Is the Freeman Station Coming Off the Rails? 

 Special to the Burlington Gazette

By Joe Gaetan

December 11th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

 

There is a particular kind of pride that comes from re-building something with your own hands – especially something that was never supposed to survive.

But today, that feeling by the Friends of Freeman Station (FOFS) volunteers has been replaced by something heavier: disappointment, frustration, and a growing fear that their work is slipping away.

A Long Fight to Save What the City Tried to Scrap

The battle to save Freeman Station began long before the creation of FOFS. Many remember the earlier group, SOS – Save Our Station.

Turning a doomed relic into a community showpiece involved plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, trackwork (including a working railway track switch), and more. For the volunteers (men and women alike) who restored Burlington’s beloved Grand Trunk Railway’s Freeman Station, pride once fueled them every day.

The battle to rebuild also relied on donated hours and materials that local businesses contributed – quiet gifts of lumber, paint, metalwork, gravel, heavy equipment, and labour.

Enter the collective efforts of Councillors Meed Ward and Lancaster  who gave the volunteers enough time and space to rally. And rally they did.

But if a resident today asks the Mayor or a Councillor for an update, the replies are polite but vague.

For those who swung the hammers, rebuilt the floors, placed every board, nail, and artifact – these words feel thin.

The Station Has Sat Idle Since May 2024

When the FOFS not-for-profit corporation was formally folded in 2024, many assumed the transition would be temporary and smooth.

It hasn’t been.

Since May 2024, Freeman Station has sat dark and unused. No tours. No school visits. No community programming. No preservation or planning updates.

Just… silence.

The volunteers, now retired from their once-daily work on the site, meet over coffee and quietly wonder:

What will happen to the station if no plan emerges?

Will it remain where it stands, or be relocated – perhaps to other grounds?

Who is watching over the artifacts, archives, and history they protected for years?

“We Stopped Counting at 10,000 Hours”

Ask any of the volunteers who restored the building and they will tell you: they lost track of their volunteer hours somewhere after the 10,000 mark. And that number doesn’t include the generous in-kind labour donations from local companies.

They still speak fondly about rail lore captured by:

The diorama that schoolchildren marvelled over.

The VCR tapes documenting local rail history.

The boxes of railway books, donated by residents.

The old rail “jigger,” still sitting in front of the building – its single broken window never replaced.

The 1951 Chrysler TH&B Rail Inspection Car – a rare, time capsule of mid-century rail maintenance operations.

The 1911 semaphore type Train Order Signal, complete with working lights.

The original Underwood typewriter used in the early station office – salvaged from being junked.

These weren’t just objects; they were the heart of Burlington’s rail heritage. Today, many of the volunteers aren’t even sure where some of them are.

A Legacy in Limbo

What stings most is the sense that things didn’t have to unfold this way. Several volunteers say that if they had known what was coming, they would have done everything in their power to prevent the not-for-profit from folding.

They believed they were passing the station into safe hands – into a future where the city would protect and showcase what they had rebuilt. Instead, they now see a building locked up, unused, and drifting toward uncertainty.

As one volunteer put it over coffee:

“We poured our hearts into that place. Now it feels like we’re watching it go off the rails.”

A Call for Clarity – Before It’s Too Late

Freeman Station is more than a building. It is a treasured landmark saved twice – once from demolition, and again through sheer grit, sweat, and community generosity.

The volunteers who saved it are not asking for fanfare. They are asking for answers.

Burlington owes them, and the public, a clear plan for the station’s future before the legacy they built with their own hands begins to fade.

Postscript by the Author

For over a decade, the not-for-profit model behind the rebuilding of Freeman Station proved something important: Heritage preservation can be nimble, cost-effective, and astonishingly efficient when driven by community passion. The FOFS did this due to their deep expertise and knowledge of rail history, all powered by communal engagement, something tough to replicate.

The question now is whether the City and other stakeholders can come together to safeguard the legacy – or whether a decade of community led stewardship will fade away.