Canadian skylines of the past

[MolsonExport]

Love Ottawa's Union stn

[Razor]

Kewl pics all around..I never realized Van's sky train went back to the 80's..Thought it was newer.

[beatlesque]

Originally Posted by Razor

Kewl pics all around..I never realized Van's sky train went back to the 80's..Thought it was newer.

Remember seeing it as a kid at Expo 86...


- unattributed

[vegeta_skyline]

Man was 'Union Station' ever a popular name for central train stations.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by vegeta_skyline

Man was 'Union Station' ever a popular name for central train stations.

Unlike with airports which are generally common use, each railway generally used to operate their own station. It was therefore not uncommon for there to be multiple railway stations in a single city... a union station is simply a common name for a railway station that served more than one railway, although not every union station is actually known as such.

So for example in Winnipeg, the CP Station was simply called the CP Station, while the joint CNoR/NTR/GTP Station was the "Union Station".

Just to keep this vaguely on topic, here's a vintage photo of the CP Station, Winnipeg's "other" station. It's still around but it hasn't been used by passenger trains since 1978:

[beatlesque]

Interesting comparison posted elsewhere by trueviking of same WPG view, turn of 20th century and today:



photo tv

[beatlesque]

I was born in Ottawa, so following the Union Station link ☝ here's an early article about Union Station in Winnipeg (originally Fort Garry Station, the Union depot) + a shot of it today with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Esplanade Riel behind at the Forks leading to St.-Boniface:




- Sheena Fraser McGoogan


https://www.flickr.com/photos/morrismulvey/11166424965/

Constructed between 1908 and 1911, the station was built as a joint venture between the Canadian Northern Railway, National Transcontinental, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and the Dominion government. The first train to enter the station did so on 7 August 1911, with the official opening the following year on 24 June 1912.

Union Station was designed by Warren and Wetmore, the architects responsible for Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style and constructed from local Tyndall limestone, Union Station was one of Western Canada’s largest railway stations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_(Winnipeg)

[Trans Canada]

I'm really impressed with Winnipeg's station. For some reason I thought they'd closed their grand station and moved out to the burbs.

Here's Quebec City's station, built in 1916 (Gare du Palais)


Credit Wm. Notman & Son, Musee McCord, http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scrip...imageID=163914

2007:

Credit Gilbert Bochenek, Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...laisQuebec.JPG

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

I'm really impressed with Winnipeg's station. For some reason I thought they'd closed their grand station and moved out to the burbs.

A couple of western Canadian cities did that... Edmonton got what amounts to an Amshack out by the Yellowhead Highway in the late 90s, and Saskatoon built a station way out on the fringes of town in the 60s. Vancouver and Winnipeg have always had stations downtown, although passenger rail in these parts barely rates as an afterthought with very low passenger counts across the board.

In case anyone is interested, Via is just finishing up a renovation job at Union Station. They got rid of a lot of ugly 80s and 90s design elements... it looks as good now as it ever has in my lifetime, although it is not very busy these days... down to 8 trains a week in the winter (10 in the summer). There used to be that many trains each day when I was a kid!

Great shots of Gare du Palais, BTW. It is a really spectacular station inside... they did a beautiful job restoring it back in the 80s. (For a while, Quebec's station was relegated to the suburbs too)

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by esquire

A couple of western Canadian cities did that... Edmonton got what amounts to an Amshack out by the Yellowhead Highway in the late 90s, and Saskatoon built a station way out on the fringes of town in the 60s. Vancouver and Winnipeg have always had stations downtown, although passenger rail in these parts barely rates as an afterthought with very low passenger counts across the board.

In case anyone is interested, Via is just finishing up a renovation job at Union Station. They got rid of a lot of ugly 80s and 90s design elements... it looks as good now as it ever has in my lifetime, although it is not very busy these days... down to 8 trains a week in the winter (10 in the summer). There used to be that many trains each day when I was a kid!

Great shots of Gare du Palais, BTW. It is a really spectacular station inside... they did a beautiful job restoring it back in the 80s. (For a while, Quebec's station was relegated to the suburbs too)

This is true for Pacific Central, which is likely visited much more by tourists than residents, but Waterfront Station is metro-Vancouver's largest transit hub now. 3 skytrain lines, the sea bus, and the WCE commuter rail all meet at Waterfront. It is an amazing renaissance for a classic train station that at one point in the mid 20th century was going to be torn down.

[CanadianCentaur]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Date of 1969 is based on Telus (AGT) tower topped out, with the second taller tower completed in 1981.

That should read as 1971, the actual year when the taller AGT Tower (now Telus House) was completed.

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

And finally, Edmonton skyline in 1984 (or is it 2005?)

That couldn't have been any truer than this! if someone managed to shot this pic in 2005, it sure wouldn't have looked any different if it weren't for Commerce Place, which went up in circa 1990 (from the vantage point, its top would show up right between Telus House and Scotia Place). After all, Edmonton took a helluva loooong time to recover from the 1990s, when its downtown core probably had one of Canada's highest office vacancy rates, if not the highest. And of course, the perfect storm of a whole bunch of factors including WEM, underground LRT construction, losing so much corporate business to Calgary, government cutbacks, etc, etc ad nauseum.

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Noticed something funny in front of the Hotel Macdonald (Edmonton's grand railway hotel).Did a bit of digging and it is the Hotel Macdonald Annex, built 1953, demolished 1986. Apparently the entire hotel was at risk of being demolished.

To demolish even the old hotel Mac would have been a HUGE loss for the city of Edmonton. But, yes, it's true that the city did once consider taking down even the original one. But it wised up and designated the Hotel Mac as a Municipal Heritage Resource. The original hotel was in such bad shape by 1983, that it had to be closed until it reopened in 1991, after CP Hotels bought it in the late 1980s and did major renos to its interior.

[davidivivid]

Didn't know where to put these... More af a then vs now type of post:

Jeffrey Hale hospital in 1901. Now a residential building. The Martello tower on the right was unfortunately demilished. The three other are still intact.






Chinese art museum built in 1910, now a commercial building.






Union hotel built in 1805, now a tourist information center.





http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/mai...9_section_POS2

[thegx]

Originally Posted by CanadianCentaur

That couldn't have been any truer than this! if someone managed to shot this pic in 2005, it sure wouldn't have looked any different.

Well there's one obvious difference, Commerce Place.

[Trans Canada]

^ Ah I knew about Edmonton, just figured it happened in Winnipeg too.

Edmonton had a handful of classic railway stations (no Union Station as discussed above), CN being the last to offer passenger service moved theirs to the base of the CN Tower when it was built in 1966.

Late 60s-early 70s, with City Hall on the right-

CN TOWER CITY HALL EDMONTON ALBERTA by Tikiville43, on Flickr

Views from the top of Edmonton's CN Tower, ~1969
Photographer K. Kaesekamp, Provincial Archives of Alberta


^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1086e

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1087c

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1084c

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1085d

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1085E

Date of 1969 is based on Telus (AGT) tower topped out, with the second taller tower completed in 1981 1971.


And finally, Edmonton skyline in 1984 (or is it 2005?)


& https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A12948

[Trans Canada]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1085d

Noticed something funny in front of the Hotel Macdonald (Edmonton's grand railway hotel).Did a bit of digging and it is the Hotel Macdonald Annex, built 1953, demolished 1986. Apparently the entire hotel was at risk of being demolished.

1951:

Source http://www.connect2edmonton.ca/forum...ad.php?t=14417 "as archived by the province" (though I can't find it on HeRMIS)

1969:

(on left)
Photographer Munro Williamson, Provincial Archives of Alberta, https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...ObjectID=A8377

[craner]

^Ahhh yes - the Mac & the box it came in.

[SignalHillHiker]

Wow, the changes to Union Hotel actually improve it tremendously. Don't often see that.

[vincefort]

I don't think this one was ever posted here before. Downtown Sherbrooke in the early 20th century view from the East.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by vincefort

I don't think this one was ever posted here before. Downtown Sherbrooke in the early 20th century view from the East.

Impressionant !!

Tu évaluerais à combien le pourcentage d'édifices encore debout en 2014 sur cette photo ?

... pendant que j'y pense, Holy crap, ça fait depuis 2008 que j'ai pas mis les pieds à Sherbrooke... je serais dû pour une petite virée !!

[Darkoshvilli]

Thats a great pic of Sherb. Kinda crazy how little it changed in a hundred years though.