Here is the third of three posts about the Canada Line construction. Yesterday we had a look at Vancouver City Centre Station, the day before we looked at Yaletown Station, and today we’re going to look at Waterfront Station.

Aha – it just occurred to me that you might like to see the Canada Line route map to better situate yourselves in this discussion. There it is at right. Waterfront is the northernmost station, with Vancouver City Centre Station next, and Yaletown. These three stations make up the downtown Vancouver segment of the Canada Line.

Again, some of you might recognize these photos from the Canada Line site, except that I’ll provide detailed comments on each photo from John Walker, senior technician for the Canada Line.

John took all these photos on Nov. 26. As he’s said, heavy construction is mostly done on the stations, and they are now mainly focused on the finishes and the electrical and mechanical systems. Testing has also started with train cars on the Vancouver portion of the line, which is all underground.

And now, on to the Waterfront photos. Remember to click each photo to see a much, much larger version.

This is taken down on the platform. You can see the stairs in the centre of the photo, behind the wood hoarding. The second level at the top of the stairs is the concourse level of the station.

This photo was taken inside the inbound tunnel, south of Waterfront. John said this photo was taken right around where Pender Street is located at the surface.

This track is the crossover track, which allows the trains to change direction and travel southbound on the Canada Line. The workers in the photo are putting in all the switches. You can also see the larger bored tunnel in the background.

John explained that Waterfront is quite a complicated station to build since it’s the northernmost terminus of the line. Since Waterfront contains the end of the bored tunnel, there were challenges in removing the large boring machine from the ground. Construction of the crossover also requires a lot of precise work to ensure the trains can turn around and go southbound on the line.

These are the steps of the main entrance on Granville Street. The escalator has yet to go in.

This is one of two entrances to Waterfront Station—the other will be a connection from the north end, leading directly into the existing SkyTrain Waterfront Station. (If you go into the existing Waterfront Station, you’ll see a boarded up area on the west side. That’s where the Canada Line and the Expo/Millennium Lines will connect.)

The second entrance to the existing Waterfront Station also made construction of the Canada Line’s Waterfront more difficult. John explains that the station goes under Cordova Street to create a pedestrian link into the Canadian Pacific station building, which houses the existing Waterfront Station. Tying into the existing structure made construction more complicated, and the age of the CP building made it even more challenging.

John walked up the stairs and turned around to take this shot of the station.

Okay, this is the Waterfront construction site at street level. This helps give an idea where the actual station entrance will be in the end. You can see the top of the main station entrance steps at the left — the construction worker on the ladder is moving to stand right on top of them.

The layers of black and white on the right of the photo are waterproofing to protect the station below.

John also mentions that the actual platform is north of Hastings Street, or just north of the bridge in the background.

So, John walked a bit further south to take this photo.

What are we looking at? This is the ancillary space for the tunnel ventilation fans. These are huge fans controlled by remote control. If there’s a fire, these fans will be able to bring in fresh air and exhaust smoke to the surface.

John turned around and faced north to take this photo of the rest of the ventilation area. (You can see the station entrance area and the Hastings Street bridge bit in the background, if that better situates you.) Imagine, all this stuff will be hidden just below the street when it’s finally finished!

So, that is it for the photos of Waterfront! Hope you all enjoyed this look at the three downtown Vancouver stations. If you’d like to run through the other posts again, here’s the links: Vancouver City Centre Station, and Yaletown Station.