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The "railway station district," both an onlooker and a player in the creation of the new downtown to the north of the historic city centre, with its two stations and their respective urban environments, is surprisingly successful at combining what one would expect to be the conflicting Victorian and modern worlds.
     
 

With the construction of Windsor Station, at the close of the 19th century, the city's transportation infrastructures and business centre began shifting to the more affluent upper town. Before that time, all the major facilities of this kind had been located around the historic city centre, in the lower town. To serve this upper town, tracks were first laid along an escarpment. Then, in the 20th century, other tracks were laid beneath Mount Royal, through a specially dug tunnel. Finally, a long urban viaduct, straddling several streets, brought the tracks from the southwest part of the city, where the Grand Trunk facilities taken over by Canadian National were still located. This all meant that ocean-going passengers were only a few moments away from continental trains: immigrants arriving by the thousands in the port, along with wealthy tourists travelling first class on steamers owned by CP or its competitors, simply had to transfer to the railway stations and board trains owned by the same companies.

A new downtown emerged around the two stations, one Victorian and the other modern.

 
   
   
 
 
THE RAILWAY STATION DISTRICT
WINDSOR STATION AND ITS
VICTORIAN SURROUNDINGS
CENTRAL STATION AND
ITS MODERN COMPLEX
PLACE VILLE-MARIE
HEART OF THE UNDERGROUND
PEDESTRIAN NETWORK
TWO RAILWAY STATIONS
IN THE HISTORIC CITY CENTRE
THE VICTORIA BRIDGE
     
 
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March 2003