Yesterday, VIA Rail Canada Inc. and the Canadian government announced a joint investment to build a new station in Windsor, Ontario, featuring improved and expanded facilities. The government will provide $6 million for the project through Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

To be built on a site near the existing facility by fall 2011, the station will replace a structure built by CN in the early 1960s and expanded by VIA Rail in 1982.

The station project is linked with other work currently under way or soon to begin on the Quebec-Windsor Corridor, which generates about 90 percent of VIA Rail’s ridership and 75 percent of its revenue. The railroad plans to add a new rail traffic control system and upgrade track structure between Windsor and Chatham.

The station project also is part of the federal government’s $923 million capital investment in passenger-rail modernization and expansion, according to VIA Rail.