It used the existing Prince of Wales Bridge to cross the Ottawa River near the site of the present-day O-Train Bayview Station, west of Parliament Hill.

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.

[9] 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.

[3] The Doric Roman Revival multi pillar Union station[10] was originally designed by New York-based architect Bradford Lee Gilbert who was eventually dismissed due to concerns of mismanagement.

[10] Several tracks which originated from the main railway infrastructure in Ottawa ran immediately adjacent to the Rideau Canal (right on its east banks) and led northward into the city.

They then ran immediately adjacent to the west side of Chateau Laurier, in a structure which was used for a time in a converted form, by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

In 1966, the National Capital Commission decided to remove the tracks along the east side of the Canal as part of an urban renewal plan.

A new entrance and canopy at the rear of the building was built to provide greater security for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting held in 1973.

[citation needed] In the mid-1990s a proposal was made to turn it into the new home for the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, but these plans fell through.

[13] In 2007, the idea of reverting the building back to its original use sprang up as Ottawa considered various proposals for regional commuter rail systems.

It is seen as being feasible to do so (although it would require a long tunnel to reconnect to the existing railway tracks) [citation needed] ; however, the Government of Canada's Department of Public Works says the building is not for sale.

[14][failed verification] In July 2013, it was announced by Public Works Canada that the building would be used to temporarily accommodate the Senate chamber (in the main concourse of the old train station) along with 21 Senate offices and three committee rooms (in the old general waiting room)[15] while the Centre Block undergoes major rehabilitation work projected to take up to ten years.

It was decided that the need to rehabilitate this historical building presented a perfect opportunity to find an interim home for the Senate.