page_title: Union Station (Toronto)
section_title: Structure
hierarchical_section_title: Union Station (Toronto) / Structure
caption_attribution_description: A seagull visiting Union Station. Toronto, Canada.
context_page_description: Union Station is a major railway station and intermodal transportation hub in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Front Street West, on the south side of the block bounded by Bay Street and York Street in downtown Toronto. The municipal government of Toronto owns the station building while the provincial transit agency Metrolinx owns the train shed and trackage. Union Station has been a National Historic Site of Canada since 1975, and a Heritage Railway Station since 1989. It is operated by the Toronto Terminals Railway, a joint venture of the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway that directs and controls train movement along the Union Station Rail Corridor, the largest and busiest rail corridor in Canada.
  Its central position in Canada's busiest inter-city rail service area, "The Corridor", as well as being the central hub of GO Transit's commuter rail service, makes Union Station Canada's busiest transportation facility and the second-busiest railway station in North America, serving over 72 million passengers each year. More than half of all Canadian inter-city passengers and 91% of Toronto commuter train passengers travel through Union Station.
context_section_description: Toronto's Union Station is Canada's largest and most opulent railway station. The Montreal architecture firm of Ross and Macdonald designed the building in the Beaux-Art style as a joint venture between the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, with help from CPR architect Hugh Jones and Toronto architect John M. Lyle. In 1975, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada cited its design as being of "national architectural significance as one of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts railway station design in Canada".
  The bilaterally symmetrical building comprises three connecting box masses facing Front Street West, with the main structure in the middle. Together, the three parts measure 752 feet (229 m) long and occupy the entire south side of the block between Bay Street in the east and York Street in the west.
  The exterior Front Street façade is laid out in an ashlar pattern, constructed with smooth beige Indiana and Queenston limestone. The colonnaded loggia which faces Front Street features 22 equally spaced Roman Tuscan columns made from Bedford limestone, each 40 feet (12 m) high and weighing 75 tons. Fourteen three-storey bays, each with severely delineated fenestration, form the façade on either side of the central colonnade for a total of 28 bays. The structures at either end have an additional ten bays. Three rectangular windows fill each bay, lighting the interior hall with plenty of natural light. However, the building's external profile is hard and flat, with a line of huge columns, heavy ornamentation and strong symmetry.
  The recessed main entrance is framed by two sets of four columns, with relief wreaths carved into the entablature above the columns. These columns are composed of three separate segments on top of an incongruous octagonal plinth, implying an Ionic order or Corinthian order; however, the capital is sculpted in a Doric order. Consequently, these columns appear to be unfinished. The original plan for the columns is not known.
  A wraparound dentil cornice and a recessed peaked hipped roof creates the illusion of a flat roof, just like a palazzo. On either side of the main entrance, a blind arch with an ornamental keystone contains a set of three steel-framed doors, along with a large arched window. Decorative friezes separate the arched window from the doors. When these entryway elements are combined, they create a processional experience through the entryway into the grand interior space. The flat-roof illusion, together with the axial symmetry, classical detailing in both structural and decorative elements, heavy ornamentation, and formal setting is typical of the Beaux-Arts style.
  The station housed a gun range on the seventh floor from 1927 until 2008. The range was operated for "Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway police to practice their shooting skills. It eventually opened to members of the public". It was known as the Canadian National Recreation Association (CNRA) handgun club. The city closed the range in 2008 as a symbolic gesture to its effort to reduce gun violence.
caption: The facade of the Front Street entrance includes 22 colonnaded loggia constructed with limestone.
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