Description of Historic Place

The Canadian National Railways Station at Rimouski is a one-storey, brick-and-stucco-clad railway station, built in 1937. It is centrally located alongside civic institutions in the town of Rimouski, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The formal recognition is confined to the railway station building itself.

Heritage Value

The Canadian National Railways Station (CNR) at Rimouski reflects a period of economic recovery for the CNR and the region. As railway traffic increased, and economic conditions improved, local businessmen pressed the need for a new station. The railway supported Rimouski’s role as a cultural and service centre for the surrounding region.

The Rimouski station reflects the Arts and Crafts movement which informed the architecture of the period and encouraged the use of simple, local, traditional forms. The scale, roof shape and stucco exterior of the station explicitly pay reference to traditional domestic architecture in Quebec.

The station retains its relationship to the railway tracks and to a surrounding park contemporary with the building.

Sources: Heritage Character Statement, Canadian National Railways Station, Rimouski, Québec, September 1993; Yves Laframboise et Louise Côté, Ethnotech inc., Railway Station Report 168, Canadian National Railways Station, Rimouski, Québec.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Canadian National Railways Station at Rimouski include:
-its symmetrical form and massing, consisting of a rectangular block capped by a steeply pitched, bell-cast hip roof, a projecting operator’s bay centred on the track side, rising above eave level and capped by a similar roof and two flanking wings, stepped back from the main block and capped by slightly lower roofs of the same profile as the main roof
-its use of forms from rural Quebec architecture, including its domestic scale, its steeply pitched, bell-cast hip roofs, and its stucco cladding
-its bellcast platform canopy, extending from the track side of the main roof on either side of the projecting bay, with boarded soffits and supported on wood brackets
-its exterior treatment, consisting of brick cladding rising to sill level, concrete coursing at sill level and the use of painted stucco above
-surviving original wood benches in the interior.