The Ocean is North America's longest running "named passenger train" as it was introduced by the Intercolonial Railway in 1904 to provide first-class rail passage between Halifax and Montreal.

The North Street Station and the waterfront terminal trackage leading to it were badly damaged in the Halifax Explosion on 6 December 1917.

The ICR's owner the Government of Canada, announced at a Halifax Board of Trade luncheon on 30 October 1912 that plans were being drafted for a major railway and shipping terminal at Greenbank, near Point Pleasant Park in the city's South End.

Crews proceeded from the north, with trains hauling the rock to the southwestern corner of Bedford Basin where it was dumped in front of Mt.

The union station would serve not only CN but also the Canadian Pacific Railway's Nova Scotia subsidiary, Dominion Atlantic Railway which operated passenger trains from Yarmouth, Digby and the Annapolis Valley into Halifax using trackage rights over CNR from Windsor Junction to the Halifax Ocean Terminal.

CNR also had a coach yard with repair/service shop facilities for its passenger train equipment immediately southwest of the station's trainshed.

Finally, a turn-table was located immediately southeast of the trainshed to permit locomotives and cars to be turned around, since the station was a stub-end terminal.

The station saw intensive traffic during World War Two, moving military personnel to East Coast bases and overseas.

CN cut one of its three daily Halifax-Montreal trains, the Maritime Express during the early 1970s, leaving only Scotian and the Ocean Limited, along with various local services to New Brunswick and Sydney provided by Dayliners.

Via Rail replaced the Scotian with a former CP train, the Atlantic which was extended from its eastern terminus at Saint John to Halifax.

Budget cuts in 1981 saw the Atlantic service cancelled, however it was restored in 1985 and the Ocean was dropped from Halifax when its eastern terminus was moved west to Moncton.

The former CN coach yard facilities were closed and the site razed after a Via opened its new Halifax Maintenance Centre a rebuild of Canadian Naitional's old car shops near the turntable southeast of the station.

The maintenance centre was responsible for overhauling and repairing the numerous Dayliners and many of the cars that operated on the long-distance trains in the Maritimes.

The Halifax Maintenance Centre was closed and sold for commercial use as workshops, warehouse and film production space.

Locomotives and passenger cars needing to change direction used a balloon track through the Port of Halifax's South End Container Terminal.

[3] A 1994 change to Via Rail routes in the Maritimes saw the Atlantic discontinued and the Ocean upgraded to 6 days/week, however the train frequency at Halifax was not affected.