Installed at the edge, on a constructed ridge overlooking the western rail track section of Toronto’s Union Station Rail Corridor, Pause Portal offers visitors an immersive and interactive viewing platform that invites curiosity; to pause, to watch and listen in to the sounds of travel and movement of people and goods, and to reflect on the history of this place that has become one of Canada’s busiest transportation hubs.

As they peer out through the viewing portals, visitors to Pause Portal might imagine the history of the adjacent rail lands as a cultural linear landscape and as a mirror on our ambitions toward modernism and sustainable multi-modal urban mobility. Once buried under the waters of the ancient Lake Iroquois, as the ice retreated this land became covered by streams and dense forests and the home to Canada’s First Nations. Since May 1853 when the first passenger train steamed out of a wooden depot located close to the site of today’s Union Station, we have been witness to the flow of trains travelling in and out of this evolving transportation landscape. As we occupy this land in transition, we ask: how can we be part of this railway story? Can Pause Portal be the starting point to imagine new journeys, new connections and a place to tap into and celebrate the creative energy that moves within and across our city.