Kitchener station is a railway station located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, slightly to the northeast of downtown Kitchener, at 126 Weber Street West, near the corner of Victoria Street. It is a heritage building containing a waiting room and ticket counter built beside a set of tracks also used as a freight yard. A separate building to the east of the passenger area, originally built in 1925 as a freight building, now serves as the headquarters for the Goderich–Exeter Railway. The station is served by two daily Via Rail trains in each direction running between Sarnia and Toronto via London. On weekdays there are also 8 eastbound and 7 westbound GO Transit train trips between Kitchener and Toronto. In the times or directions that train service is not operating, GO busroute 30 Kitchener provides express service to Bramalea GO Station where passengers can connect to off-peak trains. Grand River Transit routes 4, 6, 20, 34 and 204 stop near to the station on either Weber Street or Victoria Street.
History
Berlin Station opened on 1 July 1856 as part of the Grand Trunk Railway line between Toronto and Berlin. The railway was extended beyond Berlin to St. Marys Junction in 1858, and to Sarnia in 1859. In 1916, the town of Berlin was renamed Kitchener, and the station was renamed accordingly. The GTR built the current station building in 1897 to replace a smaller building built in 1856. The station building originally included a prominent Gothicclock tower. A second tower was added to the station after a 1908 fire. In 1966, Canadian National Railway, by this point the owner of the station, removed the clock tower and the other roof features. In 1983, CN threatened to demolish the station, but Via Rail, who had assumed responsibility for CN's passenger services in 1978, opted to retain it. Under the provisions of Canada's Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, it was designated a railway heritage structure as of February 15, 1994. Between 1982 and 2004, Kitchener was served by the Via Rail and AmtrakInternational Limited service between Chicago and Toronto. In November 2010, a partial rollout of GO train service was announced to be in place by late 2011. Two Kitchener line trains daily serve Acton, Guelph and Kitchener with layover for those trains at a small facility in Kitchener. $18 million was spent to get this first stage operational, with further upgrades to come. Service began on December 19, serving only Kitchener and Guelph to begin with.
Services
Kitchener station is a stop on the Via Rail Toronto–London–Sarnia intercity train service, which forms a component of Via Rail's Corridor network. This currently consists of two trains per direction per day, but only one of these trains terminates in Sarnia, with the other terminating early in London. The station is also served by GO Transit's Kitchener line regional/commuter service connecting it to Toronto via Guelph, Georgetown, and Brampton. Kitchener is the service's western terminus. It currently consists of 8 eastbound and 7 westbound trains per weekday, with no weekend service. Eastbound trains consist of 6 commuter-oriented early morning trains, 1 mid-afternoon train, and 1 evening train. Westbound trains consist of 1 mid-afternoon train, 6 late afternoon trains, and 1 evening train.
Future
The Region of Waterloo plans to replace Kitchener Station with a new Kitchener Central Station located at King Street where the railway crosses the Ion light rail line. In addition to the Via Rail and GO Transit trains and buses relocated from the current facility, the new facility would also serve the new light rail line, and Greyhound and Coach Canada intercity buses which are currently served from Charles Street Transit Terminal. The Central Stationlight rail stop opened in 2019 along with the lightrail line itself, but as of 2016 the new railway station could only open in 2022 at the earliest. A larger GO train layover facility is planned west of Kitchener near Baden, in order to allow increased train service to Kitchener. In the meantime, trains are stored in an interim yard in Kitchener off Shirley Avenue east of the station.
