s Union Station

It may have, on occasion, been a gamble to ride the rails in the early days on the prairies, but today that has literally become the case in Regina, with its sequence of different stations. When the CPR arrived in 1886, the first station it erected was the same standard plan, the wooden two-storey style, that it erected everywhere. It replaced that one with an Edward Colonna–designed low brick-and-stone building with a prominent tower above it. Finally, in 1911, in conjunction with the Canadian Northern Railway, which was busily adding branch lines, the CPR built the city’s third station. In 1912 the three storey limestone building opened to traffic. The arched entrance led to a full three-storey waiting room replete with chandeliers. The station incorporated bas relief pilasters, lacy iron canopies, and carved stonework. Single-storey wings extended to each side, and the current front portion was added in 1931 as an extension to the waiting room.

To make way for this new Union Station, the earlier structure, minus tower, was moved to Broadview, Saskatchewan, where it yet stands, although in some disrepair. With the end of VIA Rail’s passenger service in 1990, thanks to cutbacks in service by the government of Brian Mulroney, the station closed. Protected by the federal HRSPA, the station survived and in 1996 opened its doors as the Casino Regina. While slot machines now clatter away on the ground level, in the basement there remains a jail cell formerly used by the CN police (it now houses historic photos of Regina).

In the eastern wing, the names of the restaurants reflect the building’s rail heritage: the Last Spike, the Rail Car, and the CPR lounge. The Rail Car restaurant does indeed occupy a CN passenger coach, beside which stands a CPR steam locomotive. The grand foyer still looms three storeys high, and its historic chandeliers yet dangle.

The Canadian Northern’s Divisional Stations

Athabasca, Alberta

Here, the CNo’s standard class-2 (plan 100-39) divisional station remains in the same spot as when it was built in 1912 and Athabasca was at that time the end of steel. It closed in 1973 and became a seniors drop-in centre. In 2010 the Athabasca Heritage society leased the building from the town and is currently working to restore it to a 1912 appearance.

Big Valley, Alberta

The town of Big Valley presents one the Prairies’ more complete railway heritage landscapes. Built in 1912 as a class-2 divisional station by the CNo, the station reflects plan 100-39 (the same used for Athabasca’s station), another of Pratt’s designs. With the CNo’s typical pyramid roof in the centre, the main portion is flanked by a pair of extensions, each with a small gable. As a divisional point, the station grounds also featured a roundhouse, the ruins of which still survive, and an elevator and passenger coach round out the landscape. The station, in original condition, is a station stop for the Stettler steam excursion trains, and it houses a museum inside.

Canora, Saskatchewan

The CNo station in Canora is unique in that, while it is a museum, it is still used by train passengers travelling on VIA Rail’s popular Churchill train. It was built on the CNo’s main Winnipeg to Edmonton line in 1904. As such, it is described as the oldest train station of this type still operating in Saskatchewan. Style-wise, it was built as a standard CNo class 3 station, but its demands as a divisional station meant that it was given an extended freight shed. It remains proudly at the head of the main street, which contains a large number of historic buildings. As a railway museum, it displays CN and pioneer artifacts.

Carman, Manitoba

The CNo station in this southern Manitoba community is categorized as a class 2 station. Larger than the rural stations, it presents wings on each side of the main building, each with a hip dormer. The wing to the west contained the waiting room, while that to the east was the freight room. It was built in 1902 and is today owned by the town of Carman. It was designated in 2003 as a Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site.

Dauphin, Manitoba

Although a “divisional” station, Dauphin’s is one of Canada’s finest examples of CNo station architecture. Built in 1912, and designed by the CNo’s architect R.B. Pratt, the brick-and-stone structure rises three storeys to its iconic pyramid roof. Two-storey extensions extend out from the central structure, each with low-gable roofs, while further single-storey extensions abut that. Small castle-like turrets adorn the corners of the third storey of the central segment. More fine examples of stonework are found not only on the base but at the corners of the walls as well.

Regina’s Union station is the third building to serve as a station in Regina. Following its closure, it became a popular casino.

The size of the structure reflects the site’s former importance as a major divisional point. The station was designated by the province of Manitoba in 1998 as a heritage resource and federally under the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act. It is now owned by the Town of Dauphin. Similar designs were created by the CNo in its Edmonton and Saskatoon stations, but these buildings no longer stand. A similar station, but with two pyramids, still stands in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Gladstone, Manitoba

William Mackenzie and Donald Mann enlarged their railway empire by buying up the failing Manitoba and Northwestern Railway. They chose Gladstone as a divisional point and in 1901 built its standard class-2 divisional station here. It displayed the pyramid roofline and extensions to each side of the two-storey portion, where a pair of dormers punctured the roofline. As a divisional station, it also contained dining facilities for travellers. The building was relocated to the north end of the town and now serves as the community museum. The CPR had arrived in 1882 when it acquired the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway line from Portage la Prairie to Minnedosa. Gladstone’s station, to no-one’s surprise, is no longer around.

Hanna, Alberta

The Hanna station, another of the CNo’s prairie divisional points, was a standard class-2 building with the typical pyramid roof but also with extensions to each end of the structure. A prominent gable rests above the operator’s bay, and smaller dormers appear on the roofs of the wings. The station, closed in the 1970s, has been removed from its original location and now serves as a tourist information office near the west entrance to the community, from Highway 9. A rare historic roundhouse still survives, awaiting proposals for its preservation.

Humboldt, Saskatchewan

Sensibly designated as protected in 1992, under the HRSPA, the Canadian Northern station in Humboldt dates back to 1905. Along with its pyramid roof, more typical of the CNo’s rural class 3 stations, the station also features added wings to each end to accommodate extra passenger and freight traffic in this then-growing town. The CN vacated the structure prior to 2010 to move into newer facilities nearby. By late 2011, the building was empty and its streetside yard heavily overgrown, but the town of Humboldt is investigating alternative uses. The rail yards, however, remain very much is use, and yet contain a steel water tower.

Kipling, Saskatchewan

Built in 1909, the Kipling station is one of the class-2 divisional stations designed by the CNo’s early architect, R.B. Pratt. Larger than his standard rural station style, it contains wings on each side of the centre portion, each with a hip gable dormer above. The centre portion reflects the railway’s more typical pyramid roof, with prominent gables both front and back. Still in its original location, although turned around, the station was designated as a municipal heritage property and is now an attractive bed and breakfast.

Neepawa, Manitoba

Known to its early Cree inhabitants, Neepawa was, in their language, the “land of plenty.” The town’s growth dates from the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway in 1902, when it chose this location for a divisional point and constructed one of its standard class-2 stations for such a busy spot. With its two-storey central portion topped off by the usual pyramid roof, wings extend to the sides, each displaying the hip-gable dormers of that style. The Beautiful Plains Museum moved into the vacant building in 1981, and the station still rests on its original site, although the tracks are now gone.

Radville, Saskatchewan

Built in 1912 by the Canadian Northern Railway to replace a temporary boxcar station, the Radville station was constructed according to that line’s plan 100-39, or class-2 style, and was one of only five such structures in Saskatchewan. It is typified by the CNo’s usual pyramid roof with extensions on each side of the main section. While the centre portion rises two full storeys and has a prominent gable above the operator’s bay window, the two wings have peaked dormers in the roofline. This is a divisional station on the CNo’s Brandon to Lethbridge route, and the building still occupies its original site.

With the switch from steam to diesel, the roundhouse was closed in 1960 and demolished soon after. In 1978 the last station agent retired and the station closed. Trains continued to use the grain elevators until the 1990s, but they, too, are now gone.

The CNo’s grand divisional station in Dauphin, Manitoba, is a spectacular example of R.B. Pratt’s design work. It is now owned by the town.

The Radville station, however, has survived and was designated as a heritage property in 1984. Still dominating the head of the main street today, it has become a museum. That main street also contains other heritage buildings, including an original hotel, formerly known as the Empire Hotel and now the Red Creek Saloon. Across from the saloon, the CIBC building was built as the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1912, and it, too, is a designated heritage structure.

Stettler, Alberta

Built in 1911, this standard CNo 2nd-class divisional station, with its pyramid roof and extensions to both sides, now resides in the town’s Town and Country Museum, where various other heritage buildings have joined it. The original site of the station is now occupied by a more modern station, which serves as the boarding point for the popular Alberta Prairie Railway steam excursions.

Vermilion, Alberta

Located on the main line of the CNo, which built through this area in 1905, the railway chose Vermilion as a divisional point, and a roundhouse, water tank, and grain elevators were built. The standard 2nd-class divisional station rounded out the townscape. When the CNR decided to construct a new station, the old CNo building was moved a few kilometres west to Vermilion Provincial Park. The CNR maintains a busy yard at this location, having replaced the station with a smaller, more modern flat-roofed structure constructed of brick, with a dark trim around the roofline.

The Canadian Northern’s Country Stations

Ashern, Manitoba

Now serving as the museum office, the Canadian Northern’s simple single storey station in Ashern, labelled as plan 100-68, is the focus of a pioneer village. This includes a one-room schoolhouse, a 1912 Anglican church, a one-time post office, and a pioneer log cabin. The station was built shortly after 1910, when the CNo pushed its line north to Steep Rock and Gypsumville.

Avonlea, Saskatchewan

This history-conscious community south of Regina purchased its Canadian Northern station in 1981 and converted it to the Heritage House Museum. The CNo built this class-3 station, according to its common 100-29 plan, in 1912 on its Radville to Moose Jaw line. Increased traffic in 1917 prompted the railway to extend the freight shed, and the CNR later added its typical stucco finish to the exterior. It still rests on site, virtually unaltered both outside and in, and it displays the typical kitchen, living quarters, and waiting room of the station, as well as sports and law enforcement displays. The structure was one of the hundreds of rural stations erected by the Canadian Northern Railway that were dominated by the iconic pyramid roof.

Baildon, Saskatchewan

Situated in the unusual Sukanen Ship Pioneer Village Museum, the CNo’s 1911 Baildon station, one of that company’s standard rural stations, has found a new home along with the McCabe grain elevator and, as with a great many such museums, a caboose. More than three dozen heritage buildings line the streets of this heritage village.

The focus of the village, however, is Tom Sukanen’s “ship” — a vessel that he built in the prairie town of Macrorie, Saskatchewan, in the hopes that it would carry him, a homesick Finn, back to his homeland. During the difficult depression years, he brought in steel and wood and began to build the boat he would call the Sontiainen. Sadly, the ship was vandalized, and Sukanen ended up in a hospital in Battleford, where he died in 1943. For years, the remains of the vessel lay hidden in a nearby barn. Then, in 1975, thanks to a vigorous fund-raising drive, the vessel was moved to the Pioneer Village Museum south of Moose Jaw, where it was restored. In the end, the remains of the “crazy Finn” were re-interred next his beloved Sontiainen.

Baldur, Manitoba

Although it is lumped in here with the Canadian Northern stations, the Baldur station may be the only surviving example of a U.S. “northern plains” style station. There was no attempt at aesthetic or architectural embellishment: the wooden building offers only a gable roof and operator’s bay. No living quarters were here. The structure was built by the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway (NPM) in 1890 on a line initiated by the government of Manitoba, with the intention of combating the CPR’s unpopular monopoly on rail routes and grain prices. The strategy worked, and the federal government bought out the monopoly. But the NPM could not make much of a profit and sold the line to the upstart Canadian Northern Railway in 1900, thus launching that line on its way to becoming one of Canada’s major railway empires. As the station was built prior to the arrival of electricity, the brackets for the kerosene lamps remain visible in the building.

The station was moved to the Manitoba Agricultural Museum a short distance south of Austin, Manitoba, in 1975. The Homesteader’s Village contains twenty buildings, some of them replicas, that represent early settlement in Manitoba. Among them are the railway water tower from MacGregor, built in 1900, as well as a 1905–grain elevator from Austin. The village also contains a number of pioneer log buildings.

Bellis, Alberta

Using a standard Canadian Northern 3rd-class design, this station was built by the CNR in 1923 after it had assumed the operations of the bankrupt CNo. Relocated from the village of Bellis, the station is part of the Ukrainian Heritage Village, east of Edmonton. The interior has been restored to its 1950s appearance, complete with operating equipment and agent’s family accommodation on the second floor. A track runs in front of the station to a grain elevator a short distance away, thus recreating an early typical prairie railway landscape.

Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan

Built in 1912 on the CNo’s Prince Albert to North Battleford line, the station was a class 3 station, plan 100-29. The CNR ended operations in 1973 and sold the structure to the town, which now operates it as the Blaine Lake Museum. It is a municipal heritage structure and is listed on the Saskatchewan Register of Heritage Properties.

Bowsman, Manitoba

Here, in the Swan Valley Historic Museum, among an extensive collection of early area buildings, is the Canadian Northern Railway’s Bowsman station, built in 1900 prior to the arrival of the CNo’s new architect, Ralph Benjamin Pratt. The structure is a design from the CNo’s predecessor line, the Manitoba Railway, and consists of long hip gable roof with a peak gable dormer above the operator’s bay window. It was one of the last built by the CNo in this style prior to Pratt’s trademark pyramid-style stations. A bunk car rests on the grounds beside it, and a trapper’s cabin, shingle mill, and examples of pioneer tools are also on display here. Many of the surviving stations on the Gladstone to Swan River line were built by the Manitoba Railway before it was acquired by the CNo in 1901.

Carlyle, Saskatchewan

Located in a 1910 CNo 3rd-class station, the Rusty Relics Museum has an operational telegraph key on display. Nearby are a CPR jigger and a CNR tool shed. The station is an extended version of the usual class-3 rural station. The CNR line between Maryfield and Lampman is still in use.

Cereal, Alberta

This typical Canadian Northern class-3 station in Cereal, Alberta, was built by the CNo in 1911 on its Saskatoon to Calgary line. Relocated from its original site, it has been moved to another section of town and is now the Cereal Prairie Pioneer Museum.

Camrose, Alberta

The station in Camrose was one of a string built by the CNo in 1911 along its new line between that town and Stettler. Almost identical the other country stations, the Camrose station — experiencing increased traffic as the community grew — also features a more extensive freight and baggage wing.

In 1937 the CNR covered the wood-shingle siding, another typical feature of CNo stations, with stucco to provide more protection against the elements. This station is preserved as the centrepiece of Camrose Railway Park and houses the Canadian Northern Society library and archives, as well as a popular tea room. It was moved off its original site and placed on a more secure concrete foundation a short distance away. The CNo Society is responsible for helping to preserve much of central Alberta’s railway heritage, overseeing sites at Big Valley, Donalda, and Meeting Creek. The Morgan Garden Railway adjacent to the station contains a miniature railway and miniature replicas of local heritage buildings.

Donalda, Alberta

Although it sports the name “Donalda,” this museum is in fact a fine example of a Canadian Northern 4th-class station from Vardura, Saskatchewan. It was built in 1909 according to CNo plan 100-29. Following the removal of Donalda’s own station, in 1991 the Canadian Northern Society moved the building to Donalda, where the society undertook a restoration. This single-storey structure with a simple roof with gable ends contains the operator’s office at one end and the freight shed at the other. Its wood-frame exterior is painted in the more traditional Tuscan red.

A historic Canadian Bank of Commerce, built in either 1928 or 1932, houses the Donalda Art Gallery. The site also contains a historic creamery.

Edam, Saskatchewan

This small village still offers a genuine railway landscape, and its rural Canadian Northern Station faces a grain elevator that contains the displays of the Harry S. Washbrook Museum. The rails, however, are gone.

The CNo built the station in 1912 to its 3rd-class plan 100-12. It operated until 1979, when the CNR closed the station. Two years later, the municipality acquired the structure, making some interior alterations, although the exterior retains much of its original appearance. Since then, the Lions Club, a play school, and a community centre have occupied the building.

Fisher Branch, Manitoba

The station in Fisher Branch is another of the hundreds of rural CNo stations. It was built in 1915, closed in 1980, and is now the Rolling Memories Museum and a designated Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site. The structure has been modified slightly from its original appearance and is no longer near the tracks.

Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta

Founded as an RCMP outpost in 1875, the village remained a hub for the area’s Metis and First Nations people. Then, in 1905, the Canadian Northern Railway built its Edmonton line through the town, and Fort Saskatchewan boomed into a busy grain distribution centre containing an elevator and stockyard.

While displaying the typical CNo pyramid roof, the station is larger than most of its later counterparts and contains extended bellcast wings, a feature found on only a few other CNo stations, such as Humboldt and North Battleford in Saskatchewan. Known as CNo plan 100-19, it is the last of its kind in Alberta and is listed on the Alberta Registry of Historic Places. It has been out of service since the 1980s, and the building now serves as a museum.

Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan

When the CNo passed through southern Saskatchewan in 1913, it added a class-3 station in this established Francophone community, which had been founded years earlier by a Quebec priest who had led a party of Franco-Americans from New York state. After the station opened, the CNo provided twice-weekly passenger service until the 1950s.

When harvests failed during the drought-stricken thirties, the CNR brought relief supplies to the community, and when grain harvests were bountiful, it brought it trainloads of harvesters on what were known as the “Harvester specials.”

From 1987 until 1997, the station served as the town office. Today, it stands at its original site, although turned around, and is now a residence. In 1987 the branch was absorbed into the CPR system, which still operates the line and hauls grain from the town’s two remaining elevators.

Gilbert Plains, Manitoba

One station that employed a less-common style is the CNo station in Gilbert Plains. Built in 1900, it offers hip gables at each end with a peak gable above the operator’s bay window. It is now a seniors drop-in centre at Main and Gordon Streets, close to its original location.

An identical station, originally built in Bowsman, is now at the Swan Valley Museum in Swan River. As with the CNo Winnipegosis station, this style predated Pratt’s arrival.

Langham, Saskatchewan

This former CNo 3rd-class, plan 100-39 station in Langham, built in 1905, became the community’s museum in 2001 and is situated close to its original location on Railway Street. The freight shed is an extended version of the standard shed. Shared with the Wheatland Library, the displays include household artifacts and the “flour sack story”: what the ingenious pioneers were able to create using simple flour sacks.

Lundar, Manitoba

Still on its original site, although turned around now, the Lundar station is another of those typical CNo class-3 stations. Located north of Winnipeg on the branch line that led to Gypsumville, the building is now, like so many others, a museum. This heritage village offers visitors the Mary Hill School, the Notre Dame church, two log houses, and an Icelandic library. The focus is, of course, the railway, and the grounds include the former CNo railway station as well as the usual caboose

Maidstone, Saskatchewan

This rural CNo class-3 station with an extended freight shed was relocated in 1990 to 2nd Street, where it is the focus of the Maidstone and District museum, along with the usual caboose and other heritage buildings, such as a barber shop, store, and church. It was built in 1905 on the CNo’s main line between North Battleford and Lloydminister and operated until passenger service ended in 1977. In 1989 the Province of Saskatchewan designated it as a heritage property.

McConnell, Manitoba

This standard CNo class-3 rural station was built in McConnell on the Beulah Halboro branch in 1909. Following its closure, it was heavily vandalized until it was rescued by the town of Hamiota and moved to the Hamiota Pioneer Club Museum grounds on 7th Street. A historic church has been moved from Oakner to the grounds as well. The abandoned rail line has become a recreational trail.

McCreary, Manitoba

This is another typical Canadian Northern small town station, built in 1912 on the Dauphin to The Pas line, according to plan 100-29. It retains many of those original features, including the steep pyramid roof devised by R.B. Pratt and a grey-stucco exterior applied in the 1930s by the CNR. The railway closed the building in 1980s, and in 1991 the province designated it as a provincial heritage property. The town purchased the building in 1997 to develop it as a museum

Meeting Creek, Alberta

This community is another example of a genuine surviving prairie heritage railway landscape. With its nearby grain elevators, the village of Meeting Creek presents a true vestige of the Prairies’ railway heritage. The station was built by the Canadian Northern Railway in its class-3 rural style. In 1911, urged on by Premier Alexander Rutherford, the CNo extended its tracks between Camrose and Stettler, bypassing the original settlement of Meeting Creek by eight kilometres. As was usually the case, the village moved closer to the station. The first train to reach town was greeted by the local band

Although the station fell silent in the 1960s, it remained standing and in 1988 was converted by the Canadian Northern Society to an interpretative centre and restored to resemble its 1950s appearance. A small wooden trestle still exists a short distance west of the station and grain elevators.

In 1997 the branch line’s owner, the Central Western Railway, abandoned the line, but in so doing donated enough trackage to ensure the preservation of this genuine prairie railway landscape.

Miami, Manitoba

The structure in this southern Manitoba community predates many of the surviving stations in this province. In fact, it was built as early as 1889 by the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway Company (NP&M) and shortly thereafter acquired by William Mackenzie and Donald Mann to help launch that duo’s monumental railway empire.

The station is the sole survivor of three built in this rare style by the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway in 1889. Before the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway, the NP&M was one of the first railways to challenge the CPR’s dominance in western Manitoba. The unusual two-storey building sports hip end gables and an observation bay on the second floor, directly above the operator’s ground floor bay window. It is the only surviving station with such a feature.

Moved slightly from its original foundation, the Miami station was designated as a municipal heritage structure in 2008 and today houses a museum.

Moosehorn, Manitoba

The simple single-storey CNo station, built to one of that line’s 4th-class plans (plan 100-68) now rests next to the Moosehorn Heritage Museum, which is housed in a historic Masonic Hall. The agent’s quarters were located at the rear of the building instead of the second floor.

Norquay, Saskatchewan

Situated northeast of Yorkton near the Manitoba border, the village of Norquay sprang to life when the CNo arrived in 1911 and constructed one of its standard rural class-3 stations. Settlers, including ranchers and lumber men, had begun arriving earlier when the CPR reached Yorkton in 1898. Located close to its original site, the building is now the Whistle Stop Restaurant.

The CNo station and the grain elevators at Meeting Creek, Alberta, reflect a true prairie railway landscape.

Prairie River, Alberta

Now a museum, the Prairie River CNo station was designated as a municipal heritage property in 1982 and since 1985 has served as the Prairie River Museum. The collection displays artifacts depicting pioneer and aboriginal life in the area, as well as a railway saw mill and planer, which operated until 1917.

The CNo erected this station in 1919 even as the company’s corporate health was failing. In fact, the building was transferred to the Canadian National Railway (CNR) later that year. The station was listed as CNo plan 100-72, a common later design for 3rd-class stations used in small communities across the province. The station is listed on the Saskatchewan Register of Heritage Properties.

Roblin, Manitoba

In 1906 the CNo built one of their standard 3rd-class stations to plan 100-3 in this community. On the main line from Winnipeg to Edmonton, the extra business in the area required a longer than normal freight shed.

The station closed in 1978 and is now a popular Austrian restaurant known as the Station Café. In addition to serving food, the restaurant has replicated the agent’s office and displays railway memorabilia. Its exterior has been little-altered, save for a paint job. It remains on its original site, although no yard buildings remain.

Rowley, Alberta

This CNo 3rd-class station helps to form another one of the Prairies’ better railway heritage landscapes. Not only does the structure remain on site, it has been preserved as a station. One of the last of the plan 100-72 CNo stations, it was built in 1922 on the Stettler subdivision. Rowley is also a ghost town attraction, and, because it has attracted filmmakers, it is nicknamed “Rowleywood.”

St. James, Manitoba

This single-storey structure was built in 1910 by the Canadian Northern Railway at the west end of Winnipeg and was part of the line’s Oak Point Subdivision. The structure is a CNo 4th-class single-storey rural station.

In 1974 the Winnipeg’s Vintage Locomotive Society acquired the historic building to use as their boarding point for the popular Prairie Dog Central Railway steam and diesel excursions. With the abandonment of the subdivision by the CN in 1996, the society moved the station to a more rural location on Inkster Boulevard, where it continues to play out its important heritage role. Designated as a federally protected station, its ticket office, two waiting rooms, and freight rooms have been restored to reflect its historic train operations. The Prairie Dog Central Railway steam locomotive can often be seen puffing impatiently in front.

St. Walburg, Saskatchewan

Although constructed by CNR in 1922, this 4th-class design was first introduced by the Canadian Northern Railway in 1907 as plan 100-68. The CNR modified the design somewhat after assuming control of the CNo. According to the Saskatchewan Resister of Heritage Properties, it was one of over seventy stations of this basic style constructed in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Minnesota. It lacked second-storey living accommodations.

The building is now used as an interpretative centre.

Shellbrook, Saskatchewan

Settlers began arriving into the Shellbrook area as early as 1882. Even by 1905, there was little more than a general store and post office. In 1909 the CNo laid out the townsite and built one of their standard class-3, plan 100-29 country stations. As business improved, the freight shed was extended, and later, in the 1930s, the CNR applied a coating of stucco to the exterior. The first train of the CNo arrived in January of 1910.

The station has become a museum, and happily it remains on site at the foot of the main street, where it faces a small “elevator row.”

Smokey Lake, Alberta

In 1919, as one of the Canadian Northern Railway’s last acts of railway building, it extended a line from Edmonton in a northeasterly direction in order to open settlement lands for returning First World War veterans. Known as plan 100-72, a slightly larger version of the CNo’s 3rd-class stations, the station in Smokey Lake is nonetheless nearly identical in appearance to the hundreds of other CNo stations erected across the prairies, and like those others it owes its design to R.B. Pratt.

In 1936 the new owners, the CNR, covered the wood-shingle siding with stucco and repainted the station in its standard green-and-yellow paint scheme. Following the closing of the station and the removal of the tracks, the building was moved a few metres back from the now vacant right of way, while a caboose rests on a section of track nearby. The right of way now forms part of the Iron Horse rail trail.

Sturgis, Saskatchewan

In 1911, when the tracks of the CNo finally reached Sturgis from Pelly, a box car served as the first station. When the line arrived from Canora in 1914, the railway added another of its later standard rural class-3, plan 100-72 stations, and the village became the leading cattle shipper in eastern Saskatchewan. The CNR used the structure until 1984, when the railway indicated its intention to demolish it. Worried about losing their most significant heritage structure, residents of Sturgis formed a committee of volunteers and raised funds to relocate the building a short distance away. Today, it functions as a museum and displays many elements of the history of the town and its area, including farm and household items and the obligatory caboose.

Turtleford, Saskatchewan

This standard class-3 CNo station, built on the North Battleford to Turtleford branch, has been relocated to become the district museum. Intended as a loop line between North Battleford and Edmonton, the route was meant to help open the territory north of the North Saskatchewan River to settlers. The Saskatchewan end of the line reached Turtleford from North Battleford in 1914, but the demands of the First World War suspended the work. By the time construction resumed in 1919, the CNo was no more. The CNR, which had assumed control of the CNo, managed to extend track from Turtleford to St. Walburg in 1921, but the western section was halted at Heinsburg in 1928. The vital gap was never filled.

Wadena, Saskatchewan

This 3rd-class CNo station, the most common style on the prairies, was built by John Skoglund in 1904, and passenger service began the following April. When the CPR built its line across the tracks of the CNo, the station was moved twenty-five metres to the east.

The CNR halted passenger service in 1963 and by 1981 had closed this station. In that year, the municipality purchased the building and moved it to the south end of the village, where it is now the focus of the town’s heritage village. The site includes rail artifacts such as a hand car, crossing signals, a telegraph wire, and the omnipresent caboose. The grounds also contain a Mountie barracks, a 1914 homestead, and a historic school house. Wadena’s CPR station is also well-preserved and is now a private home west of the community

Waldheim, Saskatchewan

Although Mennonite settlers had begun arriving as early as 1893, the CNo did not lay tracks here until 1909, when it erected its typical rural class-3 station on its Carlton Subdivision north of Saskatoon. Still on its original location, the town acquired the building in 1983 and it now houses a library and museum.

Winnipegosis, Manitoba

Before the CNo lured station architect Ralph Benjamin Pratt away from the CPR, the CNo’s earlier stations in Manitoba offered a different appearance. Hip gables marked the front and rear, a two-storey roof over the operator’s bay window. In the Winnipegosis station, a pair of extensions stretch from each side of the ticket office, one housing a waiting room and the other, the freight room. Each extension sports similar hip gables on the ends of its two wings. Similar structures also stood in Manitoba at Swan River, Ochre River, and Ethelbert.

Built in 1897, this large station is now the home of the Winnipegosis Museum, a project of the Winnipegosis Historical Society. The grounds also contain the vessel Myrtle M., built in 1938 to serve the Lake Winnipegosis fishing industry.

The GTP Survivors

As with the CNo, the Grand Trunk Pacific used only a limited range of railway station patterns. While the country stations varied slightly in the shape of the gable and bay, the original divisional stations generally copied the same styles used by its sister rail line, the National Transcontinental Railway, east of Winnipeg. These were large two-storey structures, some of which held a prominent gable midway along the roofline, while others had cross gables at each end of the roof. A few were half-timbered to reflect a tudoresque flair. The only survivor of this style is at Melville, Saskatchewan, and replacement division stations built by the CNR were simpler in style. The GTP built only one main line across the prairies and few branch lines. As a result, few stations remain, since few were ever built.

Divisional Stations

Biggar, Saskatchewan

Wadena’s CNo class 3 station is now a museum.

In February 1996, Sheila Copps, federal minister of heritage, arrived in Biggar to declare its historic GTP station “protected” under the Historical Railway Station Protection Act.

At the time it opened in 1910, the GTP station in Biggar was considered the largest GTP station in the west. The building displays a simple elegance, with a steep bellcast roof and prominent gable above the operator’s bay window.

In 1986 the dispatching system was automated and passenger service ended. In that year, the station closed. With five hundred railway workers and the confluence of three GTP lines as well as a CPR line, the town was totally railway dependant. In many ways it still is. A new CN bunkhouse was built for the 150 CN employees and stands opposite the “protected” station.

Regrettably, that heritage building is suffering from demolition by neglect. Following its new designation, it remained unused and rotting. By late 2011, portions of the overhang were falling off, while large bushes pushed through the cracks in its foundation.

This view of the Biggar station shows that even federal designation cannot save a station from neglect.

Melville, Saskatchewan

When the GTP designed its divisional stations, it opted for a large structure. Melville’s station, built in 1908, was one of a handful of such designs on the GTP/NTR line and was built by Carter Hall and Adlinger. The original divisional station in Rivers, Manitoba was identical to this style, as is the one still standing in Sioux Lookout, Ontario.

The building is a full two storeys with half-timbered gables on the roof over the operator’s bay, and another gable at the end, as well as another set on the town side. As with most divisional stations, that in Melville contained a restaurant, which was known as the Beanery. Proposals for its reuse have included converting it to a Western Hockey Hall of Fame. Throughout 2011, volunteers were hard at work cleaning up the interior. As is typical in a prairie town, the building dominates the foot of the main street. A GTP station imported from Duff now sits in the Melville Regional Park, along with a steam engine (see museums).

Rivers, Manitoba

In 1908, as the GTP main line proceeded across the prairies, the company chose Rivers as a divisional point and here built a station using the same overall plan as that found at Melville. As was its practice, the GTP named the station after one of its own: President Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson. A full two storeys, the station displayed the two cross gables at the ends of the building and a bay window at the east end. The yards contained a roundhouse, a repair shop, and coal shed. In 1917 the GTP replaced it with a new storey-and-a-half station with a wide bellcast roof and half-timbered, stucco-covered gables on both the track and street sides. But, with the advent of diesel, the steam facilities were no longer needed, and all structures associated with the station’s divisional role — the water tower, the roundhouse, and the bunkhouse — were removed. Only a few sidings remain in the once busy yards.

Today, the solid-brick station, although federally designated as a protected heritage station, is vacant and falling into disrepair, but it is not as seriously damaged as in the station in Biggar, and a local community is working to restore it. VIA passengers now use a small shelter transported to the location from North Brandon.

The GTP’s grand Melville divisional station is in the early stages of restoration.

The Country Stations

Delburne, Alberta

This central Alberta Community has preserved its standard-plan Grand Trunk Pacific station as well as its wooden water tower. The tower contains four levels of displays, including a replica coal mine and a school room, all on the grounds of the Anthony Henday Museum. This station varies from other GTP country stations in that the operator’s bay window and the dormer immediately above it, the agent’s apartment, are octagonal in shape. Also on the grounds is a CN caboose.

Edgerton, Alberta

Here on the grounds of the Edgerton and District Museum, the 1909 GTP station (plan 100-152), relocated from its original site, houses a rare collection of autochrome photographs taken by Hugo Viewager between 1913 and 1914. The grounds also include the Battle Valley and Edgerton Methodist Church, as well as a display of older autos and tractors. The station is located at Highways 894 and 610.

Edson, Alberta

Edson sprang into existence when the GTP extended its line west of Edmonton in 1911 and named the location after Edson Chamberlain, the line’s general manager. The Edson station also marked the location of the Alberta Coal Branch, as well as being a jumping-off point for settlers en route to their homesteads in the Grande Prairie region. Representing a simpler version of the standard-plan stations, plan 100-153, this station had its roof modified when it was moved to Centennial Park in 1975. Now named the Galloway Station Museum, its displays include railway and coal-mining artifacts. Funding from three levels of government helped upgrade the museum, which held its grand opening on September 25, 2011. The Museum is operated by the Edson and District Historical Society.

Evansburg, Alberta

Tipple Park is appropriately named, as the town of Evansburg was one of Alberta’s earliest coal mining towns. It dates to 1907, when coal was first extracted, but the lack of a railway hindered economic shipments. At first, as the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway built its tracks west from Edmonton in 1909, it ended its tracks at Entwhistle on the east side of the Pembina River opposite Evansburg. The gorge was too difficult to quickly bridge, and it would take until 1912 before one was complete. As a result, the two communities boomed. Although the stations from both towns no longer stand, that from MacLeod River was moved to Tipple Park, where it is now the heritage centerpiece … along with a caboose. It is a standard-plan GTP single-storey small town station with an octagonal dormer and bay window.

Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan

Located at the convergence of several early trails, the site attracted a Hudson’s Bay trading, an RCMP fort, and a mission. The trading post, dating from 1897, still stands. Its railway story would have had more significance had the CPR followed through with its original plan to construct its main line across the valley in this location. Instead, the CPR opted for Regina — a less attractive location but one where flatter terrain meant lower costs.

In 1911 the GTP reached Fort Qu’Appelle with a line connecting Melville with Regina and Northgate on the North Dakota border. It was one of only a few branch lines constructed by the GTP. The railway built an extended version of its standard plan 100-152 rural station with the polygonal dormer rising above the bay window. Unlike others of this plan, the bay and the dormer lie in the centre of the structure. Still on its original site, the station closed in 1962 and is now a tourist information office.

Nokomis, Saskatchewan

The Grand Trunk Pacific, on what began as the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan line, built a station identical to the CPR’s standard plan #10 pattern. The building was moved to the present site on Highway 5 in 1977, where, along with a caboose, it is the focus of the Nokomis and District Museum.

Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, CN/VIA

This sturdy station was built by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1908 on its main line from Winnipeg to Saskatoon. Originally a “union” station serving both the GTP and the Great Northern Railway of Manitoba, it was built in a style different from most of its GTP contemporaries. In fact, it may well have been influenced by the GNR. It is a long, single-storey brick building with a low, wide-flared roofline and a pair of gables on both the track and street side, including one above the operator’s bay and one over the entrance. The station is still in railway use and a is stop for VIA Rail on both its transcontinental and Churchill trains, as well as for interurban buses; it lies only a few metres from the equally historic CPR station. The CNo also built a station nearby, but it burned down in 1960.

Three Hills, Alberta

Now the focus of the Kneehill and District Museum in Three Hills, this GTP station may have been one of the last built by that failing line. Dating from 1919, it displays a square dormer above the operator’s bay and an unusual recessed dormer at the end. This was the railway’s plan 100-151, one of only a dozen built in the prairies. These dormers reflect the agent’s living quarters. A caboose sits in front of the station.

Viking, Alberta

The Grand Trunk Pacific station was built in 1911 to the GTP’s plan 100-154. The roofline includes square dormers, both at the end and above the operator’s bay, which too was square. It remains near its original site in and is now known as the Viking Station Gallery and Art Centre. It is located on 51st Street. The location is also a flag stop for VIA Rail’s transcontinental train, The Canadian.

The CNR Survivors

When the CNR assumed operations of the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific railways, they initially used existing stations. Once the CNR began to extend its own branch lines, it adopted a distinctive style for its rural stations: a boxy, two-storey structure with little embellishment. Its divisional stations, however, tended to demonstrate more flair and imagination.

The CNR, through the 1920s, took on the ambitious task of completing the on-again off-again line to Churchill on Hudson’s Bay; prairie farmers had long lobbied for their own access to a prairie grain port. While that line does not traverse the usual prairie grasslands and wheat fields, this connection to the Prairies’ economy and culture brings it and its railway features into the fold of Canada’s prairie railway heritage.

Divisional Stations

North Battleford, Saskatchewan

Battleford, Saskatchewan, is one of the province’s most historic sites. Here, Fort Battleford was built to house the North-West Mounted Police to help keep the peace in this troubled area. In 1876 it was designated as the territorial capital. After it lost that role to Regina in 1883, a depression set in until the CNo indicated that it was forging its main line along the banks of the North Saskatchewan. But then depression returned when the residents learned that this new railway divisional point would be on the opposite side of the river and would be of no use to them at all.

The GTP eventually did bring a line through old Battleford, but it was too little, too late, and the station was little more than their typical country depot. The GTP linked with CNo north of the community at Battleford Junction. When the CNR assumed both lines, it removed the former GTP portion. Today, of course, the two communities are completely linked and are known as “The Battlefords.” Government House still stands and it, along with the fort, are national historic sites.

The solid brick station in this historic community is another one of the few constructed by the Canadian National Railways during the 1950s. The style is known as the International style and consists of a flat roofline and modernistic raised aluminum lettering. A second floor houses staff offices for the divisional yard in front of the station. In 1995 the building was designated as a protected station under the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act.

It replaced a standard CNo class-2 divisional-point station. That station, built in 1911, was moved to 22nd Street to become the Pennydale Junction Restaurant. Although a divisional station, it looked very much like the more typical 3rd-class stations with the pyramid roof rising above the two storey central section. It differs in that two wings extend to the sides and display wide, low, bellcast rooflines. The CNo built a few of its divisional stations to this style, such as that at Humboldt. The facade of the old station has been significantly altered.

East of the station, the Western Prairie Development Museum contains the relocated CNo 4th-class station from St. Albert, Alberta, as well as a steam locomotive with box car and caboose appended.

Prince Albert

Originally a terminus for the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway (QLL&S) in 1889, this line linked the growing cities of Regina and Saskatoon with the steamers on the North Saskatchewan River, at what was then the mission village of Prince Albert. The first station, built in 1891, was a standard QLL&S wooden hip-gable style. The line was operated by the CPR until the CNo acquired the route in 1906 and built one of its standard class-2 divisional point stations. Later, the busy yards developed further when the CNo also extended its line from Hudson Bay, Manitoba, through Prince Albert to Shellbrook in 1910.

The CNo had originally intended that Prince Albert be on its main line but instead opted for a more southerly route from Gladstone in Manitoba directly to Edmonton. The CPR didn’t leave town entirely, though, and it ran its trains along the CNR line from Hague. The Grand Trunk Pacific extended its line northward from Young, reaching St. Louis in 1914 and Prince Albert in 1917, and the town appeared poised to become a significant rail hub for northern Saskatchewan. Through the 1990s, both the CN and CP gave up their routes, abandoning many of their branch lines out of Prince Albert. Meanwhile, the CN line from Hague was acquired by Omnitrax as the Carlton Trail Railway (CTR) short line. The former CNR station was built in the 1950s in the modern international style as a two-storey flat-roofed structure with raised aluminum station letters, and it now serves as a business office, while the roundhouse, built in 1959, still provides repairs for the CTR.

Vegreville, Alberta

Unlike most prairie stations, the one in Vegreville was added by the Canadian National Railway itself. After having assumed such bankrupt rail lines as the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern, the CNR simply opted to recycle existing station buildings. However, when the rival CPR extended a branch line through Vegreville, the CNR replaced the earlier Canadian Northern station with a larger one. Built in 1930, the new Vegreville station incorporated separate men’s and women’s waiting rooms as well as washrooms and then built a smoking room.

At the time, Vegreville served as a divisional point, but with the replacement of steam with diesel, that function was no longer needed and none of the divisional structures remain — although the yards still contain extensive sidings. This distinctive station offers many aesthetically pleasing features, not typical of stations being built in this period. It has a high, steep bellcast roof with a prominent half-timbered gable above the operators’ bay window. A second prominent gable punctures the trackside roof, while smaller hip gable dormers also appear, representing the agent’s living quarters and office facilities for the divisional employees. The station still stands in excellent condition and is now the Lakustra Heritage Foundation community museum and tea room. A separate shelter offers VIA Rail passengers a facility for the transcontinental Canadian.

Wainwright, Saskatchewan

Another of the more attractive surviving prairie stations is that which yet dominates the foot of Wainwright’s main street. Once the GTP had finished bridging the Battle River with one of the province’s largest wooden trestles, one that still attracts awe-struck visitors, it selected a location to its east for a divisional point. It built a station there that had a bellcast roof and prominent gables. The building burned to the ground in 1928 and the CNR, then the owner of the former GTP, put its architects to work to design a new building. The new structure was much larger and again included a wide bellcast roof with prominent gables above both the operator’s bay and the street entrance. Wider and longer than the first station, the replacement building also had hip dormer windows where the second floor offices and accommodation were located.

The new station opened in 1930. In an ironic twist, a year after the first station burned, the same fate befell the entire main street, leaving only the unfinished station and one other structure standing. Following the station’s closure, the Battle River Historical Society moved the museum collection into the building. True to its original function as a divisional station, the Galleria Restaurant operates in it as well. The new main street has received provincial funding for restoration and remains dominated by a large, free-standing memorial clock tower — the only main street structure to survive the 1929 fire. A separate shelter accommodates passengers waiting for VIA Rail’s popular transcontinental train, The Canadian.

Wainwright’s CNR divisional station has been converted to a community museum and restaurant.

The Country Stations

Cudworth, Saskatchewan

The station built here in 1925 follows the distinctive pattern devised by the then newly formed Canadian National Railway. Known as plan 100-184, it is a full two-storeys, unlike many of the CNR’s predecessor’s earlier rural station plans, which were content with a simple storey-and-a-half. Unlike many surviving GTP and CNo stations, which the CNR covered with stucco, the original wood siding is exposed. The station was situated on a seventy-five-kilometre branch line built by the CNR that connected with the Young to Prince Albert line. It closed in the 1980s and now serves as the community museum.

Eatonia, Saskatchewan

The Canadian Northern Railway had not yet completed its line through Eatonia when it went bankrupt in 1918. It had already designated the location as a divisional point on its new McRorie subdivision and built the usual roundhouse and water tower. The Canadian National Railway, which had assumed control of both the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific Railways, finished the line and built a station using a new pattern influenced by the stations on the National Transcontinental Railway, which the CNR had also assumed control of. Unlike the CNo and its preference for pyramid roofs, the CNR adopted a more functional square shape with a lower roofline, and it continued to operate a divisional point at this location. A row of four windows appears on the second floor and represents the quarters for the agent and his family. A long freight shed also extends to the west of the building.

The town purchased the station, leaving it on-site and created a heritage park around it. The park includes a caboose and what is known as a “catalogue” house — during the 1920s and 30s, many prairie residents would order their homes prefabricated through the Eaton’s catalogue. These are considered heritage structures on the Prairies.

Frenchman’s Butte, Saskatchewan

A later CN-style station building built in 1929, the museum in Frenchman’s Butte offers a sweeping vista across the North Saskatchewan River. The museum also offers a tea house in a log cabin, a blacksmith’s shop, and other heritage buildings, as well as displays of the area housed in a new Quonset hut. The style of the CN station, known as 100-253, with its full two storeys, is typical of that adopted by the CNR along its own new branch lines during that period. By 1979 the branch line was gone and the station became an interesting area museum, and it remains on its original site.

Glaslyn, Saskatchewan

This community displays a near-complete railway heritage landscape. The 1926 CNR station, with its full second storey, still rests by the railway right of way, as does the old wooden water tower. Inside the restored station are the agent’s office and living quarters, while inside the water tower one still finds the engine and pump. Naturally enough, a caboose lurks nearby.

Kelvington, Saskatchewan

Even after the Canadian National Railway assumed operations of the Canadian Northern Railway, it continued for a time to employ that defunct line’s standard plans. When the CNR opened a branch of its own into Kelvington in 1922, it retained a slightly extended version of the of the CNo’s pyramid roof pattern, plan 100-75. The main differences are subtle and include a less-pronounced peak and an overhang that extends the entire length of the station. The station closed in 1977 and is now a municipal heritage property known as the Heritage Place Museum. It remains close to the CNR’s still active track.

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, CNR station

Moose Jaw is fortunate to have not just one but two architecturally significant stations. While Hugh Jones used Italianate as his inspiration for the CPR station, John Schoefield, the rising young architect of the newly formed CNR, employed the “restrained” Classical Revival style, then coming into vogue for the CNR’s new buildings. Built in 1919, the CNR’s station was one of the first major stations constructed by the newly formed railway company, although it was not a divisional station, despite its size. It arrived too late to have any impact upon the urban form of the community, unlike the CPR station, which dominates the main commercial street and sits somewhat incongruously in a residential neighbourhood.

The two-storey buff brick structure features single storey wings projecting from each end. The flat roof, symmetrical shape, and modified ornamentation are all typical of the new rage of simpler architecture. Its few ornamental elements include pilasters, a concrete ridge below the roofline, and a slightly projecting facade. Schoefield would later go on to design such grand CNR stations as that in Edmonton (demolished) and Hamilton, Ontario (restored). As with the CPR station, this building has received protection under the HRSPA, though it has become a spa. The tracks have been removed, and that side of the building is now fenced off and overgrown.

Rabbit Lake, Saskatchewan

Settlers began trooping into this area when the CNo arrived in North Battleford in 1905. Another twenty years would pass, however, before the CNR would finally build a station in Rabbit Lake. But its heyday would not last. When the CNR pulled out, the population declined, and today Rabbit Lake has fewer than ninety residents, with many of the former businesses now empty. Now a museum, the Rabbit Lake station was constructed in the CNR’s standard 3rd-class style, with a low roofline and full second storey.

Shell Lake, Saskatchewan

Built in 1930 on the now-abandoned Prince Albert to Lloydminister branch, this CNR 3rd-class station now houses the Shell Lake Museum but sits on its original site. Sold to the town of Shell Lake in 1982, the building retains many of its original features, including the stucco finish popular with the CNR. The tracks no longer exist, although, of course, a caboose does.

The Hudson Bay Railway

Completed to Churchill by the CNR in 1929, the Hudson Bay Railway contains a distinct collection of specially designed CNR stations.

Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan

While located nowhere near the water body of that name, Hudson Bay did arise along the railway, which built to that bay. The community first developed in 1905 as a CNo divisional point on the line from Dauphin to Prince Albert. In 1910 the railway built a branch to The Pas as part of its plan to complete the Hudson Bay Railway. Later, when the CNR resumed work on the Hudson Bay railway north of The Pas, Hudson Bay Junction gained increased importance. Although the CNo station was demolished, the Al Mazur Memorial Heritage Park contains a Canadian National standard plan, two-storey station. It was originally located in Reserve, a short distance to the south, and visitors may take short rides along the tracks in front of it. The park itself is designed to resemble the former village of Hudson Bay Junction. The site also offers a variety of historic buildings and artifacts.

The Pas, Manitoba

Although the CNo had taken on the task of building a line to the shores of Hudson’s Bay, by 1910 its line went no further than The Pas on the south bank of the Saskatchewan River. In 1913 the Canadian Government — which had resumed the construction of the Hudson Bay Railway, at that point destined for Port Nelson — bridged the Saskatchewan River and continued construction of the route as far as Kettle Rapids on the Nelson River, when the war suspended construction.

Built in 1928, The Pas station used multicoloured brick and is a storey-and-a-half in size. An unusually long structure, it sports a high bellcast roof with front gable dormers. It was designated as a federal heritage station in 1992. The Pas is the also sub-headquarters of the First Nations–run Keewatin Railway, which operates twice-weekly mixed trains along a branch of the HBR that then led to Flin Flon and Lynn Lake. The trains of the Keewatin Railway today run via Cranberry Portage to Pukatawagan, a distance of 250 kilometres.

Cranberry Portage, Manitoba

The CNR built what was a standard two-storey class-2 station in 1929 after it had assumed completion of the Hudson Bay Railway. The station sits on a branch line that led from the main route of the HBR to Flin Flon. Designated as federal heritage station in 1992, it was purchased in 2010 by the Cranberry Portage Heritage museum. In 1953 the CNR extended a branch line from Cranberry Portage to Lynn Lake to access the mines then opening in the region.

Flin Flon, Manitoba

Built by the CNR in 1934, the single-storey station boasts a low, wide bellcast roofline. It was purchased by the Chamber of Commerce in 1983 and moved to its current location to operate as a museum. The museum includes railway artifacts pertaining to the mining history of the area, such as a Plymouth locomotive, an ore car, and a maintenance of way train sweeper, which were all used by the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company. Oh, and a sixty-three-pound trout.

Gillam, Manitoba

The Gillam station, built in 1930, dates from the completion of the Hudson Bay Railway to Churchill. The building was constructed of wood by the CNR and offers a prominent gable above the waiting room, as well as a string of four bellcast dormers over the freight wing, where the agent’s quarters were situated. The building also displays a wraparound bellcast eave. As Gillam has no highway connection, the station remains vital to the community and is still in use by the Hudson Bay Railway (a division of Omnitrax) and by VIA Rail for its Churchill trains. It was designated as a federal heritage station in 1992.

Thompson, Manitoba

This more modern station was built by the CNR in 1960 on a short branch line to access the mines in the area. The style is single storey with a low, sloped roofline and ample modern windows. It remains used by VIA Rail for its Churchill train.

Churchill, Manitoba

As befits a railway terminal, the Churchill station, built by the CNR in 1929, speaks of a grandeur larger than the town itself. Built in what is called the Queen Anne revival style, its most prominent feature is a high-pitch cross-gable roof peak rising above the main two-storey portion of the building. The building is a wood frame structure clad in asbestos shingle siding, with wooden banding around the base. An extensive two-storey wing with a shallower roofline contains a series of four hip gable dormers to represent staff offices and facilities. In fact, it is almost a modern Châteauesque style of architecture. Inside the building, a warm, spacious waiting room yet contains its original wooden benches. The station was designated as a federal heritage station in 1992. It is a popular destination for VIA Rail travellers wishing to view the polar bears of the area, or simply looking to enjoy a rail experience to Canada’s Arctic reaches. Fort Prince of Wales is nearby and, like the ghost port of Port Nelson, can be seen from the air.

The CPR Survivors

For the most part, Canada’s railways excelled at demolishing their stations almost as soon as they finished with them, and none was more proficient than the CPR, which is why so few survive. And those that have are almost invariably removed from their heritage sites.

Divisional Stations

Bassano, Alberta

At Bassano in 1911, the CPR built what was basically their common Western Line plan N-10 station, a full two-storey structure with a hip gable dormer. But with the selection of the location as a divisional point, the structure received large extensions at both ends of the building. At the end of 2011, it was being prepared for a move to Beiseker, where the station in that community remains on its original site, although now turned around. It now functions as a municipal office and library. A steel water tower still stands in Bassano, as do a variety of heritage buildings, including a bank and hotel along its main street.

While the rails in Beiseker are long gone, those in Bassano remain part of CPR’s busy main line. The Bassano dam, which fed the Brooks Aqueduct, lies just seven kilometres away and, along with the aqueduct, it is a national historic site.

Brandon, Manitoba

Shortly after the CPR extended its new transcontinental line west from Winnipeg and replaced the steamboat and ferry service on the Assiniboine River, Brandon became a divisional point. It grew into a hub of various branch lines with the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern also converging on the emerging community. By 1912 one estimate suggests that there were more than three hundred passenger trains and nearly five hundred freight trains reaching Brandon every week.

Not too surprisingly, soon the original station was badly outdated. By 1900 the CPR had replaced the aging wooden building with a much grander edifice. In 1911, as Brandon continued to grow, the CPR replaced it with one of its more distinctive prairie stations. The most prominent feature of this newer station is its street-side facade, for this was the railway’s face for the community. Two storeys in height, the main entrance is centred between two pilasters and is topped by a full entablature and a stepped parapet, which contains a clock and date stone. The exterior includes brick, stone, and etched cement designed to resemble marble. In many ways, it is designed to resemble a miniature big-city station. This federally designated heritage building now houses private businesses.

Broadview, Saskatchewan

The Romanesque Broadview station was moved to this location by the CPR in 1913 to replace its outdated Van Horne–style wooden depot. The newly arrived station had until then been the CPR station in Regina, where it also boasted a prominent tower. As the Broadview location was also a divisional point on the railway’s transcontinental line, a restaurant was added beside it. The attractive building is constructed of red brick on top of a stone base, and it displays rounded windows typical of the Romanesque style. A prominent gable rests above the trackside entrance. Although it is a designated heritage station, by 2011 it remained in a state of neglect.

Opening its doors in 1972, the pioneer village museum in Broadview, Saskatchewan, offers, among the many pioneer buildings and displays, the CPR portable-style station from the community of Percival. As is often the case, a caboose is open for inspection.

Coutts, Alberta

Unusual in both form and function, the Coutts station was a lunch stop and customs station that straddled the border between Coutts Alberta and Sweetgrass Montana. With long extensions on each end, the station allowed trans-border travellers an opportunity to enjoy a meal while clearing customs. It played this role from its completion by the Great Falls and Canada Railway in 1890 and served that function until 1917. In 2000 the building was moved to a property north of the village of Stirling, where it is now the Galt Historic Railway Park and the focus of a budding display of railway rolling stock.

The station museum recounts the stories of new arrivals, life at the station, and the history of station food service.

Emerson, Manitoba

While it is not a divisional station, the CP border station in Emerson, Manitoba, played a role above and beyond the country station. Its role here was to inspect goods entering Canada from neighbouring Minnesota, and it was built in 1914 to a singular plan. The wood building is topped by a wide, steep roof over a single storey with a bay window centrally placed. The roof extends right down to form an overhanging eave all around the structure. The exterior is wood shingle painted the traditional CPR red. Although closed and boarded, it is a protected station under the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act.

Empress, Alberta

The CPR station in Empress is a one of a kind. Displaying elements of a Chinese pagoda, it was built in 1914 to the CPR’s plan X-12. The town was designated as a divisional point, despite the fairly small size of the station. The yards contained a roundhouse, water tower, and a coal dock.

The operator’s bay window penetrates the bellcast roofline, where the tops of the window form an arch. As it was situated on the Alberta and Saskatchewan border, pressed metal wild roses, the symbol of Alberta, were incorporated into the ends of the roof ridge cap.

The divisional facilities were closed in the 1950s and the station vacated in 1972. The tracks are now gone as well. After being designated as a protected station in 1992 under the federal Heritage Railway Station Protection Act, the building has been repainted in the original yellow and red of the CPR to be used as a museum.

Hardisty, Alberta

The old wooden station in Hardisty, Alberta, was built in 1909 according to the CPR’s prairie divisional style, known as branch line divisional station plan E-22-2. It was moved in 2008 to become a private business.

Kerrobert. Saskatchewan

Although the town is no longer a divisional point, a few of the yards remain as storage facilities for the CPR. Now vacant, the branch-line divisional-station plan E-22-2 station is a designated heritage structure, as is the Canadian Bank of Commerce building a short distance away. The bank building, prefabricated in British Columba — as were many prairie banks — now serves as library. As part of the town planning that the CPR undertook in its railway towns, the remains of the boulevard still lead to the overgrown station grounds.

The station from Coutts, Alberta, served as a border customs station on the Montana border before being moved to Stirling as a museum.

Lanigan, Saskatchewan

Built in 1908 to the CPR’s branch line divisional station plan E-22-2, the station in Lanigan is a long and low wooden structure dominated by a canopied street entrance topped with a bellcast roof. The main roof is similarly a bellcast shape that extends beyond the walls of the station to create a protective wraparound eave. The station was built at a time when Lanigan was the focus of five rail lines and was one of eight such structures built in this province. This particular plan, being intentionally more attractive, was kept for divisional points, even though they did not necessarily have a significant amount of additional space. It remains painted CPR red and has served as a museum and tourist information centre since 1995. A caboose rests beside the building.

La Riviere, Manitoba

Built in 1898 at La Riviere, Manitoba, in an effort to appeal to the Francophone population in parts of southern Manitoba, the CPR adopted a station style that featured a mansard roof. Inside, the waiting room was two storeys, while the freight shed was a single storey. Agents were quartered in a small upstairs apartment. Another interesting heritage element is the name hand-painted on the roof.

In 1908 the CPR added a roundhouse and a pump house, turning the village into a divisional point. While the roundhouse and pump house were demolished in the 1960s, the station was saved and moved to the Archibald Historical Museum a short distance away. Also in the museum village are three residences — two of which were once occupied by Nellie McClung — a historic church, and a large barn, which contains a number of display items. The station is also a designated provincial heritage site.

Minnedosa, Manitoba

This station was built in 1910 to serve a divisional point at this location following a fire to the original structure, and the CPR adopted a unique architectural style. Moving away from its pattern book, the brick building has wide eaves all around and three second-storey dormers, including a octagonal-shaped dormer above the operator’s bay window. It was designated in 2001 as a municipal heritage site and today is owned by the town. A number of the yard sidings remain in use.

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, looms large in the railway lore of the Prairie provinces. The town grew from its selection as a divisional point on the CPR’s historic main line to the west coast, a designation that the railway deliberately denied to nearby Regina. Early on, Moose Jaw’s station had one of the CPR’s more attractive station gardens, which attracted tourists. Visitors would occasionally comment on the pungent aroma of the garden’s fertilizer that emanated from the waste from a nearby hotel.

While its first station was purely utilitarian and built for the sole purpose of getting the line running, the second station, erected in 1899, was one of the classic Châteauesque urban stations designed by the Maxwell brothers of Montreal, who were influenced by R.B. Pratt. The new structure was a long brick building, two-storeys and with a steep bellcast roofline. Higher peaks were featured at each end, and a third-storey peak dominated the central portion above the entrance, where small turrets marked the corners.

But as Moose Jaw was booming with more rail lines entering town, this grand building was soon out of date, and in 1928 yet another station appeared at the head of the main street. Designed by architect Hugh Jones of Montreal, the new and current building displays a decidedly Italianate style. In fact, its six-storey Campanile clock tower could well have been placed in an Italian village square. A steel canopy on decorative columns marks the entrance. Inside the high waiting room are wall medallions and reliefs of stone and terracotta. Arched windows, a clerestory, and pendant lighting all help illuminate the waiting hall. Passengers would enter through a steel entrance set off by limestone details like dentils and quoins. It has been designated as a provincial heritage site and listed as a protected station under the Heritage Railway Station Protection Act. Now closed as a station, it has become Station Square, inhabited by small businesses and a large liquor store.

Outlook, Saskatchewan

The station that now serves as the Outlook museum is one of only eight divisional stations that the CPR built to this rather pleasing design, known as standard plan X-13. It is distinguished by a porte-cochère over the street entrance, topped by a bellcast gable. A similar gable rests atop the operator’s bay. It was built in 1909, shortly before the railway completed its massive High Level Bridge across the South Saskatchewan River, and it served as a major divisional point of the line’s Moose Jaw to Edmonton branch. The divisional grounds contained the usual roundhouse, water tower, grain elevators, and stock yards. With the end of steam in the 1960s, all these buildings associated with the divisional yards were removed, and the station was reduced to local service, which ended in the 1970s. Still on its original site, the station was acquired by the museum in 1992, and it houses a variety of local artifacts.

Swift Current, Saskatchewan

The CPR established its next divisional point west of Moose Jaw at Swift Current. The buildings here were built between 1907 and 1912 to replace the original “Van Horne” station, and they represent one of the most complete railway heritage complexes on the Prairies.

The oldest of the three is the ticket office and passenger waiting rooms, and this was completed in 1907; it displays an eyebrow gable above the bay window, a feature on a number of CPR buildings. The next oldest is the two-storey dining room and telegraph office, which was finished in 1909 and enlarged in 1957; it includes a large gable on the trackside and smaller projecting gables in the hip roof. The most recent of the three is the express building, finished in 1912, and it displays few architectural embellishments.

While these buildings do not follow a pattern from other stations, they do exemplify CPR characteristics, with their low rooflines and brick exteriors. They still occupy their traditional trackside locations close to the downtown. The yards to the south of the buildings remain in full use, although no other divisional structures remain. The complex was designated under the HRSPA in 1991.

Westaskiwin, Alberta

At the Forks in Winnipeg, the Childrens’ Museum now occupies the former NP&M repair shop.

Now a private business, the CPR station in Westaskiwin was built to a style that differed from the standard plan book. The first station here was built in 1891 on the Calgary and Edmonton Railway, and it reflected the standard plan used by that railway, namely a hip gable roof above the trackside section.

With the arrival of a junction with the CPR’s Winnipeg to Edmonton main line, the first station was replaced with the larger, special-plan building that stands today. At the time of construction, the yards included a water tank, roundhouse, and grain elevators. Although the station is a straightforward two-storey structure, the roofline is distinguished by an “eyebrow” eve on the trackside portion. It is the only survivor from the many yard structures that once stood here. The Alberta Central Railway Museum uses a smaller version of this building a few kilometres to the southeast of the town as its gift shop and ticket office.

Wynyard, Saskatchewan

One of the CPR’s oldest and most unusual prairie divisional stations remains in use in Wynyard, Saskatchewan.

Using a unique station pattern, the CPR’s divisional station in Wynyard, Saskatchewan, displays a two-storey gambrel roof and gabled freight wing. As a divisional point, the grounds also included a round house. Built in 1909, the wooden structure was designated under the HRSPA in1992. By the end of 2011, portions were boarded up, and a set of new aluminum structures was added to accommodate the CPR employees.

The Way Stations

Andrew, Alberta

Along with a grain elevator, this CPR plan 14-A station has been moved from its original site to become a museum. A simple but attractive CPR design, it features a low, wide bellcast roof and a prominent gable above the operator’s bay. It was one of the most common of the later station plans on the western prairies, with thirty-two built in Alberta and thirty-one in Saskatchewan. It was, however, a later plan, and most were built along the CPR’s new branch lines between 1924 and 1930. The one in Andrew was built in 1928 and it closed in 1971.

The museum grounds in Andrew contain a typical CPR portable station and, naturally, a caboose. The town itself dates back to 1900, when Carey’s store and the Andrew Hotel opened at the junction of the Winnipeg and Calgary-Pakan trails. When the station was built, all businesses relocated to the track side.

Arborg, Manitoba

Built in 1908, this standard CPR plan #5 station is one of the more common of the company’s prairie stations, with its hip gable dormer on the second storey of the two-storey station. It was one of a string of stations on the ninety-kilometre Winnipeg to Arborg branch. It sits near its original site, where it now serves as the Evergreen Regional Library. It was designated as a municipal heritage site in 1992 and retains its CPR red paint coating.

Bienfait, Saskatchewan

The CPR built this station in Bienfait, the heart of coal country in southeastern Saskatchewan, in 1908. The pattern was the line’s near-universal design at the time, consisting of two storeys with a front hip gable encasing a pair of second-floor windows. As it was near the American border, prohibition days may have been the station’s most active. Across the street stood the three-storey King Edward Hotel. That was where the Bienfait Export Liquor Company (also known as the “Boozorium”), a hotbed of bootlegging activity, operated. So profitable was the trade that the station attracted the attention of such Chicago gangsters as Dutch Schultz, who was sent by Capone himself with the purpose of meeting with one Paul Matoff, who had connections with the Bronfman liquor empire. On October 4, 1922, while he was inside the CPR station counting his money, Matoff was shot and killed. The hotel still stands, as does the now-relocated CPR station, which houses the Bienfait Coalfields Historical Museum. Displays depict the area’s early coal mining days, which date back to 1895.

Brooks, Alberta

While the Brooks station itself now longer stands, the Brooks and District Museum contains the unusual little CPR station that stood at Duchess from 1920 until 1965. In 1984 it was acquired by the museum, which restored the structure and now displays it along with a CPR caboose and the log RCMP outpost building from Parvella. The wooden station style is simple, with few embellishments, and is not consistent with any of the railway’s WLS plans. The operator’s bay window is located at one corner of the structure, whereas it would normally be closer to the centre.

Castor, Alberta

Located in east central Alberta, Castor became a station stop on the CPR in 1909. Here, the railway built its standard plan 14-A station, which was namely a square, wooden, two-storey structure with a hip dormer enclosing a pair of windows to mark the agent’s apartment. Following the closure of the station, the Castor Historical Society purchased the structure and relocated it to become a community museum. The exterior has been altered to obscure some of the architectural features.

Claresholm, Alberta

The attractive sandstone CPR stations now in Claresholm and High River began life in Calgary as part of that growing town’s railway station needs. In fact, the two buildings, nearly identical, served together as the Calgary station. In 1910 the buildings were deemed inadequate for Calgary and both were dismantled, then one was moved to Claresholm and the other to High River, two towns close to each other to the south of Calgary. The CPR closed the Claresholm station in 1965. It has reopened as the Claresholm and District Museum and includes a caboose as part of its display. Both are designated provincial heritage sites.

Cut Knife, Saskatchewan

The CPR’s grand old standard two-storey station now rests in Tomahawk Park at the west end of the village, along with a small number of other heritage structures. It was built in 1912 on the Wilkie to Lloydminister line just a year after the CPR introduced its WLS plan 4 — its most common on the prairies, with its simple peak-gabled dormer on the second-storey agent’s apartment. The building was closed in 1973 and moved to the park.

Didsbury, Alberta

Now moved back from the busy tracks, the small station in this community north of Calgary is one of the few survivors of a CPR station plan known as plan X-6. The distinguishing characteristic of this style is the unusual mansard roof. It was constructed in 1902, about ten years after the CPR Calgary to Edmonton line was opened. Today, it is listed in the Alberta Register of Historic places. The station closed in 1977, and in 1991 the CPR deeded the building to the Lions Club, who agreed to move it back from the track and turn it around. It now serves as a Chamber of Commerce and scout/guide meeting hall. Four stations of this style were built in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan, and eleven in Manitoba.

Dunnotar, Manitoba

Soon after its line was completed, the CPR got into the recreation business, thanks to the enthusiasm of its builder and president William Cornelius Van Horne. He quickly realized the tourism potential of the Rocky Mountains, through which his line wound, and built hotels and resorts. In Manitoba the CPR inaugurated beach trains, one of which was ran from Selkirk to Winnipeg Beach at Dunnotar, where a small waiting room and open shelter were constructed in 1903. In 1906 the line continued farther, reaching Gimli in 1906 and then Riverton in 1914. Today, while the tracks are gone, the station that originally stood in Matlock a short distance away has been relocated to the Dunnotar station site and restored. A replica shelter was erected beside it.

Gunton, Manitoba

Built in 1944, the Gunton “waiting station” served as a shelter for CP passengers on its line in the Gunton area until the 1960s. It now serves as the Grosse Isle station stop for tourists enjoying the steam excursions of the Prairie Dog Central Railway.

Herbert, Saskatchewan

This community on the CPR’s original main line has retained its 1910 two-storey wooden station, although it now has its back to the tracks. A feature of this two-storey wooden building is the afternoon “fasta,” or Mennonite meal. A hip dormer covers a pair of second floor windows and indicates the location of the agent’s quarters. The site also contains a model railway inside, and outside, a vintage snowplough, boxcar, and, surprise, a caboose.

High River, Alberta

The High River station is unique in a couple of respects. Along with the station at Claresholm, it is one of the rare examples of a stone station on the prairies. It was first built in Calgary. Designed in 1893 by the CPR architect Edward Colonna, it was one of a pair of similar structures that served as the Calgary station. But, by 1910, the station was inadequate for the booming town, and the stations were dismantled and relocated to High River and Claresholm, where they have today become regional museums.

The station in High River is the Museum of the Highwood. It has since recovered from a fire in 2010, which destroyed a portion of its collection. The stone structure exhibits a low roofline and two sets of doors on the street side, as well as a gable above the centre section. A CPR passenger coach sits beside the museum building.

Innisfail, Alberta

The focus of the extensive Innisfail Historic Village is the CPR’s 1904 Bowden station. It was built in a plan more common to the line’s eastern stations, with a steep bellcast roof and a hip gable dormer peeking through the roofline to indicate the agent’s quarters. The station was built in Bowden in 1904 by the Calgary and Edmonton Railway (later the CPR) and moved to Innisfail in 1973. A replica of the Lacombe C&E station was constructed in that town on the opposite side of the tracks from where the original demolished station originally stood. It, too, displays the same steep roof and hip gable dormer as the Bowden station. It was built in 2007 and is a commercial centre known as Siding 12. Another replica C&E station was built in Penfold and it is also a commercial operation.

McCord, Saskatchewan

In 1926 the CPR began extending a branch line from Assiniboia to Coronach, laying out townsites where they erected a new standard plan station. Another example of the CPR’s last line of rural station plans, the 1928 CPR station is now the McCord museum with a 1972 caboose to round out the ambience. The station was built to the CPR’s WLS plan 14-A, with a wide bellcast roof and extended overhangs. The large half-timbered dormer dominates the roofline. The building retains its traditional CPR-red, wood-sided exterior. The station closed in 1970 and became the village museum, although, as per CPR’s “heritage” policy, not on-site. In addition to the displays of local farm implements and quilts, the site offers a pair of original CPR privies. (Modern “lavs” are available as well.) A station with an identical style was moved from Coronach village to the local golf club.

Meath Park, Saskatchewan

Situated twenty-six kilometres northeast of Prince Albert, this station was built by the CPR during the 1930s, when they were extending their line between Prince Albert and Nipawin. The original settlement, which was primarily Polish and Ukrainian, had been established as early as 1906 but was about six kilometres to the south. The station here was known as a WLS-23, with a pagoda-style gable above the operator’s bay. In the 1990s, the line was abandoned and the two grain elevators demolished. The station, a designated heritage property, is now the Ghost Rails Restaurant. The name comes from the abandoned CPR tracks and from the local stories that the building may be haunted. It stands on Railway Avenue, not far from its original site.

Morden, Manitoba

Now on the grounds of the Pembina Threshermen’s Museum, the Morden CPR station was a rare CPR style found in only five other locations across the Prairies. Designed by R.B. Pratt in 1899, the steep roofline is topped with a flared peak and hipped eyebrow dormers, which earned this style the “Chinese Pagoda” moniker. Similar stations were found in Theodore, Saskatchewan; and Winkler, Boissevain, Hartney, Virden, and Kenton in Manitoba. The station was built in 1906, closed in the 1960s, and moved to the Threshermen’s Museum in 1975. The office and waiting room retain many of their original features. Other buildings on the grounds include RCMP outpost log homes, a blacksmith, a church, and a general store.

Naicam, Saskatchewan

Another example of a station becoming a restaurant is the CPR station that turned into The Station Restaurant in 1974. Located on Highway 6 within Naicam, it has been renamed Venice House Pizza. The CPR built the station on its Watson to Melfort line in 1922 using one of its more attractive patterns, one in which the rooftop gable extends down to the first storey and across the full width of the facade. The CPR called it their Western Line A-3 pattern.

Nipawin, Saskatchean

Sitting on the western outskirts of the town of Nipawin, along the mandatory cabooses, is the sturdy station built according to the CPR’s newly introduced western line A-3 station plan. This style was introduced in the 1920s and was first built in 1925 on the Tisdale to Prince Albert section. Closed in 1983, the station is now located in the Nipawin Forestry Museum and has been refurbished as the station would have originally looked.

Nokomis, Saskatchewan

Located now in the centre of the village, the Nokomis station, built in 1907 on the Strasburg to Lanigan section, is another of the CPR’s standard two-storey wooden stations, which they built almost everywhere at that period. The station displays a hip dormer above a pair of windows indicating the agent’s living quarters. Along with a caboose, the station is the focus of the Nokomis and District Museum, known as Junction City. Nokomis was in fact a junction between the CPR and the CNo.

Ogema, Saskatchean

The southern Saskatchewan town of Ogema once more has a station at the end of its main street. In conjunction with a concerted effort to celebrate its rail roots, Ogema has found and relocated from a nearby farm a station identical to that which the CPR had built in 1911 but removed in the 1960s. Originally from Simpson, the station has been fully restored to its original appearance and function. Part of that function will be the boarding point for the tour trains running on the Southern Prairie Railway, with a diesel from North Conway, New Hampshire, and a passenger coach from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The railway will strive to eventually operate a steam tour train. The restoration project also involves returning the town’s railway water tower, which has been sitting on a nearby farm. The 114-kilometre short line, along which the tour train will operate as part of a short line operation, is owned by the communities that line it. The Deep South Pioneer Museum, whose transportation division spearheaded the station move, boasts of twenty-nine heritage structures moved in from nearby areas.

Okotoks, Alberta

The CPR built its station in Okotoks in 1928 in an atypical plan with two dormers on the second floor. The line from Calgary to Macleod was one of the CPR’s first branch lines to follow the opening of its transcontinental route into Calgary. It replaced a smaller station that had originally been built in 1882 but was destroyed by fire. In 1981 the town purchased the structure and converted it into the community’s art gallery. Much of the town itself has become a popular spot to visit, with its revitalized downtown area.

Paradise Valley, Alberta

Better known for its grain elevator interpretive centre, the community still retains its tiny station. To serve the many smaller villages around the prairies, the CPR pre-built a number of portable stations and transported them by flatcar to their destinations. Even though simple, this style, too, had a plan number, that being H-14-38A. The interior was three small rooms, including the waiting room, the ticket office, and the agent’s small sleeping quarters. Being architecturally insignificant, few were saved, which makes the one in Paradise Valley relatively rare. It closed in the early 1990s and is now part of the elevator display complex.

Portage la Prairie, Manitoba

This prairie community in western Manitoba enjoys not just one but two heritage stations, and both are visible from each other. That of the CPR was designed by architect Edward Colonna in 1893, and it replaced a much simpler wooden structure that was derided for its dinginess. But, recognizing the growth potential of the prairie town, the CPR decided to erect a building consistent with its hopes for the town.

Edward Colonna, the CPR architect, designed the Portage la Prairie station in an elegant Richardsonian style, more common in the eastern U.S.

Its style is known as Richardsonian Romanesque, named after American architect H.H. Richardson, who designed many U.S. stations using stone and brick in a solid low-profile style. Many examples of his work still stand. The station in Portage la Prairie built of sandstone and yellow brick contains such typical features as rounded openings, arched windows and doors, and stone headstones and keystones. It remains one the most attractive of the surviving stations on the prairies, and one of the oldest. It has been designated a federally protected station, and also as a municipal heritage site in 2004.

After the station was heavily damaged by a fire in 2002, a group of citizens formed a coalition to help restore the building. It is now the Canadian Pacific Heritage Railway Park and Interpretative Centre.

Riverton, Manitoba

In a project similar to that undertaken in Ogema, in 2000 the Riverton Heritage and Transportation Centre, north of Winnipeg, retrieved its CPR plan-4 WLS, originally built in 1917, from a nearby property and moved it back to its original location, where the community has restored it to its original condition to serve as a transportation and heritage centre. The building, once more repainted in CPR red, has a peak gable dormer encasing a pair of windows where the agent’s quarters were located. Situated on Lake Winnipeg, the station had goods transferred to it from boats and winter tractor trains to serve Manitoba’s more remote northern settlements. In fact, one of the boats is a restoration project as well.

Rocanville, Saskatchewan

The style that the CPR built in Rocanville was not a common one on the prairies, although many similar designs appeared in Ontario. Known as plan H-14-22, it was introduced into the CPR planbooks in 1903. A year later, the CPR laid out the town and built the station. The Rocanville station lies on its line between Virden, Manitoba, and Neudorf, Saskatchewan. A visit to Rocanville and the district museum will reveal the restored CPR station along with the Hillburn Church, the Schwantz Store, and the Prosperity School. The station is more typical of eastern stations, with its single storey, its long, low profile, and its wide, steep bellcast roof, punctured by a single hip gable dormer. The collection is on the Canadian register of heritage places.

Rockglen, Saskatchewan

As the CPR’s Assiniboia to Coronach branch line was being surveyed, a townsite named Valley City began to evolve where it was anticipated the CPR would locate its station. As was its practice, the CPR placed its station instead a short distance away, and the community followed it. The area was renamed Rockglen.

Built in 1928, the CPR station closed in 1962 and was an employee residence for the next eleven years. Purchased by the community in 1982, it now serves as the community’s visitor centre. Nestled in a sweeping scenic valley, the area is gaining in popularity with artists and nature enthusiasts. As with other CPR stations along the new line, the station is a CPR plan 14-A, with a wide bellcast roof and a prominent dormer above the operator’s bay window. Along with a small section of track and that inescapable caboose, the station still has its original wooden platform, an often overlooked aspect of a station’s heritage features.

Rosthern, Saskatchewan

Perhaps fewer than a dozen railway stations on the prairies were constructed with the rare mansard style roof. La Riviere in Manitoba and Didsbury in Alberta are two others that survive. The station in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, was built by the CPR in 1902 during its brief ownership of the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway, from 1896 until the CNo acquired the line in 1906. The CNR continued to use the building until 1981, when the railway sold it to the municipality. The station remains near its original site and now serves as the village art gallery, known as the Station Arts Centre, but it also features a theatre and a tea room. Its distinctive features have been carefully restored and preserved. The tracks remain in use to serve a pair of remaining grain elevators and are operated by the Carlton Trail Railway.

Shandro, Alberta

This village that contains the Shandro Pioneer Village and Museum also has the CPR station from Willingdon, Alberta. The single-storey station with the gable over the bay window was built in 1928 along the CPR’s line from Lloydminster to Calgary; this was to the CPR’s common plan 14-A. The grounds also feature a wooden Ukrainian Orthodox church and a small collection of early pioneer structures.

Strasbourg, Saskatchewan

The station, which the CPR built in 1906 on the Lanigan line north of Regina, was one of dozens built to its standard rural plan typified by the two full storeys with a hip gable dormer that encases two windows and delineates the agent’s quarters. The building has an unusually long freight shed, which reflects the high amount of freight traffic that emanated from this location. Following the station’s closing in 1970, the town acquired the building for its museum and moved it a short distance back from the track.

Strathclair, Manitoba

The station in Strathclair, Manitoba, is a rare surviving example of a station built in 1900 by the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway, which was later absorbed by the CPR. The main orientation of the station is perpendicular to the tracks. The station it is a full two storeys and contains a hipped gable roof. The plan was also used by the CPR for many of its early structures along the Calgary to Edmonton and Fort Macleod lines and the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan line. A lengthy extension for freight lies to the side. Now owned by the municipality, this wooden structure was designated by the province as a municipal heritage property in 2003.

Theodore, Saskatchewan

This unusual station is one of only five designed by the CPR’s architect R.B. Pratt in this style in Saskatchewan and is the only one to survive in that province, although another fine example lies in Virden, Manitoba. Although this style of station is typically two-storeys, the peak forms a pagoda-style profile. A number of prairie stations adopted a modified Chinese element to their roofline, and Theodore was one of the larger such structures. It was relocated in the 1970s to the centre of the village, first as a seniors centre and later a museum. It is now a designated municipal heritage property. Other examples survive at Virden (on site) and Morden (relocated).

Unity, Saskatchewan

Built in 1909 and situated three kilometres north of Unity, the CPR station was constructed in the common style of the period, with a small peak gable set into the second storey roof, encasing a two-window dormer. The wooden building, still sporting its CPR red paint, is now the focus of an extensive heritage park, which includes a variety of heritage buildings such as churches, stores, and schools. A steam engine is on display inside a Quonset hut.

Vegreville, Alberta

After serving for many years as a bottle depot, the Vegreville CPR station, built in 1928 on a line between Camrose and Willingdon, has now become a restaurant. Unlike many of the CPR stations across the prairies, this small station was built with brown brick on a concrete block base. It has a small gable above the operators bay and two dormers on the rear roof. The tracks have been abandoned since 1976.

Virden, Manitoba

The CPR station in this western Manitoba town is one of the most stunning on the Prairie landscape. Designed in 1899 by CPR architect R.B. Pratt, the two-storey structure offers a most unusual peak to its steep roof, reminiscent of a Chinese pagoda. Indeed, this and similar stations in Theodore, Saskatchewan, and Morden, Manitoba, have earned the nickname “Chinese Pagoda.” Similar eaves extend over the two second storey dormers, and beak-like extensions decorate the two hip gable ends of the station. Of all the stations built to this pattern, the one in Virden is the only one built using stone, and is the only surviving example to remain on-site. It has been designated both federally and provincially as heritage structure.

Other Rail Lines

Northern Alberta Railway

Well to the northwest of Edmonton, another region of the prairies began to experience a surge of settlement: the Peace Region. In 1909 the Peace River country was opened to settlement in the hope that the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways would follow through on their promise to extend their lines into the region. In 1916 the Central Canada Railway Corporation built a line to the Peace Region, linking with the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway at McLennan. Following sale to the CNR and CPR railways, the line was renamed the Northern Alberta Railway in 1930.

Dawson Creek

Dawson Creek’s Northern Alberta Railway (NAR) Park contains the 1931 NAR station museum constructed in the CPR’s final prairie design and houses the South Peace Historical Society Museum. The park also celebrates Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway and contains an art gallery in the relocated 1948 AWP grain elevator.

Fahler, Alberta

When the NAR reached Fahler, Alberta, deep in the Peace country in 1915, the community’s first station appeared. It was replaced by a second and then, in 1930, by a CPR station plan known as 14-A, with its wide, low bellcast roofline and prominent gable. It was sold in 1972, and now, repainted in blue, it is a tourist information centre near the Fahler campground.

Peace River, Alberta

In 1916 the wooden storey-and-a-half station at Peace River was built by the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway (ED&BC), which in 1929 became part of the Northern Alberta Railway (NAR), operated jointly by CNR and CPR. In 1980 CN became the sole operator and closed the station the following year. Passenger service, however, ended well before that, in 1956. The station originally offered two waiting rooms: the general waiting room and the Ladies’ Waiting Room. The latter was enlarged and converted to a general waiting room, while what had been the general waiting room became the freight room. Following a fire in 1986, the Northern Alberta Railways Association acquired the damaged structure and, over the following five years, restored it a 1920s appearance. While CN trains still use the line, the station is now a tourist information centre with much of the interior flooring and wainscoting restored. It remains on its original site and is also a provincial heritage site.

Sexsmith, Alberta

The ED&BC Railway reached Sexsmith in 1916, and the community quickly became the focus for grain equipments, boasting a row of nine elevators. In 1928 the railway replaced the original station with a more elegant structure. Constructed of wood and painted a distinctive maroon colour, the storey-and-a-half building was distinguished by its bellcast roof with gable ends and dormers to house the agent and his family. In the 1970s, the station closed and was moved away to house a farm implement dealership. In the 1980s, the Sexsmith Museum Society acquired and returned the building to its original site, where they restored its original features. In 1994 it was declared a municipal heritage resource, and it now serves as a museum.

Several other NAR stations do survive, but most are now in different locations, where they have become farm buildings or houses.

St. Boniface Greater Winnipeg Water District Station

One of the more delightful heritage stations on the prairies is the attractive stone railway station, which continues to serve the Greater Winnipeg Water District (GWWD) Railway. Designed by local architect William Fingland, the new station was built in 1929 to replace the earlier 1919 wooden structure. The interior was laid out to contain a waiting room, baggage room, cold storage area, and the station master’s equipment. The roofline features a cross-gable through the middle to form a projecting bay with parapet gables on either side. The red, grey, and pink granite, quarried from along the line, is laid out in a cyclopean pattern, with stone detailing on the corner gables and windows. Semi-circular windows are set into the end gables and the bay gable as well. Raised letters on the northwest gable read, gwwd railway station.

On display in front of the St. Boniface GWWD station is Railbus #205, which once carried passengers and workers along the line. It was one of only six manufactured in 1921 by the J.G. Brill company and was used mainly for maintenance of way. It replaced a “Mack” car built in 1928 but destroyed by fire in 1991. Passenger service has been discontinued since 1982. The building is located on Plinquet Street in an industrial area of St. Boniface. The GWWD built a string of flag stations along its line, most of which have since been demolished or relocated.

Nearby, the simple single-storey former-CN station now serves as the Resto Gare Restaurant, and it features a passenger coach for extra seating.

The Mountain Stations

Although the Rocky Mountains do not form part of the Prairies, the Alberta stations located at the gateways to this scenic range are among Canada’s most elegant and illustrate the intention of the rail companies to earn income from not just grain shipments but tourism as well.

Jasper CNR

This fine station was built by the CNR in 1926 as part of the government’s efforts to attract visitors to Jasper National Park, and to the CNR’s own lodge. Designed by the rail company’s architects in Winnipeg who used an “Arts and Crafts” style, its roof is a series of varied, steep dormers, while the base and pillars use attractive cobblestones. Inside, visitors find stone fireplaces, heavy beamed ceilings, elegant lighting, and built-in furnishings. Not too surprisingly, it is now a federally protected station, and one of the most attractive on VIA Rail’s line. Not only does VIA Rail’s Canadian pause here for an hour and a half, but it is also the departure point for the Skeena, part of VIA’s equally scenic service through the mountains to Prince George and Prince Rupert.

Banff CPR

This elegant structure was built by the CPR in 1910 to complement the efforts to attract travellers to the Banff Springs Hotel, one of the grandest in the CPR’s chain of hotels. A number of large dormers line the roof, while a stone-and-wood finish mark its exterior, along with wood shingling and half timbering — all meant to reflect the natural experience that the CPR was promoting. Although no longer a stop for VIA Rail, it does give travellers on the Rocky Mountaineer or the CPR’s Royal Canadian Pacific a taste of this “Arts and Crafts” style of grand station. It was designated as a federally protected station in 1991. The original station had been constructed east of today’s site, but was moved in 1888 with the opening of the hotel. Those not travelling by train may enjoy the station’s rail-themed restaurant, the Caboose.

Lake Louise CPR

Another of the CPR’s tourist destinations, the Lake Louise station was built in 1910 in conjunction of the Chateau Lake Louise a short distance away. Its distinguishing characteristics are its peeled log construction and large windows built to allow views of the mountain scenery. No longer a stop for trains, it now functions as a popular restaurant. Next to the building sit a grouping of vintage CPR coaches. The first station, also built of log, was named Laggan and now resides in Calgary’s Heritage Park.