One issue with retail in North American train stations is that quite often, train stations are not located that close to where people might live and work. European stations like Berlin Südkreuz and Berlin Friedrichstraße are able to have retail for a few reasons. They have lots of tracks - high speed rail, slower regional rail, subways, street cars (and bus stops, taxi stops) - meaning there are thousands upon thousands of people going through them each day. They're also quite often located in densely populated, old urban neighbourhoods. People live and work nearby, so shops make sense. Indeed they make a lot of sense in a place like Germany because most stores close at 8PM, and often the only place to get groceries after that or on a Sunday is to take a trip to the train station.
The use of transit in European countries is a lot higher as well. We simply lack a culture and infrastructure that results in people taking a train anywhere. Most people are commuting to Toronto and back with a car, because if you take the train you are going to need a good 2 hours each way, as our trains move at a snails pace. It's often a last resort for commuters to get around. Because of that, there are low passenger numbers and so there is no real need to build a grand train station. We were on the path to having a high speed rail link going from London to Toronto completed by 2025 (and continuing to expand to Windsor and Montreal/Quebec City), until the conservative government scrapped those plans. If we got that, then you'd certainly see bigger train stations being built or expanded in cities along the route. Our transit hub most certainly would have been bigger - perhaps with retail, offices and condos included or built nearby - like a few architects and developers were envisioning. Now, we're still not getting improved GO services despite all the talk, and they're just going to expand the 401 - yet again - and we will now get a fairly lackluster transit hub as a result, which will likely not expand for 1-2 decades until it makes more sense for people to use the train to get around.
The use of transit in European countries is a lot higher as well. We simply lack a culture and infrastructure that results in people taking a train anywhere. Most people are commuting to Toronto and back with a car, because if you take the train you are going to need a good 2 hours each way, as our trains move at a snails pace. It's often a last resort for commuters to get around. Because of that, there are low passenger numbers and so there is no real need to build a grand train station. We were on the path to having a high speed rail link going from London to Toronto completed by 2025 (and continuing to expand to Windsor and Montreal/Quebec City), until the conservative government scrapped those plans. If we got that, then you'd certainly see bigger train stations being built or expanded in cities along the route. Our transit hub most certainly would have been bigger - perhaps with retail, offices and condos included or built nearby - like a few architects and developers were envisioning. Now, we're still not getting improved GO services despite all the talk, and they're just going to expand the 401 - yet again - and we will now get a fairly lackluster transit hub as a result, which will likely not expand for 1-2 decades until it makes more sense for people to use the train to get around.