Outer Station Buildings Demolished

Thanks to Andrew Jeanes for the heads-up this week about the depressing demolition of dilapidated buildings at the Outer Station site. Andrew kindly shared the top photo. Fittingly, the word dilapidated originates from the Latin verb dilapidare, literally ‘scatter as if throwing stones but more commonly 'wasted' or 'squandered'. All apply to long and slow decline of the former Grand Trunk Railway and Canadian National Railways gateway to our fair city. As with most Canadian railway stations, settlers settled, soldiers departed, immigrants arrived.

A rear view of the station parking lot taken in 1972, with a CN AMC Hornet in the foreground, and CN passenger train stopped at the station, from Vintage Kingston Facebook:

Captioned March, 1974 this online auction site photo shows an eastbound CN passenger train making its station stop, providentially pre-dilapidation:

A similar angle showing a kid in short pants watching a Toronto-Montreal train arriving in 1970 taken by L.C. Gagnon:

Our family has a long association with Kingston. Growing up in Lachine, QC gave us the opportunity to drive here in our 1961 Volkswagen Beetle. There were five of us and I rode in the middle of the back seat, knees around ears with my feet on the drive-shaft hump. We visited local tourist attractions such as Old Fort Henry and Aunt Lucy’s Restaurant. 

Kingston is a place where things don’t change much over time. At the time, we didn’t know our family of five would move here when my Dad accepted a teaching position at Sydenham High School in 1969.

My grandmother would come to visit and we would meet her train at the Outer Station. I would come to call it the ‘old station’ once the Counter Street station opened in 1974. It was impossible not to notice the Outer Station’s sweeping track curvature which blocked the view of most of a stopped passenger train. The freight yard was seldom full, but this busy corner of Kingston was a gateway, though the long, arrow-straight sightlines at the new station’s platforms were decidedly different.

My Dad and I had a regular Saturday morning routine, of course in a Volkswagen, albeit newer! Visiting local book shops, the A&P, Lloyd Shales Hobby Supplies on Division Street, the Co-op and Queen’s University’s Douglas Library. In the pre-internet era, photocopying there was the way to Copy-Save information! We would head home, surveying the remaining downtown trackage or along the waterfront and grain elevator, looking for any shipping activity.

With CN’s realignment and the stub-ending of the Outer Station trackage, my view of that property changed. It seemed sleepy, down-at-the-heels and no longer a gateway. I wasn’t old enough to know its role was passing into history.  Old enough to drive, I made a few more visits on my own, perhaps finding an occasional train: a stored rail-grinding train, a fibre-optic laying train, even the cabooseless-operation display train. 

Now, I visit that same property for auto rust-proofing! A new dealership is located at the former gateway, as the station buildings crumbled through benign neglect. Things can indeed change in Kingston, and the 50 years I’ve spent visiting the Outer station bear that out.

At present-day 810 Montreal Street, the stone GTR 7-bay Type A station had a gambrel roof with five gabled dormers on a curved attic extension of eaves to shelter passengers on the platform. Curved brackets led from the first storey to the buried roof dormers. Round-arched windows were reminiscent of the solidity displayed by Roman - Neo-Classical style of architecture used for public works, installing an air of permanence and confidence, even of Empire! Its Italianate proportions are attributed to Sir Francis Thompson, GTR’s Montreal architect.

A second, brick building was added in 1895-1898, sitting 100 feet east of the first, echoing its design features with seven arches and similar supporting brackets. The brick has been heavily-painted, with a low, single-storey wooden structure added between the two.

The earlier limestone building hosted offices and waiting room until at least 1892. The second building housed a lunch room. In 1939, the earlier  building was converted to the baggage and express room and station functions moved over to the second building. Renovations in 1970 included extending ticket sales counters when sales staff relocated from the Princess Street ticket office. 

The scope of commercial post-railway operations in the station buildings - Clapperton Crystal in the late 1970s and the Pig & Whistle in the late 1980s, among others, are beyond the scope of this post. The remaining yard track and connection to the mainline were last used for a rail safety display in June, 1995.

CN hasn't been a federal Crown corporation since its 1995 privatization. As a railway operating across provincial boundaries, it's a federally-regulated railway under the Canada Transportation Act. The Constitution of Canada gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over interprovincial railways, so properties owned by CN are beyond the jurisdiction of provincial laws like the Ontario Heritage Act. 

The City of Kingston designated the Outer Station as a heritage property in 1987, but that by-law has no impact on CN. The lack of jurisdiction of provincial heritage laws is in large part why the federal Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act was passed in 1988, though the act does contains no provisions for maintenance or to prevent 'demolition by neglect'. The Outer Station was designated under the federal act in 1994, so CN needs permission from the federal Minister of the Environment & Climate Change to alter or demolish the station building or to sell the property - despite the fact that the property has been completely disconnected from CN's railway tracks

AND NOW...

From the City of Kingston:

CN to demolish two CN Railway Station Structures

March 10, 2026

CN owns the three railway station buildings at 810 Montreal Street. CN has notified the City of Kingston that the structural integrity of the baggage building and the breezeway attached to the baggage building have deteriorated so much that any entry poses extreme safety risks. CN has informed the City that demolition is the only viable course of action and that it will demolish these structures. CN has shared that it is taking this action under the federal legislation in effect on this historic railway station.

To further protect public safety, CN will install fencing around the site to prevent public access during and after demolition.

CN has determined that the stone railway station building on the property does not need to be demolished and that restoration efforts will be explored moving forward.

The railway station buildings are designated as heritage buildings under both federal and provincial legislation. When the City designated the buildings in 1987 (under provincial legislation), CN was a Crown corporation. The intent of the designation, and its consideration within the North Kingstown Secondary Plan, was to protect the heritage character of the buildings if and when CN sold them and to ensure that any future adaptive reuse or development proposals considered the heritage character of the buildings.

Scenery Upgrade...and a Down Grade

I've been maintaining a short three-item 'TO DO' list for minor scenery projects on my layout, now completed:

1. Replacing the Cataraqui Street crossing, removed when I added a CP lead to Dyeco in 2023. Until now, crossing would have been, as Bette Davis said, 'a bumpy ride'.

I used some board-like brown card-stock and modelling clay, adding cross bucks for realism.

2. Dropping the Kingston Milling/Crawford Coal spur down below layout level. Since I added this spur a year ago redeveloping the CN/CP 'Confederation Basin' station yard, its awkward location at a joint between two pieces of my layout benchwork meant cars sometimes rolled away! I alternate set-outs on this track: coal for Crawford, next time grain for Kingston Milling. The spur and structures are selectively smaller than prototype, but including them has added a lot of operating interest. As a facing-point spur while switching the yard tracks, the spur must be switched on the CN switcher's return trip.

I used a multi-cutter to remove the plywood under the spur, then added a lower piece of wood to form a downgrade. No in-progress photos, just the finished, scenicked product:

3. Adding small embankments between the CN and CP mainlines and the CP lead near the River Street bridge, to visually break up the three-track-main-line look, prototypically leading to the bridge embankment and grade separation. Additional scenery also helped to cover my tracks, actually where the tracks had formally been previously!

I used modelling clay for a base,  then glued rocks and strips of green 'fairy mat'.

While scenicking an entire huge layout is daunting, these tiny micro-sceneries are much more attainable and much more enjoyable to work on and to complete!

The Black & White CN Era on the Hanley Spur

While trying out various sky effects for layout photography on my Kingston's Hanley Spur, I enlisted the help of CN's Outer Station-based switcher. Here are a few virtual views of the black & white (and red nose all-over) RS-18 3120 wending its way down the spur.

The Sky's NOT the Limit

I've seen other modellers using AI to replace sky backgrounds. Why? Because basement walls with corners, nailheads, drywall imperfections, doorways, TVs on the wall et al make for distracting photo backgrounds. So far, I've been limited to trying to hold up a dollar-store Bristol-board cloud background. Difficult! Low-tech!

A quick online search led me to free BeFunky sky replacer and I tried it on a few recent images taken on my layout. The first step (top photo) was just to change the existing sky. Then I found the 'Change Sky' option. Some of them are a bit too dramatic, but some aren't. This looks better:

A 'drone view' (above) is somewhat believable with a new sky. One of the limitations of the 'AI' are defining the skyline. The software sometime blurs the background with odd results. Also, some of the options could not be used repeatedly or they'd become recognizable. 

The key to using the tool effectively may be to take a photo with sky replacement in mind, not limiting photography to escape background issues in the layout room!

I screen-shotted the images, removed the watermarks and further adjusted them in Photos. Even tried a black & white image:

Looks like a humid, stormy summer Kingston sky:

Bye-bye, wall!

A couple of before-and-after images as a head-to-head comparison. Look at that pesky corner:

Gone!

Retouched background - still a drop ceiling of a different colour:

Gone!

That corner again:

Gone again!

Tried this option just before I said 'good night'!

River St. Bridge Redux

After already 'redux-ing' the diamond crossing of CP and CN under the River Street bridge, it's now time to improve my modelling of the aforementioned bridge. This was brought about by my grandsons' love of driving vehicles up and over the bridge when they visited my layout. The railings were the first to go, and having moved the scrap yard to the left of the bridge and considered expanding Anglin's yard into that space, I took a look at the topography.

Both railways' lines under the bridge are in a depression, and the CP was particularly poorly-drained and prone to flooding that made the ballast and ties sub-optimal. CN seemed to have a little better ballast and roadbed. My bridge, by contrast, arises out of complete flatness, so some scenic remodelling would be of primary importance in dealing with the bridge's approaches and abutments.

First, I copy-paste-printed several images of the bridge for modelling inspiration, three views looking south and two looking north (below). The drawback to the top four images is that they show the appearance of the bridge after the 1970 rebuilding. A concrete foundation was poured, underpinning the vertical wooden bridge piers and the road approaches. Comparing that to the fifth image, the roughness of the limestone, the gap where the bridge was raised during WWII, and the stone/vegetation of the supports become apparent. I was modelling circa 1970, but now I've backdated that to circa 1966, so I need to reflect that fifth image.

I'll post my progress here as the rebuild evolves...

The first step was an unexpected one. I realized I had to reverse the direction of the Queen City Oil spur to preserve it in the face of the re-scenicking. That's OK because this would the direction it would have been, a trailing-point spur when heading north. Current underneath, new arrangement taking shape on top:

The next step was to clear off the bridge approaches, the sides of which I'd affixed some self-adhesive lichen backdrop, as a sheer vertical. I firmly attached the near bridge support to the layout surface from underneath. This approach was really too long anyway. The prototype River Street bridge was notoriously short, thereby steep, on the Rideau Street side.

I then decided that I needed to simulate the depression on the near side of the bridge. To do so, I built up 'Rideau Street' in the foreground then made some topography sloping down to the tracks on both sides of the approach from Rideau Street. I did so by screwing a piece of foam-core, scored to alter the topography, to the layout. I used two blocks of wood to raise the near side of the foam-core, shaping it in a 'U' up and over the near side of the approach. This has resulted in a shorter, more gradual but more believable near approach to the bridge. The shorter far approach remains unchanged because it covers a 'hidden' track to Dyeco under which I need adequate clearance for switching movements.

I then cooked up some papier-mache' [to reflect my surname, I say "papYAY-MASH-ay" as opposed to my good wife's Ontario-speak "PAY-per mashAY"]. I covered the foam-core and its edges and the approaches with newspaper strips. The near approach now much looks shorter and better. Though I'd like to have the depression slope up from the tracks on both sides, there are other elements in the way and I think it would stand out too much. This more subtle topography is better, at least for now...

Queen City Oil spur reverse, and paint is on. I also put a new limestone pattern on the near support. Now to work on the bridge railings and scenicking that green expanse. The first step was to sand off some of the sharp edges and newspaper wrinkles. I added a piece of basswood along the layout edge, and though I painted it I'll be working to make it more unobtrusive. 

I told my grandsons that I'd be scenicking a path through the scenery here for kids and others to use as a shortcut. Prototype aerial photos clearly show such paths criss-crossing grassy parts of Swamp Ward waterfront. That was part of the next phase. I'm working up the side of the depression scenically. Closing in the limestone abutments with greenery, because they aren't that prominent prior to the 1970 rebuild. I also strengthened the railings, streamlining the wooden bents and adding some timbers at their base. 

Our grandson was operating a Ford dealership at left during his recent visit! That is abetting my writer's block with scenicking those green spaces!

My newest locomotive crosses the CP on the diamond beneath the bridge:

A major step took place nine months after this post was originally published. I decided to do something with the left-hand side of the River Street bridge/Rideau Street. Not sure how far the street will extend toward Anglin's, but my goal was to emplace a structure or two here, with a tree canopy view block behind. I'd given myself a challenge by having unusually un-level topography, so I had to provide a level base for the $2 trainshow-find garage I decided to use, at least for now. First I tried matching the contours with a balsa wood foundation, but that was too much of a challenge! Instead, I screwed a thick balsa piece to the layout to make it level, with supports underneath. The rest was easy - emplace the garage, plant some trees, paint the base and scenick it in.

Breaking my own credo of not emplacing any structures that can be seen on other layouts, but this DPM Schultz's Garage can for now be considered a place-filler. I'll keep checking on the look of the scene and what else I can build that might fit in better in this prominent spot!