VIA 6148 at Victoria

VIA Rail RDC 6148 rolls into Victoria to pickup passengers for the trip north. The current Victoria station is actually the 4th building to serve the City of Victoria. The first, built north of the present Vic West Yards on Russell's St. was used as the Victoria Terminal until 1888 when a larger terminal was built in Downtown Victoria, this building had 2 platforms and 4 station tracks, with the Store St. lead running down Store St. to serve various industries downtown Victoria. In 1972 the station was demolished and all trackage but the Store St. lead was removed to improve road access to the Johnson St. Bridge(seen in background). A new depot was built near the site of the original Russell's St. location and served as the Victoria Depot until 1985, when VIA Rail Canada built the current building on the site of the downtown station.

The Train in the photo above is sitting on the Store St. lead, the only remaining trackage in downtown Victoria, it was abandoned just east(RR South) of the current station in 1993, the rails which until 1993 ran down the middle of Store St. now stop short of the sidewalk while still leaving enough room to fit 4 RDC's in front of the station.