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McAdam station

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McAdam station

McAdam station is a former railway station that dominates the village of McAdam, New Brunswick, Canada. The station is the largest passenger station in the province but since the December 17, 1994, abandonment of Via Rail's Atlantic passenger train, it no longer sees rail service and is partially used as a museum.

McAdam's railway history is traced to the 1850s–1860s when the St. Andrews and Quebec Railway was built through the area on the way toward Woodstock using a survey from the 1840s when the Canada–United States border north of the Saint Croix River was undecided and British North America stood a reasonable chance of acquiring title to the entire Saint John River watershed. The Aroostook War and the Webster–Ashburton Treaty settled the current boundary and eliminated any chance of the SA&Q building across that territory. McAdam was a small community called City Camp and comprised several lumber camps.

During the late 1860s, the European and North American Railway project's "Western Extension" was constructed from Saint John to the boundary at Saint Croix where it linked with another E&NA line from Bangor to Vanceboro.

The junction at City Camp where the E&NA crossed the SA&Q (by then part of the New Brunswick and Canada Railway) was renamed McAdam and in 1883, the New Brunswick Railway (successor to the NB&C) took over the E&NA line, making McAdam an NBR junction.

In 1889, the Canadian Pacific Railway constructed the International Railway of Maine as the final link in becoming a transcontinental railway and in 1890, the Canadian Pacific Railway leased the NBR for 999 years, making Saint John its eastern terminus.

In 1900, the C.P rail began construction of the massive combined railway station/hotel in McAdam to cater to wealthy passengers changing trains to continue to the resort town of St. Andrews where they would stay at the C.P rail's hotel The Algonquin. The station was commissioned by legendary CPR President Sir William Van Horne who maintained an exclusive private estate in St. Andrews on Minister's Island. On numerous occasions during Van Horne's influential presidency at the C.P rail during the 1890s, his private car would pass by the McAdam station on the way from Montreal to his summer retreat at St. Andrews and vice versa, sometimes staying in the station hotel.

The station was built in the Chateau style and resembles a Scottish castle. It was built of local granite and located at the western end of the wye leading to St. Andrews from the Montreal-Saint John main line.

The 20-room hotel occupies the two thirds of the second floor of the station. On the ground floor, the western end of the building's ground floor is occupied by a lunch counter/canteen with a large M-shaped circular counter with swivel stools. This was where breakfast's, soup, sandwich, etc. would be served for hotel guests waiting for connecting trains and train passengers who were waiting for the Steam engines to be re-fuelled and passengers to clear Customs. It was not unusual to feed 2000 people a day at this lunch counter. The central portion of the ground floor has a more formal dining room and the kitchen area which served both eating establishments. The eastern end of the building's ground floor hosts the passenger waiting rooms and ticketing office and baggage storage rooms. The station also had a jail cell that was operated by the [Canadian Pacific Railway Police Service] and not to be used by local McAdam police.

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