Via upgrading city’s Union Station

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This article was published 25/08/2023 (799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s Union Station may not be as busy as it was 100 years ago, but Via Rail Canada is committed to making sure it meets the needs of the modern train traveller.

It’s in the process of spending $25 million on a number of upgrades to the 248,000-square-foot, 112-year-old building, part of an $80-million program to renovate and upgrade its four Heritage stations: Winnipeg’s Union Station, Vancouver Pacific Station, Halifax Station, and Gare du Palais in Québec City.

It has been working on the upgrades in Winnipeg since 2020 with new elevators and escalators already in place as well as heritage-sensitive accessibility improvements including new street level doors on the east side of the building that lead to The Forks property.

It is in the process of upgrading interior passenger platforms and will replace exterior passenger platforms. All the work is being done in keeping with the heritage designation the building received in 1989.

Via’s CEO, Mario Péloquin, along with the entire board of directors, including board chair Françoise Bertrand, used the announcement of the renovation project as an excuse to travel to Winnipeg, a city that Péloquin said he has not visited for 30 years.

Both of the officials from the Crown-owned passenger railway spoke about the importance of the Winnipeg station, one of the oldest and largest of its portfolio of more than 100 stations across the country.

“This is a hub in our network and has always been through the life of the building,” Péloquin said. “Winnipeg matters to Via Rail. It matters greatly. That’s why we’re investing $25 million in renovations and improvements.”

He also acknowledged the national railway was a little behind in its overall maintenance and upgrading activities.

“We are doing a little catch-up work because of the ebbs and flows in capital budgets. But to a large extent we have caught up. We are in a much better state than we were in a few years ago,” he said.

Péloquin remarked that Via would be pursuing third-party commercial development opportunities, something that Via has tried a few times over the years in Union Station. The station will also eventually serve as a hub for Winnipeg’s light rapid transit network and will somehow need to be integrated into the substantial residential developments being planned immediately east of Union Station at The Forks.

But for now, other than housing the offices for The Forks management, there is not a lot of third-party leasing activity in the spacious building.

“We realize the station is underutilized compared to 100 years ago when there were more passengers,” Péloquin said. “We are trying to use the space more efficiently and make the experience more pleasant for travellers.”

While space is not currently on the market for commercial development, it is something that is expected to happen in the near future, he said.

The announcement about the renovations was also an opportunity for the Montreal-based management and board to visit Winnipeg and get a sense of the importance of the service it provides, in particular on its northern route to Churchill where it is a lifeline to many of the communities along the line, not to mention the fact that it is the only ground access to Churchill, Canada’s only deep water port on the Arctic Ocean.

Michael Woelcke, the CEO of Arctic Gateway Group, which owns and operates the rail line from The Pas to Churchill, said it has a great relationship with Via.

Via has provided consistent, reliable service three times per week out of Winnipeg to Churchill and even did so throughout the pandemic, he said.

Asked if there was sufficient supply relative to the demand, Woelcke said he believed there was.

“There will be times of the year where it gets full, but that’s not a bad thing. And there are other times, like when the winter roads are open and folks who live in the community can take alternative transportation, but I was just talking to people from Cormorant and Wabowden and they really rely on rail,” he said.

“Via is a great partner,” added Colin Ferguson, the CEO of Travel Manitoba.

“It’s provides a great product that connects Winnipeg to an amazing product in the North and parts in between.”

Travel Manitoba is always advocating for more sleeper and dining cars on the Churchill route but he understands it has to do with the availability of cars, he said.

Via’s investment in Winnipeg’s Union Station is great for the province, as there still exists a romance to rail travel, which is often the preferred mode of travel for European visitors, Ferguson said.

While it will remain to be seen if the northern route would benefit, Péloquin said Via Rail is putting the final touches on a major proposal it will submit to the minister of transportation for the purchase of new modern fleet of trains, that will cost in the billions of dollars.

“It will mean so much,” he said. “They would be a more accessible, sustainable and pleasurable experience. Our goal is to have new trains on the track this decade.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca