Visiting the Moose Jaw train station

The Moose Jaw Train Station
Saskatchewan Archives R-A3374

This was the Moose Jaw train station in the 1920s.


It is said that some people used to smuggle alcohol in and out of Moose Jaw at the bottom of train cattle cars.

According to fact or fiction, tunnels were built from the former CP Rail station on Manitoba Street to the Cornerstone Inn across the street. A secret above-ground entrance behind the Cornerstone Inn was the hub of a network of tunnels that included one directly across Main Street to the former Exchange Cafe, once one of Saskatchewan's finest dining establishments. Other tunnel links went north up Main Street and west along River Street to the Royal George and Brunswick Hotels.

The train station was designed by Hugh G. Jones and built by the Canadian Pacific Railway from 1920 to 1922, so it would have been a fairly new building when Capone went through it. The station had a two-story waiting area, a four-story office block and a six-story Tyndall stone clock tower.

The Cornerstone Inn is rumoured to be connected to the train station via a tunnel.

The station was a stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway service and was a transfer point to the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad also known as the Soo Line Railroad, which operated from Saint Paul to Portal, North Dakota.

There was also the Soo-Pacific, which ran during the summer, through to Vancouver via a connection with Canadian Pacific Railway's "The Dominion" at Moose Jaw. This was discontinued in 1963.

The building was designated a historic railway station in 1991.