San Jose Diridon station

San Jose Diridon
Amtrak, Caltrain, ACE, and VTA station

Diridon Station at night, November 2005
Location 65 Cahill Street
San Jose, California 95110
Coordinates 37°19′48″N 121°54′11″W / 37.330°N 121.903°W / 37.330; -121.903Coordinates: 37°19′48″N 121°54′11″W / 37.330°N 121.903°W / 37.330; -121.903
Owned by Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board
Line(s)

Amtrak

  Coast Starlight
  Capitol Corridor

Caltrain

  Local service
  Limited-stop service
  Baby Bullet

ACE

  ACE

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail

  Mountain View–Winchester
Platforms 1 side platform, 4 island platforms (Amtrak/Caltrain/ACE)
2 side platforms (VTA Light Rail)
Tracks 9 (Amtrak/Caltrain/ACE)
2 (VTA Light Rail)
Connections

VTA Bus Routes 22, 63, 64, 65, 68, 168, 180, 181, 522, DASH
MST Route 55 Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach
Route: 6 Stockton-San Jose

California Shuttle Bus
San Francisco-Los Angeles
Construction
Parking $5.50 a space per day (Caltrain only)
Bicycle facilities Racks available (Caltrain)
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Station code SJC (Amtrak)
SJD (ACE)
Fare zone 4 (Caltrain)
History
Opened December 1935 (SP)
1987 (Caltrain)
1998 (ACE)
2005 (VTA Extension)
Rebuilt 1994
Previous names Cahill Depot
Traffic
Passengers (2015) 215,158[1] Increase 2.3% (Amtrak)
Passengers (2014) 3,714 per weekday[2] Increase 6.4% (Caltrain)
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
toward Seattle
Coast Starlight
toward Los Angeles
toward Auburn
Capitol CorridorTerminus
Caltrain
Local service
toward Tamien
Gilroy during peak hours
(weekday limited service)
Limited-stop service
toward Tamien
Gilroy during peak hours
Limited-stop service
Baby BulletTerminus
Baby Bullet
Peak, Pattern B
Terminus
Altamont Corridor Express
toward Stockton
ACETerminus
VTA Light Rail
Mountain View–Winchester
toward Winchester
Southern Pacific Depot

Daytime Photo of Diridon Station
Location San Jose, California
Coordinates 37°19′48″N 121°54′9″W / 37.33000°N 121.90250°W / 37.33000; -121.90250
Built 1935
Architect John H. Christie
Architectural style Italian Renaissance Revival
NRHP Reference # 93000274 [3]
Added to NRHP April 1, 1993

San Jose Diridon (formerly the Cahill Depot or the Southern Pacific Depot; also known as San Jose Caltrain Station or Downtown San Jose-Diridon) is the central passenger rail depot for San Jose, California. It also serves as a transit hub for Santa Clara County and the Silicon Valley.

The station is on the Union Pacific Coast Line tracks (formerly Southern Pacific) at 65 Cahill Street in San Jose. The depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its Italian Renaissance Revival style architectural and historical significance.

The station is served by Caltrain, ACE, VTA light rail, and Amtrak. This is in addition to bus services by California Shuttle Bus, Amtrak Thruway Bus, Monterey-Salinas Transit, San Benito Transit, Santa Cruz Metro (Highway 17 Express), SMART, local VTA and employer shuttles and buses.

It is to have Bay Area Rapid Transit service when the Silicon Valley BART extension is complete and is to be preceded by a Downtown San Jose BART station.[4]

History

The Cahill Depot opened in December 1935. The opening of the depot was the culmination of a 30-year effort to relocate 4.5 miles (7.2 km) of the Coast Line of the Southern Pacific Railroad away from the heavy traffic of the downtown area around the Market Street Depot, located at Market and Bassett Streets, to the eastern edge of Willow Glen, an industrial area in the 19th century and the former location of rail facilities belonging to other railroads, in 1935. The new depot replaced the Fourth Street line's station.

The Cahill Depot was a stop for several Southern Pacific passenger trains, including the famous San Francisco–Los Angeles train, the Coast Daylight. Other "named" trains that used the station were the all first-class Lark, and the Del Monte. Amtrak took over long distance passenger train service in 1971, and Caltrain equipment replaced all SP passenger equipment on the Peninsula Commute in 1985.

Restoration of the station was finished in 1994, when the station was renamed Diridon Station after former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon.[5]

In 1996, Santa Clara County voters approved a half cent sales tax to fund the 1996 Measure B Transportation Improvement Project. Part of this project was the construction of the Vasona Light Rail extension which included a VTA light rail platform at the Diridon train depot.[6] The official opening date for this light rail extension was October 1, 2005, however, revenue service at the San Fernando and Diridon Stations began on July 29, 2005 to accommodate attendees of the inaugural San Jose Grand Prix race.

The passenger platform was featured in the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) as representing the Hartford, Connecticut, train station. Margaret (Marnie) Edgar (Tippi Hedren) is seen walking down the platform, back to the camera with a yellow purse tucked under her left arm and carrying a suitcase with her right, setting down the suitcase and waiting for her train to arrive.

Ridership

Of Amtrak's 74 California stations, San Jose was the 19th-busiest in FY2010, boarding or detraining an average of approximately 643 passengers daily.[7]

Architecture

The depot is in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, with a three-story central section flanked by two-story wings. The building, a compilation of rectangular sections, is 390 feet (118 m) long and 40 feet to 78 feet (12 to 24 m) wide. The central section, which contains the passenger waiting room, measures 40 by 80 feet (12 by 25 m) and is 33 feet (10 m) high. The high center pavilion housing the waiting room is constructed of steel columns and trusses. The side wings are framed with wood. The exterior walls are clad with tapestry brick or varied colors and arranged in an English bond pattern. The depot is in an industrial area formerly dominated by warehouses and related commercial businesses. Several vernacular sheds, a water tower, butterfly passenger sheds and the nearby Alameda underpass are all contributing buildings and structures within the railroad station.

The building was designed by Southern Pacific architect, John H. Christie, who had worked on the Southern Pacific remodeling of the Fresno depot in 1915 and later, in 1939, worked on Union Station in Los Angeles. This depot is one of only four Italian Renaissance Revival style depots in California, and the largest surviving depot of the San Francisco–San Jose line. The only other large depot built in California during the 1930s was the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.

Platforms and tracks

Tracks 1-9 Side platform, doors will open on the left
Northbound ←
  ACE

toward Stockton (Santa Clara)

Northbound ← toward Auburn (Santa Clara)
Island platform, doors will open on the right
Northbound ←      Coast Starlight toward Seattle (Oakland–Jack London Square)
Southbound      Coast Starlight toward Los Angeles (Salinas) →
Island platform, doors will open on the right
Northbound ←
  Local service
toward San Francisco (College Park or Santa Clara)
Northbound ←
  Limited-stop service
toward San Francisco (Santa Clara or Sunnyvale)
Island platform, doors will open on the left, right
Northbound ← toward San Francisco(Sunnyvale or Mountain View)
← Peak Pattern B toward San Francisco(Palo Alto)
Southbound
  Local service
toward Gilroy (Tamien) →
  Limited-stop service
toward Gilroy, peak hours (Tamien), toward Tamien, non-peak hours (Terminus) →
Island platform, doors will open on the left, right
Southbound Peak Pattern B toward Tamien (Terminus) →
VTA Side platform, doors will open on the right
Northbound ← toward Mountain View (San Fernando)
Southbound toward Winchester (Race) →
Side platform, doors will open on the right

Transit connections

Future BART and California High-Speed Rail service

The San Jose Diridon station is planned as a future stop on the California High-Speed Rail line and Phase 2 of San Jose BART extension in Santa Clara County. The high-speed rail track and platform locations have not been determined yet.

The BART station will be called Diridon/Arena and planned to be a subway station adjacent to the train station and Santa Clara Street. It will be located between the potential Santa Clara and Downtown San Jose BART stations with direct service to Santa Clara, San Francisco/Daly City, and Richmond.[4]

If these plans are completed, Diridon Station would offer connections between six agencies' rail services: ACE, Amtrak's Capitol Corridor and Coast Starlight lines, BART, Caltrain, CHSR, and VTA light rail.

The City of San Jose partnered with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to study transportation and urban planning issues surrounding such a large-scale transit hub.[8]

Diridon station track layout
Legend

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, Fiscal Year 2015 - State of California" (pdf). Amtrak. November 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
  2. ↑ Caltrain. "February 2014 Caltrain Annual Passenger Counts" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-07-11.
  3. ↑ National Park Service (2006-03-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  4. 1 2 BART Silicon Valley Fact Sheet. VTA - BART Silicon Valley, 2011.
  5. ↑ http://www.caltrain.com/caltrain_history.html
  6. ↑ "Vasona Project Description". Completed projects. Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. 2008-09-15. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  7. ↑ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2012, State of California" (PDF). November 2012. Retrieved 2013-05-11.
  8. ↑ "Diridon Station to Be Focus of Harvard Design Group" (Press release). City of San Jose. 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2016-03-26.

References

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