Summary

When the Credit Valley Railway was being constructed between 1874 and 1878, it sought to enter Toronto through the soon-to-be-incorporated Village of Parkdale. Doing so would require it to squeeze into a crowded rail corridor occupied by the Toronto, Grey & Bruce Railway, Northern Railway of Canada, and Grand Trunk Railway. The latter two companies were fundamentally opposed to the Credit Valley Railway’s entry to Toronto due to the competition it would create, and both would attempt to block its efforts through legal and extralegal means. After a year of encountering these difficulties the Credit Valley Railway was able to secure a right-of-way from Lambton to Parkdale, and a large plot of land bound by King and Dufferin streets to the south and west was purchased for a station, freight yard, and maintenance shops. While a permanent station was under construction the Credit Valley Railway began operating passenger trains between Parkdale and Campbellville on September 1st, 1879, just in time for the first annual Toronto Industrial Exhibition. Passengers were ferried from a temporary platform at Queen Street to the exhibition using horse-drawn omnibuses.

Regular service to Parkdale commenced after the exhibition on September 15th, which is approximately when the permanent station was completed. It was a two storey board-and-batten structure that differed from the standard designs used elsewhere by the Credit Valley Railway. It was the second railway station to open in Parkdale, the first being that of the Northern Railway of Canada just a few dozen metres away. As they had initially failed to secure access to the Grand Trunk-owned Union Station, Parkdale was initially the Credit Valley Railway’s Toronto terminus and it’s likely that the upper floor contained administrative offices. Access to Union Station was briefly gained starting on May 17th, 1880, but only after much resistance from the Grand Trunk. They withdrew from Union Station just a year later, switching to the Northern Railway’s station on Spadina Avenue effective May 4th, 1881. Regular service to Union Station returned on September 22nd of the same year. Passenger ridership at Parkdale steadily rose and by October 1883 a total of nine trains stopped there on a daily basis. One month later the Credit Valley Railway was leased by the Ontario & Quebec Railway – itself a proxy of the Canadian Pacific Railway – for a period of 999 years. From this point forward it was effectively merged into Canadian Pacific even though it continued to exist on paper.

Train service increased to eleven trains per day by 1884, some of which were Canadian Pacific trains from the east which now had to reverse through Parkdale to reach Union Station. This remained the case until the Don Branch was completed on the east side of the city in 1893. After Canadian Pacific completed a rail connection between Bolton and their existing transcontinental line in Sudbury in 1908, Parkdale Station saw an influx of passenger traffic. This likely contributed to the station’s replacement a few years later in 1911. The new station was built in the same location as its predecessor but lacked a second floor. Instead the building was much longer and in 1913 it was joined by an express building which was joined to the station through a shared roof. By 1921 a staggering 26 trains were now stopping at Parkdale each day, but this influx would be short lived due in part to the Great Depression towards the end of the decade. Service rebounded during and after World War Two, but decreased ridership due to the popularization of automobiles and air travel in the postwar era would take its toll soon afterward. By 1957 service to Parkdale had been reduced to 16 trains per day. Canadian Pacific had already introduced Budd Rail Diesel Cars – marketed as Dayliners – to numerous trains in the Toronto area by this point. They were far more economical to operate than conventional trains and this helped service to once again increase briefly to 23 trains by 1961. However, many of these trains stopped calling at Parkdale altogether in the mid-1960’s in favour of stopping at West Toronto, plunging the remaining service to Parkdale to a mere four trains per day. The station closed altogether on October 26th, 1968 when the last Dayliner departed, and the building was demolished shortly thereafter. The express building remained and was readapted as a private truck garage for a time before it was torn down as well. The property is now occupied by parking spaces for a nearby apartment complex.

The proposed King-Liberty GO Station, to be built under the SmartTrack Stations Program, is to be located approximately a half kilometre to the southeast of where both Parkdale Stations used to be. Upon its expected opening in 2026 the new King-Liberty GO will return direct passenger rail service to this part of the city for the first time in 50 years.

Condensed Station Info:

Location:	Served By:	Current State:	Date Built:	Date Demolished:
Queen Street West at Dufferin	Credit Valley (1879 – 1883) Canadian Pacific (1883 – 1968)	Demolished	1879 (First) 1911 (Second)	1911 (First) 1968 (Second)