Location of CPR Rail Station and Water Tank

By 1911, the site of the first train station that ran alongside on the waterfront was becoming too crowded to handle the amount of traffic that the resort was generating. The company built a larger station, shelter, water tank and six tracks to handle the huge volume of passengers. The station was built west of Stitt Street, directly west of the pavilion. A 17 foot wide boardwalk carried passengers to the pavilion area. For Dominion Day in 1920, 17 trains travelled to Winnipeg Beach. About 15,000 fares were sold, and since little children travelled free, perhaps 30,000 excursionists crowded the community that day. The CPR Winnipeg Beach line was the most profitable line in Canada during this period.

The CPR began to advertise the Moonlight Express, an evening train run. An invitation to come out and dance next to the lake and return home the same evening. The last train left the station in 1960. The blue painted foundation at this stop on the walking tour is the foundation of the CP Rail water tank.

Watch video footage below of the inside of historic Moonlight Express passenger train car, #141 now residing in Calgary at Heritage Park.

Suburban Car #141 was built in 1907 at Canadian Pacific Railway's Angus Shops in Montreal. It was part of an order of thirty suburban cars completed that year at a cost of $9,000 each. With open end platforms and varnished manogany exterior, it was a handsome coach typical of the C.P.R. passenger fleet of the day.

As it entered service on a "Moonlight Special" train running between Winnipeg and Winnipeg Beach it is very likely that this car carried famous Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung and her family on their annual summer holidays. Fully restored, Car #141 is the last known operating mahogany varnish car in North America.