Gananoque railway station in

Gananoque Gananoque ( ) is a town in the Leeds and Grenville area of Ontario, Canada. The town had a population of 5,383 year-round residents in the 2021 Canadian Census, as well as summer residents sometimes referred to as "Islanders" because of the Tho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada is served by

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

trains running from

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

to Ottawa and

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

. The station is an unstaffed but heated shelter.

Railway services

As of June 2020, Gananoque station is served by 1 domestic route (with connections). Departures have been reduced to 2 trains per day due to the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

(effective June 3, 2020). * No local service is provided between Ottawa and Fallowfield, or Guildwood and Toronto on these trains.

History

Gananoque Junction was originally served by two railways: the Grand Trunk Montréal-Toronto mainline and the

Thousand Islands Railway The Thousand Islands Railway (originally Gananoque & Rideau Railway) was an long railway running from the town of Gananoque north to the Grand Trunk Railway (now CN) Toronto-Montreal mainline, just south of present-day Cheeseborough. The service ...

, an 8 km (five mile)

short line railway In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$ ...

that led to the waterfront. A mainline station also once existed in

Lansdowne Lansdowne or Lansdown may refer to: People * Lansdown Guilding (1797–1831), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines naturalist and engraver *Fenwick Lansdowne (1937–2008), Canadian wildlife artist * George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) ...

but was torn down soon after CN abandoned service to the village, in 1966. The rail junction was relocated to the current station location in 1901 while timber shipments to Gananoque's docks were declining and tourism on the line was growing, with the

Thousand Islands The Thousand Islands (french: Mille-Îles) constitute a North American archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada–US border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for abo ...

heavily promoted as a vacation destination by rail and steamship. Unlike most stations of its era, Gananoque Junction had no freight-handling facility and was solely a passenger station. The last passengers transferred from CN to the Thousand Island Railway at Gananoque Junction in 1962. The short line's tracks are now gone. While the junction station remains in service, a huge water tank that towered over Gananoque Junction in the

steam train A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

era is now gone. Locomotive #500 from the now-defunct short line operation is on display next to Gananoque town hall; the Arthur Child Heritage Museum occupies the site of the former Gananoque waterfront station.

References

External links

{{VIA Station, GANA Via Rail stations in Ontario Canadian National Railway stations in Ontario Railway stations in Leeds and Grenville United Counties