Newcastle Train Station
Where Thomas now sits!
Did you know?
The first railway to pass through Newcastle was the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856, en route from Toronto to Montreal.
The station was located on the south side of Toronto Street, west of Mill Street (roughly where Thomas the Train often sits outside of Rona).
A total of six passenger trains were stopping at Newcastle each day by the time of Canada’s confederation in 1867, increasing to eight by 1869.
To ease congestion on its line between Toronto and Montreal, in 1883 the Grand Trunk announced its intentions to lay a second main track over that entire distance. The segment between Port Union and Port Hope was done last, between 1901 and 1903. As part of this work, the original station at Newcastle was torn down and replaced. The new station was a rectangular wooden structure with a waiting room and station agent’s office at its east end. A long baggage room originally extended outwards from the west side of the building, which took up more than half of the total space inside the station. An additional track ran behind the station to a freight shed where local businesses could ship or receive freight by rail.
The Grand Trunk encountered financial difficulties during the early 20th century, culminating in its nationalization and subsequent absorption into Canadian National in 1923.
Newcastle Station reached its peak of eleven trains per day by 1940, shortly after the end of the Great Depression.
Service to Newcastle remained stable in the postwar era, though the mass adoption of automobiles and air travel during that period would take a toll on passenger ridership broadly.
This problem was significantly exacerbated at the local level by the opening of Highway 401 through Newcastle in 1947.
Service to Newcastle Station was reduced to five trains per day by 1960 and it was closed to passengers and demolished later the same decade.
Source: https://www.trha.ca/trha/history/stations/newcastle-station-grand-trunk-railway/