Allandale Waterfront GO Station was built just south of Allandale Station, a historic

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing ...

that occupies a large property on the southern shore of

Lake Simcoe Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called ''Ouentironk' ...

in the waterfront area of

Barrie Barrie is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada, about north of Toronto. The city is within Simcoe County and located along the shores of Kempenfelt Bay, the western arm of Lake Simcoe. Although physically in Simcoe County, Barrie is politicall ...

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 Ca ...

, Canada. The current station and former station were built on a burial site of the

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawato ...

indigenous peoples. Construction of the new facility began in 2009. GO Transit announced on 15 June 2011 that the station would open in the autumn of 2011, but construction delayed its opening until January 2012. Bus service to the station began on 28 January 2012, with the train service following two days later. A ceremonial train trip from Allandale Waterfront GO Station to

Bradford GO Station Bradford GO Station is a railway station and bus station in the GO Transit network located in Bradford, Ontario in Canada. It is 67 km north of Union Station in downtown Toronto, and was the terminus of the Bradford line before it was ext ...

officially opened the station on 29 January 2012.

History

Early years

The

Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Union Railway The Northern Railway of Canada was a railway in the province of Ontario, Canada. It was the first steam railway to enter service in what was then known as Upper Canada. It was eventually acquired by the Grand Trunk Railway, and is therefore a p ...

(OS&HUR) first built a station here in 1853. The current structure, the fourth station building on the site, was designed by the architectural firm

Spier and Rohns Spier, Rohns & Gehrke was a noted Detroit, Michigan architectural firm operated by Frederick H. Spier and William C. Rohns, best remembered for designs of churches and railroad stations. These were frequently executed in the Richardson Romanesque s ...

, built in 1904 by Richard Scruton, and opened by then-operator

Grand Trunk Railway The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...

on 19 June 1905. The station provided passenger service for the Grand Trunk and later the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

and

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 ...

until closing in 1980. It briefly reopened as a GO passenger facility from 1990 to 1993. In 1996, the CNR lifted rails between Allandale and Longford.

ACDC

The Allandale Community Development Corporation or 'ACDC' (with City interests) purchased the buildings and adjacent from CNR after train service was discontinued in the 1980s. ACDC then sold the station to CHUM Ltd in 2000.

CHUM ownership

CHUM Ltd. CHUM Limited was a Canadian media company based in Toronto, Ontario in operation from 1945 to 2007. The company was founded in 1945 as York Broadcasters Limited when it launched CHUM-AM 1050 but was acquired by salesman Allan Waters in 1954. CHU ...

purchased the of land, including the station buildings, for in 2000. CHUM planned to restore the Allandale Station building as part of their plan to develop of a new broadcast centre on the site for their television station,

CKVR CKVR-DT (channel 3) is a television station in Barrie, Barrie, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the CTV 2 system. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by Bell Media alongside Toronto-ba ...

, but changed their plan in 2004. In 2007, CHUM agreed to sell the property to the City for the same amount CHUM originally paid. CHUM received a Charitable Donation tax receipt reflecting the increased value of the property since 2000 largely due to the restoration and site works completed by CHUM.

Redevelopment

Construction of the new Allandale Waterfront GO Station (located adjacent to the historic Allandale Station) broke ground in spring 2010 and the station officially opened on 28 January 2012. Redevelopment of the station cost approximately $5 million.

Archeology

The Allandale station site is located on a site used by indigenous peoples. Prior to the original railway construction, a large pit of several hundred indigenous peoples' remains was found. Other ossuaries were found in 1884 and 1889. It was the subject of an archeological excavation, during which objects were recovered from the Uren substage of the Middle Ontario

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoia ...

period. It has been dated to the late 12th to early 13th century and was used as a fishing station by the

people. It is the only documented fishing station from the Uren period, and one of few sites of that period to have been discovered. The site is regarded by archeologists as a temporary location "for exploitation of local fish resources". Numerous fish remains were found in the site's

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and eco ...

, but no

longhouses A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often re ...

were found there. Analysis of the fish remains indicates that various species were caught for consumption at this site. These include species in the family Catostomidae (110 white sucker, 23 longnose sucker, and 103 specimens from other genus '' Catostomus'' species), family

Percidae The Percidae are a family of ray-finned fish, part of the order Perciformes, which are found in fresh and brackish waters of the Northern Hemisphere. The majority are Nearctic, but there are also Palearctic species. The family contains more ...

(34

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Sam ...

and 1

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

), as well as 12 Ictaluridae, 14

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, ...

and 4 smallmouth bass, 5

Centrarchidae Centrarchidae, better known as sunfishes, is a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Perciformes (formerly belonging to the deprecated order Centrarchiformes), native only to North America. There are eight universally ...

, and specimens from several other species. In 2011, human bone fragment remains were discovered underneath the crawl space of the office building at the site during an excavation for an archeological site assessment as part of grading work for the new train station. These were later determined to have been in the fill used as backfill for the foundation, but were of indeterminate origin. An incisor found amongst those remains was interpreted to be part of the Uren archeological material, but data are insufficient to ascertain its ultimate origin. The Huron-Wendat people consider the site to be a disturbed site of indigenous remains which could be an

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...

. The original train station and yard's construction disturbed the remains and the new station disturbed them further without proper archaeological study. Further, the construction of the GO station did not follow Government of Ontario heritage regulations, which prohibited the disturbance of human remains at a known site.

Heritage station buildings

The station buildings comprise a federally designated heritage railway station protected by the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act. The

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

structures are near the southwest shore of Kempenfeldt Bay in

, separated from it by a public park. The station complex was originally adjacent to Kempenfeldt Bay until the land behind the station was infilled and levelled to build a

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

. The station complex consists of a station building, an office building, and a restaurant adjacent to each other along the rail line. They have a uniform roof pitch, and form an atypical layout for a railway station. The low-pitched roof and deep overhanging eaves are indicative of

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped ...

design influence. Two of the buildings were designed in 1904 by the

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

firm Spier & Rohns. The interior and exterior features of the buildings are provincially protected under an

Ontario Heritage Trust The Ontario Heritage Trust (french: link=no, Fiducie du patrimoine ontarien) is a non-profit agency of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. It is responsible for protecting, preserving and promoting the built, natural and cultural herita ...

conservation easement. The station building was considered the "flagship of the Grand Trunk" upon its opening.

Services

Allandale Waterfront station has weekday train service consisting of 7 trains southbound to Union Station in the morning, and 7 trains returning northbound from Union Station in the afternoon. At other times, GO bus route 68 operates hourly to

Aurora GO Station Aurora GO Station is a railway station and bus station in the GO Transit network located on Wellington Street East between Yonge Street and Bayview Avenue in Aurora, Ontario, Canada. It is a stop on the Barrie line train service, and connects wi ...

where passengers can transfer to the all-day train service to Toronto. Weekend train service consists of 5 trains in each direction throughout the day. GO bus route 68 also operates hourly to

Aurora GO station Aurora GO Station is a railway station and bus station in the GO Transit network located on Wellington Street East between Yonge Street and Bayview Avenue in Aurora, Ontario, Canada. It is a stop on the Barrie line train service, and connects wi ...

or East Gwillimbury GO station where passengers can connect to the hourly weekend train service to Toronto.

Simcoe County LINX Simcoe County LINX (or simply LINX) is a public transport service managed by Simcoe County and operated by First Student Canada, which is responsible for inter-community regional bus service throughout Simcoe County, connecting rural towns and to ...

bus service from

Wasaga Beach Wasaga Beach (or simply Wasaga) is a town in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada. Situated along the longest freshwater beach in the world, it is a popular summer tourist destination. It is located along the southern end of Georgian Bay, approximat ...

uses this station. Other intercity services using

Barrie Bus Terminal The Barrie Bus Terminal, also called the Barrie Transit Terminal or Barrie Bus Depot, is an intercity and municipal bus station in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It serves as one of five hubs for the local Barrie Transit system as well as the city's st ...

are expected to move to Allandale Waterfront GO in 2023.

References

External links

*
Allandale Station Lands
at City of

* * * {{GO Transit Buildings and structures in Barrie Rail transport in Barrie GO Transit railway stations Railway stations in Canada opened in 2012 Canadian National Railway stations in Ontario Designated heritage railway stations in Ontario Railway stations in Simcoe County 2012 establishments in Ontario