page_title: Transport in Winnipeg
section_title: Railways
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Winnipeg / Railways
caption_attribution_description: English: The entrance to the Via Rail Union Station building from Main Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba
context_page_description: For thousands of years the Indigenous of the region used various networks of rivers across what is now known as the province of Manitoba. The Forks became an early meeting place for the purpose of trade. Situated at the confluence of the Red and the Assiniboine in what is now downtown Winnipeg, the Forks would prove to be the most important location for European and First Nations trade in Manitoba. The common method of transportation on these waterways during this time were often birch bark canoes generally used by the Indigenous while European traders would tend to use York boats. Overland transport in the 19th century was often by ox-drawn Red River cart, which could be built and maintained using only locally obtained material.
context_section_description: Winnipeg is served by Via Rail, Canadian National Railway (CN), Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), Burlington Northern Santa Fe Manitoba and the Central Manitoba Railway, (CEMR). It is the only city between Vancouver and Thunder Bay, Ontario with direct U.S. connections.
  CN and CP operate large railyards, customer service operations and intermodal facilities inside Winnipeg.
  There are approximately 5,000 people employed in Winnipeg in the rail transportation industry.
  Via Rail operates out of Union Station, a grand neoclassical structure near The Forks in downtown Winnipeg. The station was built by the Canadian Northern Railway & National Transcontinental/Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and was designed by the same architects responsible for Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
  In addition to the major commercial railways, the City of Winnipeg owns and operates the Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway, which runs parallel to the city aqueduct to Shoal Lake.
caption: Winnipeg's Union Station
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