Summary

Stouffville Station was built by the Toronto & Nipissing Railway in 1871 while its construction was progressing north towards Coboconk. While no photos are known to exist of this station, it was a single-storey structure with a board-and-batten exterior and a lean-to roof. It would have included only the most basic amenities, containing a waiting room, baggage room, and the station agent’s office. Regular service between Uxbridge and Toronto commenced on July 13th, 1871, and Stouffville Station originally saw only two departures per day. Service beyond Uxbridge to Coboconk became available in 1872. A branch line chartered as the Lake Simcoe Junction Railway was constructed between Stouffville and Jackson’s Point during the late 1870’s, and the first train departed Stouffville for Jackson’s Point on October 1st, 1877. The LSJR existed solely on paper as it was leased by the Toronto & Nipissing Railway. To better facilitate operations on this branch line, a two-stall engine house and turntable were built in the vicinity of Stouffville Station to store locomotives. In February 1878, the Toronto & Nipissing’s unique 0-6-6-0 locomotive no. 9 exploded inside the engine house, killing three and injuring four. The force from the explosion also damaged the station to a certain extent.

The T&N and LSJR were both converted from their original 3′ 6” narrow gauge to 4′ 8.5” standard gauge during the early 1880’s. They were merged along with numerous other branch lines into the Midland Railway of Canada on April 1st, 1882. Stouffville Station was only served by the Midland Railway for a short time until it was leased by the larger Grand Trunk Railway on January 1st, 1884. By the following year the station had a total of eight departures per day. A devastating fire destroyed the original Toronto & Nipissing station in 1886 and the Grand Trunk Railway subsequently replaced it with a new one later the same year. The new station was a much larger two-storey building with a clapboard exterior. The second floor likely contained the station agent’s living quarters while the floor below it would have contained the station agent’s office and the waiting room. A long freight room extended outward from the north side of the building. The simple pitched roof was decorated with ornate spires at each end. In many ways it closely resembled a Canadian Pacific station design from the same period, though it’s not known if there was any relation. The signage on this station originally read “Stouffville Jct.”, although it was simply called Stouffville on timetables. At some point the Grand Trunk built a water tower just north of the station to refill steam locomotives, and a grain elevator was built across from the station in 1916.

The financially-ailing Grand Trunk was nationalized and merged into Canadian National in 1923. The line to Jackson’s Point was abandoned between Stouffville and Zephyr in 1927, and the “Jct.” was dropped from the signage on Stouffville Station. The gradual popularization of automobiles as well as the conversion of several old stagecoach routes into paved highways over the next few decades would begin to chip away at passenger ridership on branch lines like this one. Service to Stouffville would drop to five departures per day by 1940, then even further to just three per day by 1958 with the acceleration of car ownership after World War Two. Passenger service on the Uxbridge Subdivision was truncated at Stouffville in 1970, with only one train from Toronto per day. A self-propelled Budd Rail Diesel car was used instead of conventional passenger equipment to save on operating costs. This service was taken over by VIA Rail in 1977, only to be supplanted by GO Transit in 1982. It was around this time that the former Grand Trunk station was demolished and the Stouffville GO Station was built in its place. For a brief time beginning in 1996, the York-Durham Heritage Railway offered passenger excursions between Uxbridge and Stouffville. The historic grain elevator was torn down in 2015 to make way for additional parking spaces.

Condensed Station Info:

Location:	Served By:	Current State:	Date Built:	Date Demolished/Burned:
Main Street near Free Lane	T&N (1871 – 1882) MRC (1882 – 1884) GTR (1884 – 1923) CNR (1923 – 1977) VIA (1977 – 1982)	Demolished (both)	1870 (First) 1886 (Second)	1886 (First) 1982 (Second)