Ottawa station (French: Gare d'Ottawa, IATA: XDS), or Ottawa Train Station, is the main inter-city train station in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) east of downtown Ottawa, adjacent to Tremblay O-Train station in the neighbourhood of Eastway Gardens. The station is operated by Via Rail and serves inter-city trains connecting to Toronto, Kingston, Montreal and Quebec City on Via Rail's Corridor Route. It also serves as an intercity bus stop for several bus operators.
Location
Ottawa station is located at 200 Tremblay Road, which lies directly south of Ontario Highway 417 (known locally as the Queensway) near Exit 117 and east of Riverside Drive (Regional Road 19) in an industrial park area. The station's main entrance faces north towards Tremblay Road. To the northeast of the station area lies the Max Keeping Pedestrian Bridge, which provides pedestrian and bicycle access north across Highway 417 to Ottawa Stadium (a minor-league baseball stadium), the Courtyard by Marriott Ottawa East and Hampton Inn by Hilton Ottawa (the closest hotels to the station). These two hotels are connected to each other by the Ottawa Conference and Event Centre and are located within a short walking distance to the west of the stadium parking lot. All of these locations are within a 10–15 minute walk from the station. South of the station, across the railroad tracks and Terminal Avenue lies the Ottawa Train Yards power centre shopping complex which includes a number of big-box stores. There is no direct pedestrian connection south across the railroad tracks to the Ottawa Train Yards, so they may only be accessed by a longer route via Belfast Road (to the east of the station). Currently, the City of Ottawa is evaluating proposals to create a pedestrian and cycle crossing across the tracks from Tremblay O-Train station to Terminal Avenue. Far to the northeast of the station, across the 417 highway cloverleaf and next to the Rideau River is an office complex of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ottawa station is located approximately 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) north of the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport. It takes 30 minutes to get there by public transport and 19 minutes by car or taxi. The station is also conveniently accessible from the Confederation O-train LRT Tremblay station, located 50 meters away. An O-train trip from a downtown Ottawa LRT station, such as Parliament or Rideau station, to Ottawa train station and vice-versa takes 13 and 10 minutes, respectively.
History
For more information on the early history of rail in Ottawa, see Ottawa Union Station. The first passenger rail services in Ottawa began in 1854 with the opening of the Bytown and Prescott Railway. Several other railways subsequently began operations, and their services were eventually consolidated at Ottawa Union Station, which was active from 1912 to 1966. This station was located on Rideau Street, directly across from the Château Laurier Hotel at Confederation Square and near the Parliament buildings. In 1966, railway services were relocated to Eastway Gardens, east of downtown and the Rideau River. The current Ottawa station is the result of an urban renewal plan by the French urban planner Jacques Greber. The plan was commissioned by Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King, who sought a re-imagining of the city following World War II.
Track relocation Among the proposals in Greber's city plan was the relocation of railway tracks outside the downtown core. This was not the first proposal to relocate trackage away from the central sections of Ottawa, as it had previously been discussed as early as 1915 and 1924. At that time, Ottawa was crossed by 11 train lines with over 150 level crossings, causing numerous traffic disruptions. Many of the railroads that crossed the city at the time were originally built in the nineteenth century to serve the lumber industry and were no longer appropriately sited. The tracks divided neighbourhoods and were considered unsightly.
Additionally, trains at that time were pulled by steam locomotives, which brought their noise and soot to the downtown Union Station and rail yard. As Time Magazine noted in 1948: "Ottawa, dominated by the anachronistic Gothic buildings of Parliament, has remained frowzy, a city where trains run through the center of town and chuff smoke into the foyer of the best hotel." Greber sought to clean up the downtown by relocating rail traffic outside of the city center. Part of this involved the construction of a new train station. The final decision to remove tracks from the downtown core was finalized in 1950, a time when transitioning to cleaner diesel locomotives seemed like a distant future possibility. Despite the transition to diesel occurring earlier than expected in 1960, plans for track relocation and a new station continued. A land swap was arranged between the Federal District Commission (now National Capital Commission) and the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways in which they gave up their downtown railyards east of the Rideau Canal and railway rights of way through Ottawa in exchange for land near Walkley Road, where the Walkley Train Yard would be extended. This reduced the number of trains travelling through the downtown core, opened up new land for development downtown and provided the east-west right of way for what would later become the Queensway (Highway 417).
The new Ottawa station
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