Palo Alto (Caltrain station)

Palo Alto Station Commuter rail
The rear of the station.
Station statistics
Address	95 University Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301
Lines	Caltrain   Local service   Limited-stop service   Baby Bullet
Connections	VTA Bus Routes: 22, 35, 522 Dumbarton Express Caltrain Shuttles: Embarcadero & Crosstown Stanford University: Marguerite Shuttle Samtrans KX, 280, 281, 297, 390, 397, 880
Platforms	2 side platforms
Tracks	2
Parking	Available
Bicycle facilities	Racks available
Other information
Opened	October 1940
Accessible
Owned by	Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board
Fare zone	3
Traffic
Passengers (2012)	4,661 per weekday  15.7%
Services
Preceding station   Caltrain   Following station Menlo Park toward San Francisco Local service Stanford toward Tamien Menlo Park toward San Francisco Limited-stop service California Avenue toward Tamien Gilroy during peak hours San Carlos toward San Francisco Limited-stop service California Avenue toward Tamien Gilroy during peak hours Hillsdale toward San Francisco Baby Bullet Peak, Pattern A Mountain View toward San Jose Diridon Redwood City toward San Francisco Baby Bullet Peak, Pattern B Sunnyvale toward Tamien Hillsdale toward San Francisco Baby Bullet Reverse Peak, Pattern A Mountain View toward San Jose Diridon Menlo Park toward San Francisco Baby Bullet Reverse Peak, Pattern B Mountain View toward San Jose Diridon
Palo Alto Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location:	Palo Alto, California
Coordinates:	37°26′34.82″N 122°9′53.56″W
Built:	1931
Architect:	John H. Christie
Architectural style:	Streamline Moderne
Governing body:	Private
NRHP Reference#:	96000425
Added to NRHP:	April 18, 1996

Palo Alto Station is the main train station in Palo Alto, California. It is a regional transit center serving Santa Clara County and San Mateo County Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) transit bus passengers as well as Caltrain commuters. Palo Alto is also one of the busiest stations in the Caltrain system, second only to San Francisco. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance.

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 $4. 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.

Architecture

The station is an excellent example of the Streamline Moderne style which has important connections with American social history, and which is not typically found in Palo Alto. During the 1920s and 1930s most of the significant buildings in town were designed by a single local architect, Birge Clark, who worked almost exclusively in the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles. Consequently, the other major buildings of that era, such as large commercial blocks and apartment buildings, the main Post Office, the Community Center and other civic buildings were built in the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles.

On October 22, 1940, the cornerstone was laid for the new railroad station which was designed by J.H. Christie, a full-time architect employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The new station replaced the one built in 1897. The building is 215 feet (65 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide with an arcade in front and a marquee at the rear including two buildings connected by an arcade. The station interior consists of the ticket office, waiting room, rest rooms, baggage room and a passageway between the waiting room and baggage room. However, the interior is not currently accessible to the public. Tickets are currently purchased from machines on the platform.

The interior of the building features a mural by John McQuarrie. Its central theme is Leland Stanford's dream of a University influenced by a pageant of transportation. The mural depicts facts and events of significance and influence historically expressed in the development of California. This one-story streamlined Southern Pacific station personifies the tendency of the 1930s to style buildings in the imagery of transportation machinery, in this case the Streamline train. The building has all the classic trademarks of the mode: porthole windows, horizontal parallel lines to indicate speed and glass blocks.

The station was refurbished in the 1980s.

Bike station

See also: List of United States bike stations

Due to the high number of bicyclists in Palo Alto, a bike station has been built inside the old Southern Pacific 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
• 8-Ride ticket validators
• Coffee Shop (Cafe Doge)

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.