Every commuter train in the region, one roof
Union Station
Toronto's grand 1927 train hall is the single busiest piece of transportation infrastructure in the country — over a quarter million people a day pass through it, more than through Pearson Airport.
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More people pass through Union Station on an average weekday than through Toronto Pearson Airport — a fact that surprises a lot of visitors, given how much less attention the building gets internationally.
A grand building for a growing city (opened 1927)
The current Union Station opened in 1927, jointly commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and Grand Trunk Railway and designed in the Beaux-Arts style by a team including Toronto architect John M. Lyle. Its Great Hall runs 79 metres long with a 27-metre coffered ceiling, built to project the confidence of a city that had just spent decades growing rapidly on the back of the railway.
The train shed
Behind the Great Hall, the Union Station Train Shed, built 1929–30, uses a "Bush shed" design — smoke ducts positioned directly above the tracks that vent locomotive exhaust upward while keeping platforms below relatively clear, a clever piece of pre-diesel railway engineering that's still functionally intact today.
A 2010s restoration
A major restoration and revitalization project, starting around 2010, cleaned and repaired the facade, restored the historic concourse and VIA Rail waiting rooms, and added new retail concourses beneath the station without altering the protected heritage spaces above.
The hub it is today
Union Station is now the meeting point for Toronto's TTC subway, GO Transit's regional rail network, VIA Rail's national intercity trains, and the UP Express airport link to Pearson — arguably the single most load-bearing piece of infrastructure in the whole region, all funnelled through one 1927 building.
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Sources
- City of Toronto — History of Union Station
- GO Transit — Union Station: History, Facts & Map
- Toronto Railway Historical Association — Union Station (1927)