Palo Alto is the main train station in Palo Alto, California and the second busiest in the Caltrain system after the 4th and King Street Station in downtown San Francisco. It is a regional transit center where passengers can take buses serving Santa Clara County (VTA), San Mateo County (SamTrans) and Stanford University (Marguerite Shuttle), as well as Caltrain commuters; in addition the Dumbarton Express bus administered by AC Transit takes passengers back and forth over the Dumbarton Bridge to Union City BART station in the East Bay. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance.
Video Palo Alto station
Location
The station building is across the tracks from Alma Street, with a car entrance to the parking lot at Alma Street and Lytton Avenue. Daily parking is $5. It is on the west side of Downtown Palo Alto and offers easy access to the downtown Palo Alto Area and the Stanford University campus. It is one of two stations in Palo Alto; the other is farther south at Alma and California Avenue. On December 11, 2009, Cafe Venetia opened inside the historic Palo Alto train station.
Maps Palo Alto station
Architecture
The current 1940 structure replaced an earlier 1897 station as part of the grade separation project that moved the tracks a few feet southwest from the straight line that had extended south from Redwood City.
The station is in the Streamline Moderne style which is not typically found in Palo Alto. This one-story structure personifies the tendency of the 1930s to style buildings like transportation machinery, in this case the Streamline train. The structure has all the trademarks: porthole windows, horizontal parallel lines to indicate speed and glass blocks. It was designed by J.H. Christia, a full-time architect employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad and the cornerstone was laid on October 20, 1940.
The station is 215 feet (65 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide and has two buildings connected with an arcade facing the track and a marquee at the rear. The interior originally had a ticket office, waiting room, rest rooms, and, in the second smaller building, a baggage room; an open air but roofed passageway connected the main building with the baggage room. Tickets are now purchased from machines on both sides of the track and the waiting room is now a coffee shop. The waiting room also has a mural by John McQuarrie depicting Leland Stanford's dream of a University influenced by a pageant of transportation. It shows facts and events in the development of California.
The station was refurbished in the 1980s.
Platforms and tracks
Bike station
Due to the high number of bicyclists in Palo Alto, a bike station has been built inside the old baggage room. There is now a small fee to leave a bike there, and the area is no longer supervised. Use of these facilities requires sign-up.
Station amenities
- Caltrain ticket machines
- Clipper\ Add-Value machine
- Coffee Shop (Cafe Venetia)
Notes
References
External links
- Media related to Southern Pacific Railroad depot, Palo Alto, California at Wikimedia Commons
- The train depot at Palo Alto History.com
- Caltrain Palo Alto station page
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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