Waterfront Station
601 West Cordova Street
Located at the western end of Gastown, the Waterfront Station has many ghosts. It is quite possibly the most
haunted building in downtown Vancouver. Built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1915, the station was the Pacific
terminus for their transcontinental passenger trains from Toronto and Montreal until it was taken over by VIA Rail in 1979.
Today, this wonderful heritage building is a busy hub that connects passengers between the city's various public transportation
systems, including SkyTrain, the SeaBus, the West Coast Express train, city buses and Helijet service to Victoria.
Outside the station on the southeast corner of the building stands the bronze Angel of Victory statue by Coeur de
Lion McCarthy. The statue was commissioned by the CPR in 1922 to commemorate its employees who had been killed in action during
World War I. This statue was featured in an episode of the television series, The X-Files, which was filmed in
Vancouver for most of its 9-year run.
The Waterfront Station is a grand place, built in an era when travelling by train was synonymous with a sense
of class and elegance. The west side of the building housed restaurants and a dance hall. The east wing contained full-time
residences and lodging for travellers. Today, the Transcontinental restaurant occupies the east wing on the street
level and, on the upper floors, some rooms are occupied by offices and the rest are either vacant or used for storage.
In modern times, the Waterfront Station's night security guards have been witness to apparitions and poltergeist-like
activities. One night, a guard saw the apparition of a woman, dressed in a flapper dress from the 1920's, dancing solo in a
corridor on the west side of the building. He could hear the sound of 1920's music playing as she danced and, when he
approached to investigate, the music stopped and she suddenly vanished.
On a different night, another security guard received the fright of his life while patrolling the northwest corner of the
building. As he entered an empty room with nothing but his flashlight to light the way, he encountered the ghost of an old
woman, glowing phosphorous white. She had a mournful look on her face and, as he stood stupefied, she reached out to him.
Completely terrified, he ran from the room.
On an upper floor in the east side of the building, a guard had a frightening experience with poltergeist-like activity
while on night patrol. As he walked through a room being used to store a number of old desks, the desks moved together behind
him without a sound. When he turned to make his way back through the room and realized that he had been blocked by the desks,
the stunned and badly frightened security guard leapt on top of the desks and ran from the room.
In addition to these encounters, various security guards at the Waterfront Station have heard the sounds of
phantom footsteps walking on the tiled floors of the building late at night when nobody else is around. Others have seen the
ghosts of three little old ladies sitting on a station bench, as if waiting for a train that never arrives. The beautiful
Waterfront Station is a very haunted place indeed!
Outside the Waterfront Station, on the multiple railway tracks north of the building, the ghost of a rail worker
is sometimes seen on rainy nights. In 1928, the unfortunate brakeman was killed while he was making repairs in the rail yard.
He slipped on the wet tracks and was knocked unconscious. Horrifically, a passenger train approached and ran him over,
decapitating him. Since then, some have reported seeing the headless brakeman roaming the tracks, his lantern glowing in his
hand. Is he still on the job or, worse still, is the spirit of the poor man looking for his lost head? |
