The exterior of the historic railway station in McAdam was once part of Canadian Pacific Railway's main line into Atlantic Canada - 16 Jun 2012 Photographer unknown.

1 September 2012

Down the Tracks of History

McAdam New Brunswick - It's been said that the unmistakable sound of a steam locomotive's whistle can still be heard in this sleepy New Brunswick village, though it's been decades since one of Canadian Pacific Railway's passenger trains thundered down its tracks.
 
The golden age of train travel may be long gone, but a significant piece of Canada's railway legacy remains open for visitors here at the historic station in McAdam, a blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet near the Maine border.
 
Once a vital hub for passengers riding the rails, the chateau-style railway station, and its attached five-star hotel, are now being lovingly and painstakingly restored to their former glory.
 
In its heyday, some 16 trains, each one carrying as many as 300 passengers, came to a screeching halt at the grand station every day, sending plumes of coal dust into the air.
 
Soldiers, celebrities, and politicians alike would stream through the doors of the imposing stone building with its pitched red roof destined for places like New York, Boston, and Halifax.
 
At nighttime, the tracks were silent. But during the day, the station was a flurry of activity:  Men, women, and children disembarking, others waiting for their connecting trains, and the occasional train-hopper caught by the railway's police.
 
"It was known to be a train always at the station," says Frank Carroll, treasurer of the McAdam Historical Restoration Commission, which has been working to revitalize the century-old station, now a provincial and federal historic site and designated heritage railway station.
 
"It was always bustling. There were so many people around the train station, coming and going."
 
The railway ordered construction of the station, standing 2 1/2 storeys tall, at the turn of the 20th century. Renovations some 10 years later saw the addition of two wings for dining facilities and extra baggage storage. A man-made lake adjacent to the station was used for a water supply.
 
Like its other landmark railway stations, Canadian Pacific wanted the McAdam station constructed in the chateau style with a pointed spire and gabled dormers.
 
Today, visitors can tour the station, which also includes a dingy, single-cell jail, a small mail room, refurbished waiting areas, a 1950s style cafeteria with a large, M shaped counter, and a restored dining room that once hosted Marilyn Monroe. As the story goes, the Hollywood bombshell was bound for Miramichi, N.B., for a fishing trip with a few men when she stopped in McAdam.
 
Carroll says the hotel and dining room shut down in the late 1950s when the popularity of train travel began to decline. Over the coming decades, Canadian Pacific Railway would pull out and federal Crown corporation VIA Rail would take over passenger service.
 
VIA's service to McAdam gradually dwindled before it was cancelled altogether in 1994, a couple of years before the commission stepped in to salvage the shuttered station.
 
Today, the station hosts conferences and dinners. It's also a museum and acts as the village's official visitors' centre during the summer months.
 
The hope is to eventually refurbish the hotel, welcome guests, and recapture some of the magic from a bygone era. It will be an impressive feat costing an estimated $10 million, and involving tearing out walls and ceilings, upgrading electricity and plumbing.
 
Carroll concedes that day is a long way down the track, but he says the commission is very pleased with what has already been accomplished.
 
"We took the building for granted," Carroll says. "It was always here, it was just a station. We didn't see the value or the importance of it until it became empty. And now we see it coming back."
 
IF YOU GO
 
McAdam Railway Station, 146 Saunders Road, McAdam, N.B. Tours are offered daily from mid June through October starting at 10 a.m. for $5.
 
Melanie Patten.