distribution infrastructure, and he looked to rail as a solution. (Eighteen years previous, he had established the Canada Atlantic Railway.) Booth had built a central depot in 1895 just south of Rideau Street, on the east side of the canal and reachable by way of a covered stairway from Sappers Bridge. The station seemed to not be truly serving the needs of the railway companies, since it was built for the interests of the Canada Atlantic Railway. CPR's Royal Alexandra Interprovincial Bridge built in 1901 became the second railway bridge to cross the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Hull. It led to Booth's central depot. In 1905, Booth sold the Canada Atlantic Railway to the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1910, the Grand Trunk was apportioned part of the Rideau Canal in order to build a new station and hotel. The hotel would become the famous Chateau Laurier, and the station would become Ottawa's Union Station. Construction of Union Station The building was opened by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1912 as Ottawa's central railway station, and the hotel was built across the street to serve travellers. Over the course of the following years, passenger services of other railways moved to this station, thereby clarifying and unifying passenger travel in the city. When the last Canadian Pacific trains moved from the old Union Station on Broad Street to Grand Trunk Central station on January 4, 1920, the old station was closed and the Grand Trunk station became Ottawa Union Station. The June 1912 opening of the Union Station and the Chateau Laurier was not met with much fanfare, since Grand Trunk Railway general manager Charles Melville Hays had just perished in the Titanic disaster two months previously. The Doric Roman Revival multi pillar Union station was originally designed by New York-based architect Bradford Lee Gilbert who was eventually dismissed due to concerns of mismanagement. The Montreal firm of Ross and MacFarlane took over the project, making many design changes to the station. Ross and MacFarlane also took over the design of the Château Laurier and later built Toronto's Union Station. Both Canadian National Railways (successor to the Grand Trunk) and Canadian Pacific Railway operated regularly scheduled passenger trains through the facility until it ceased operations on July 31, 1966. Connection to Railways Several tracks which originated from the main railway infrastructure in Ottawa ran immediately adjacent to the Rideau Canal (right