Burlington's Freeman Station finds a new home!

The Freeman Station, now owned by the City of Burlington, has been recognized as a building with  historical and architectural significance by the Ontario Ministry of Culture and by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. This is Burlington’s only surviving Grand Trunk Railway station, built in 1906. It is now called “the Freeman Station”, after the hamlet in which it was built. In operation, it was designated the “Burlington Junction” or “Burlington West” Station.

The model of the station as shown below in a photo by Russ Milland was built by Bob Chambers who spent hundreds of hours researching and constructing it. Bob Chambers has a passion for railway history and its preservation through photography. Bob was certainly familiar with the station on Brant Street at the CNR tracks, after driving by it for years and photographing it twice for the newspaper. But  he was never fond of the tattered, insulbrick clad structure. He thought that making a model of it would be out of the question until he saw the plans to restore it to its Edwardian era splendour. He knew that a replica would be a fine way of showing exactly how the restored station will look.

Last month, Laurie McCulloch Building Movers (the same company that moved CNR #6213 from the CNE grounds to Roundhouse Park) moved the station about 500 feet east from Burlington Central Fire Station property (where it was temporarily stored)  to property owned and provided by Ashland Canada. In the other photos below, Dean Brown captured the station ready to be moved.

The station was preserved through the efforts of a non-profit group called the "Friends of Freeman Station".  For more information, visit their website by clicking here. 

Posting by Russ Milland; Photos below by Russ Milland and Dean Brown

Click on each image for a closer look!