The station was built in 1917 by the
Canadian Northern Railway as the terminus of its line to
Edmonton. The station was built on
reclaimed land that previously was planned for
dredging to create a
canal between
False Creek and
Burrard Inlet. It was originally named False Creek Station and was designed by the architecture firm
Pratt and Ross. The station was dedicated on November 2, 1919, a day after the first
Canadian National Railway (CNR) trains began using the station. In April 1962,
Great Northern Railway closed its neighbouring Vancouver station and relocated its passenger operations to the CNR station, and the old station was razed in 1965. The railway (and its successor
Burlington Northern Railroad) ran its
International passenger service between
Seattle and the CNR station until May 1, 1971. Amtrak then resumed the Seattle–Vancouver service as the
Pacific International from July 1972 until September 30, 1981, when the service was eliminated due to budget cuts. In the late 1970s, the Canadian federal government reorganized passenger rail service, founding Via Rail to take control of money-losing passenger operations from CNR and
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). In June 1979, Via Rail decided to consolidate its Vancouver operations at the CNR station. By the end of October 1979, the former CPR
Waterfront station was closed, and CPR's legacy passenger services were transferred to the CNR station. In the first half of 1980, the
Vancouver City Council designated the station and its rooftop
neon sign as a heritage structure. In 1986, when Vancouver staged
Expo 86, a
world's fair to commemorate its
centenary, Via Rail hosted a fair pavilion, spending to refurbish the station. The station also added Café de la Gare, an 800-seat outdoor restaurant in front of the station's main entrance, which offered views of the main fairgrounds site along False Creek. Although the station hosted the only free Expo 86 pavilion, its offsite location one block away from the main fairgrounds contributed to its meagre attendance numbers relative to other pavilions. The station's exterior appearance was modified for the event, including the installation of large
VIA logos to cover the existing neon signage. This look established Via Rail as separate from CNR at Expo 86, as CNR sponsored the first
3D animation on an
IMAX movie screen at the Canada pavilion along Burrard Inlet, and CNR also hosted its own outdoor pavilion on the main fairgrounds site. In 1988, Via Rail introduced the
Rockies by Daylight seasonal tourist services, which had trains leave the station, stop at
Kamloops for an overnight hotel stay, and then depart the next day to the ski resort town of
Banff or
Jasper in the
Alberta Rockies. The services were renamed
Rocky Mountaineer in 1989. In 1990, federal government cutbacks to the Via Rail budget led to the services being sold to private ownership. The Vancouver-area owners were initially known as Mountain Vistas Railtour Services, which later in 1990 changed its operating firm name to Great Canadian Railtour Company and marketed the services as
Rocky Mountaineer Railtours. In January 1991,
Greyhound Canada announced that it wanted to relocate its Vancouver bus terminal in
Larwill Park, which included the operations of other bus companies that sublet its space, to the former CNR station. The deal was finalized in September 1991. CNR would sell the train station to Via Rail, which had leased it from CNR since 1978, so that Via Rail could renovate the station. CNR would also lease of land behind the station to Greyhound, which would build a passenger shelter and bus stalls for its own operations and those of the other bus companies using that space. Station remodelling and bus station preparations would cost $8.4 million, of which Greyhound would spend $3.5 million. $3 million of the renovation cost went to seismic reinforcement. With the addition of the bus terminal, the station gained about 50 bus departures per day compared to a single train departure every other day. Also, the estimated 1.3 million yearly bus passengers would make up over 90% of the station's total passenger traffic. In connection with the station's upcoming ownership transfer and transformation into an intermodal facility,
The Province newspaper held a contest in 1991 to rename the station, and
Pacific Central Station was chosen. The station was designated a federal heritage railway station in late 1991 under the
Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act. The facility renaming became official in 1993, after the building refurbishment was completed. However, because Vancouver had previously named the rooftop sign as a heritage structure, the
neon Canadian National signage could not be updated to the new name as part of the building renovation. The old
Canadian National signage was relocated to a
railway museum in
Squamish, British Columbia, where, it is held in storage at the
Railway Museum of British Columbia. Cross-border service returned in 1995 when Amtrak introduced the
Mount Baker International, which was later folded into the modern-day
Cascades brand. Also in 1995, the operating firm headquarters for the
Rocky Mountaineer Railtours services relocated from its North Vancouver location to the first floor of the station. However, in 2004 the Vancouver terminus relocated from Pacific Central Station to a temporary station. In 2005, the rebranded
Rocky Mountaineer Vacations services moved into
Rocky Mountaineer Station, and the operating company subsequently moved its corporate headquarters out of Pacific Central Station. On November 8, 2010, the Canadian government announced a $5.1million plan to rebuild parts of the station, including refurbishing windows, masonry, and the roof of the building. Rocky Mountaineer returned to Pacific Central Station in the 2010s, introducing the
Coastal Passage service between Vancouver and Seattle with preview runs made in August 2013 and regularly scheduled service that started on May 10, 2014. (Because of United States border regulations, the Canadian stop had to be located at Vancouver's primary train station for cross-border travel instead of at Rocky Mountaineer Station.) == Services ==