Last week celebrated three new station openings! First the new Windsor Station opened to the public, which you can read all about here.

Next up came the official opening of VIA’s gorgeous new Belleville Station, including it’s new accessible overhead walkway and island platform. Since our last visit to Belleville back in March, much work has been done to get ready for last week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The exterior cladding was added, triple track foundation work was done in preparation for a new CN track (which will mean fewer delays for VIA passenger trains) and the lateral platform (alongside the station) was reconstructed.

 “The old station was simply not big enough to accommodate the growing number of passengers”, explained Marc Beaulieu, VIA Rail’s Regional General Manager (East) and Chief of Transportation.  “The new overhead walkway leading to an island platform will allow us to accommodate more trains.  In addition, the new building has the capacity for many more travellers, aligning VIA for potential growth in ridership in the years to come.”

The original Belleville Station, a heritage building (and another beautiful structure), will remain on site next to the new station. Check out some images of the work in our Belleville Station image gallery.

Meanwhile, over in Oshawa, the accessible overhead walkway and island platform are open to the public. This means that work on the triple track in Oshawa (which will help reduce delays for VIA trains) has now begun!

The new walkway in Oshawa can be seen by going to the station, or if you aren’t near-by, by visiting the image gallery, here.

Both projects are part of part of VIA Rail’s Billion-Dollar transformation, funded through the Government of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. To read more about other station projects, click here To read more about other station projects.