Bonaventure Station

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Bonaventure Station is the name of several railway stations located in downtown Montreal, Quebec.

[edit] Grand Trunk Railway

The Grand Trunk Railway's Bonaventure Station in the 1870s. The station structure roughly corresponded with Chaboillez Square in downtown Montreal. This building was destroyed by a fire in 1916.

Named for its location on Saint Bonaventure Street[1], now Saint Jacques Street, the first Bonaventure Station was built in 1847 as the main terminal for the Montreal and Lachine Railway. The structure was leased by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1864 to provide access to the downtown for that company; GTR subsequently purchased the station and incorporated it as the railway's Montreal terminal.

In the 1880s, the Intercolonial Railway began using Bonventure Station as its western terminal for service running from Halifax, Nova Scotia and other points in the Maritimes (see Ocean Limited).

Montreal was a city ripe with speculation from real estate developers during the railway boom from the 1880s to the early 1910s. The Canadian Pacific Railway constructed the majestic Windsor Station soon after the company was formed, with the Richardsonian structure opening in 1889.

Railways at the turn of the 20th century considered their terminal stations to be "prestige projects" and GTR was no different when the company began to seriously consider building a replacement for Bonaventure Station in 1900. A design for the new Bonaventure Station was commissioned by Chicago architects Frost and Granger, however in the end the new station was never built as the GTR began to focus on its Grand Trunk Pacific transcontinental railway project.

A sketch depicting the proposed replacement to Bonaventure Station, whose design was commissioned by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1900.

In 1910, the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) came to town and secretly purchased three entire blocks of downtown Montreal property for a major terminal and real estate development to coincide with the construction of its Mount Royal Tunnel. A temporary terminal facility was constructed to coincide with the tunnel project, however financial difficulties at CNoR resulting from declining traffic levels following the commencement of World War I delayed completion.

On March 1, 1916 the GTR's historic Bonaventure Station was destroyed by a disastrous fire. A temporary second Bonaventure Station was built in its place.

[edit] Canadian National Railways

In September 1918 CNoR went bankrupt and was nationalized by the federal government, merging the company with Canadian Government Railways that December to form Canadian National Railways (CNR). GTR faced similar financial problems and by 1923 was also absorbed into the CNR.

CNR made use of the GTR's temporary second Bonaventure Station, as well as the temporary CNoR station at the southern end of the Mount Royal Tunnel line, however it soon became evident that the railway required a central railway terminal in Montreal's downtown. In 1929, six years after absorbing GTR, Parliament approved the "Canadian National Montreal Terminals Act, 1929" which began the process of consolidating and rationalizing terminal trackage in the Montreal area and almost 15 years later on July 14, 1943 CNR opened Central Station on the former CNoR lands.

The temporary CNoR station was closed after Central Station was opened and the temporary second Bonaventure Station was demolished in November 1952.

[edit] Montreal Metro

The railway lands that had been occupied by GTR for Bonaventure Station, as well as the lands acquired by CNoR in the early part of the 20th century for its real estate developments, had been inherited by CN and the federal government. During the post-war years, CN was directed to commission a major urban redevelopment of the city's downtown using these properties, focusing on its newly-built Central Station.

In addition to Place Ville Marie, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and the CN Headquarters, Montreal became home to one of the largest commercial retail/office developments in the world when Place Bonaventure was built on part of the Central Station terminal trackage, a few blocks northeast of the former location of Bonaventure Station. This development was built between 1966-1967, in advance of Expo 67, with the newly-commissioned Dow Planetarium constructed on the actual site of both Bonaventure Stations.

A Metro station was built to service the area, opening on February 13, 1967 and is named Bonaventure Metro Station.