According to Charles Bohi's book Canadian National's Western Depots, Port Mann was one of four similar "special depots" built by the Canadian Northern Railway around 1915. Pictured below, based on a design by the CNoR's John Scofield, are the four stations: Port Mann and Hope, built to the same plan number (100-84); Chilliwack, from a slightly modified plan (100-83); and Estevan, Saskatchewan, the only other CNoR structure of similar design, although with obvious changes to suit local needs. A retired CN employee, however, tells me that the Port Mann station was one of twenty-four similarly designed structures built by the CNoR.

Canadian National station at Port Mann

Canadian National station at Port Mann

Canadian National station at Hope

Canadian National station at Chilliwack

Canadian National station at Estevan (stuccoed in 1929)

The Hope station was shared briefly with the Great Northern Railway, who had facilities nearby and used the Canadian Northern main line from Cannor (Sumas Landing) to Hope; their tri-weekly mixed trains passing the CNoR stations at Chilliwack, Rosedale, Cheam View and Laidlaw before reaching Hope. Today the Hope station has been preserved and relocated a short distance from its original location. The special stations at Chilliwack and Port Mann no longer exist but in far away Saskatchewan, Estevan's does.

The last two CNoR stations in the Fraser Valley before Hope were Laidlaw and Cheam View (pictured), both of which shared the same design.

The next station upriver from Port Mann was Langley, later renamed Fort Langley in the 1920's, which shared the same third-class design as the CNoR stations at Matsqui and Rosedale. The next station downriver from Port Mann was at New Westminster, where at the east wye of the New Westminster Bridge, across the Fraser River, was the Great Northern station. However, less than three miles downriver from the Port Mann station was the old Great Northern station at Liverpool (now called Gyproc), whose structure one old-timer tells me existed up until the early 1970's. Bon Accord, later renamed Port Mann, is listed in early Great Northern time tables as a flagstop along the New Westminster Southern Railway, so probably there was not a proper station.