Kitchener station is a railway station located in

Kitchener, Ontario ) , image_flag = Flag of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , image_seal = Seal of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_shield=Coat of arms of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_blank_emblem = Logo of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , blank_emblem_type = ...

, Canada, slightly to the northeast of downtown Kitchener, at 126 Weber Street West, near the corner of Victoria Street. It is a heritage building containing a waiting room and ticket counter built beside a set of tracks also used as a freight yard. A separate building to the east of the passenger area, originally built in 1925 as a freight building, now serves as the headquarters for the

Goderich–Exeter Railway The Goderich–Exeter Railway is a short line freight railway that operates around of track in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Created in 1992, it was the first short line railway in Canada to be purchased from a class I railway, in this case ...

. The station is served by GO Transit regional trains operating between

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and Toronto,

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 ...

intercity trains operating between

Sarnia Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes w ...

and Toronto via London, and GO Transit regional buses operating between Kitchener and Bramalea.

History

In 1856, the

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 ...

was in the process of a westward push, extending its Toronto–Brampton line. The first Grand Trunk train arrived in Guelph on January 30. On Wednesday, June 18, the first train arrived in Kitchener (then known as Berlin) with 150 passengers. The first Berlin railway station opened shortly after, on the 1st of July. The railway was extended beyond Berlin to St. Marys Junction in 1858, and to

in 1859. In 1857, shortly after the arrival of the Grand Trunk, the Great Western Railway also arrived in Berlin via its subsidiary, the

Preston and Berlin Railway The first Preston and Berlin Railway was a steam power, steam-operated railway, opened for operation in 1857. Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener, Ontario), and Preston, Ontario (now part of Cambridge, Ontario), were only apart, but the route requi ...

. This

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

, the northern section of which still exists in the form of the CN Huron Park Spur, connected the northern Grand Trunk and southern Great Western mainlines to each other at a junction west of the newly-built Kitchener Grand Trunk station, near King Street. The Great Western began to construct its own wooden station close to the junction, and had purchased land near the Grand Trunk station which would allow for either adjacent stations or a future

union station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

. However, service on the Preston and Berlin line ended only a few months after it began due to the catastrophic collapse of its bridge over the Grand River, and the plans for a union station never bore fruit. The Grand Trunk Railway built the current station building in 1897 to replace the original, smaller building built in 1856. The station building originally included a prominent Gothic clock tower. A second tower was added to the station after a 1908 fire. In 1916, the town of Berlin was renamed to Kitchener, and the station was renamed accordingly. After the Great War, the Grand Trunk and several other financially distressed railways were nationalised and merged into the Canadian National Railway. The Guelph Subdivision was a secondary mainline for trains from Chicago, Michigan, and Western Ontario bound for Toronto and points East. Kitchener station served international GTR / CNR trains such as the

Maple Leaf The maple leaf is the characteristic leaf of the maple tree. It is the most widely recognized national symbol of Canada. History of use in Canada By the early 1700s, the maple leaf had been adopted as an emblem by the French Canadians along th ...

(Chicago - Port Huron - Toronto), as well as numerous regional trains. In 1966, Canadian National Railway (CN), by this point the owner of the station, removed the clock tower and the other roof features. In 1983, CN threatened to demolish the station, but

, which had assumed responsibility for CN's passenger services in 1978, opted to retain it. Under the provisions of Canada's

Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act The ''Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act'' is an act of the Parliament of Canada. The ''Act'' was enacted in 1988 in response to a long-standing and widespread concern that Canada’s heritage railway stations were not being protected. Bi ...

, it was designated a railway heritage structure on February 15, 1994. Between 1982 and 2004, Kitchener was served by the joint Via Rail-

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

International International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

'' service between Chicago and Toronto. In November 2010, a partial rollout of

GO train GO Transit rail services are provided throughout the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The GO Transit rail fleet consists of 90 MPI MP40 locomotives and 979 Bombardier BiLevel Coaches. In , the system had ...

service was announced to be in place by late 2011. Two

Kitchener line Kitchener is one of the seven train lines of the GO Transit system in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. It extends westward from Union Station in Toronto to Kitchener, though most trains originate and terminate in Brampton in off-peak ...

trains daily served Acton, Guelph and Kitchener with layover for those trains at a small facility in Kitchener. $18 million was spent to get this first stage operational, with further upgrades to come. Service began on December 19, serving only Kitchener and Guelph to begin with.

Services

Service directly to the station is operated by GO Transit and Via Rail. In addition, GO Transit and Grand River Transit operate other bus services which stop near the station on either Weber Street or Victoria Street but do not enter the station's bus terminal.

Via Rail

Kitchener station is an intermediate stop on the

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 ...

–

intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

train service, which forms a component of Via Rail's ''Corridor'' network. As of 2021, service consists of a single round trip per day.

GO Transit

The station is nominally the western terminus of

GO Transit GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

/ commuter rail service connecting Kitchener to Toronto via

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...

, Georgetown, and

Brampton Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a lower-tier municipality within Peel Region. The city has a population of 656,480 as of the 2021 Census, making it ...

. As of 2021, the station is served by 10 eastbound and 9 westbound trains per weekday, one of which extends beyond Kitchener to London. There is no GO train service on weekends. GO Transit bus route 30 also provides hourly bus service from Kitchener station to

Bramalea GO Station Bramalea GO Station is a GO Transit railway and bus station along the Kitchener line in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 1713 Steeles Avenue East, near the community of Bramalea at Steeles Ave. East and Bramalea Road. Like many other ...

where passengers can connect to hourly off-peak trains.

Future

The Region of Waterloo plans to replace the existing Kitchener station with a new

Kitchener Central Station Central Station is a light rail station in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, which is planned to be expanded into an intermodal transit terminal. , it consists of an Ion light rail stop and Grand River Transit bus stops. The site is planned to also ...

or "Transit Hub" located at King Street where the railway crosses the Ion light rail line. The station would accommodate regional GO and intercity Via Rail trains, as well as intercity coach buses. In 2016, it was estimated that the new station could only open in 2022 at the earliest. The Central Station light rail stop opened in 2019 along with the light rail line itself. A larger GO train layover facility is planned west of Kitchener near

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...

, in order to allow increased train service to Kitchener. In the meantime, trains are stored in an interim yard in Kitchener off Shirley Avenue east of the station. In addition, an

infill station An infill station (sometimes in-fill station) is a train station built on an existing passenger rail, rapid transit, or light rail line to address demand in a location between existing stations. Such stations take advantage of existing train serv ...

known as Breslau GO is planned in the residential community of Breslau, across the Grand River to the east. The new station would be oriented around

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...

service, in order to address parking capacity without large-scale station parking downtown.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

{{Kitchener, Ontario Grand Trunk Railway stations in Ontario Via Rail stations in Ontario Railway stations in Kitchener, Ontario Canadian National Railway stations in Ontario GO Transit railway stations Designated heritage railway stations in Ontario Railway stations in Canada opened in 1897 1897 establishments in Ontario Former Amtrak stations in Canada History of Kitchener, Ontario History of rail transport in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo Canadian Register of Historic Places in Ontario