Santa Clara Transit Center (also called Santa Clara–University by Amtrak) is a railway station in downtown

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

. It is served by

Caltrain Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far ...

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

Capitol Corridor The ''Capitol Corridor'' is a passenger train route in Northern California operated by Amtrak between San Jose, in the Bay Area, and Auburn, in the Sacramento Valley. The route is named after the two points most trains operate between, San J ...

'', and

Altamont Corridor Express The Altamont Corridor Express (also known as ACE, formerly Altamont Commuter Express) is a commuter rail service in California, connecting Stockton and San Jose during peak hours only. ACE is named for the Altamont Pass, through which it runs ...

(ACE) trains. It is the planned terminus for the

Silicon Valley BART extension The Silicon Valley BART extension is an ongoing effort to expand service by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) into Santa Clara County via the East Bay from its former terminus at the Fremont station in Alameda County. Planned since at least 1981, th ...

into Santa Clara County. The former station building, constructed in 1863 by the

San Francisco and San Jose Railroad The San Francisco and San Jose Railroad (SF&SJ) was a railroad which linked the communities of San Francisco and San Jose, California, running the length of the San Francisco Peninsula. The company incorporated in 1860 and was one of the first ra ...

, is used by the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History.

Station design

The station is an

intermodal transportation center Intermodal passenger transport, also called mixed-mode commuting, involves using two or more modes of transportation in a journey. Mixed-mode commuting is often used to combine the strengths (and offset the weaknesses) of various transportati ...

, with

and

train service and bus service operated by the

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, specific highway improvement project ...

(VTA). The station is served by VTA Bus routes , , , , to

San José International Airport Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport , commonly known simply as San Jose International Airport, is a city-owned public airport in San Jose, California, United States. It is named after San Jose native Norman Mineta, former United St ...

, and Rapid . The station has a side platform serving the southbound Caltrain track (Track 3) and an island platform for the northbound Caltrain track (Track 2) and the ACE/Amtrak track (Track 1). The island platform is connected to the side platform by a pedestrian tunnel that was completed in 2012. Additional tracks northeast of Track 1 are used by

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

freight trains.

History

Coast Daylight at Santa Clara station, April 1971

The Santa Clara depot, built by the

in late 1863, was the oldest continuously operating railroad depot in the State of California until the ticket office was closed in May 1997. The original board and

batten A batten is most commonly a strip of solid material, historically wood but can also be of plastic, metal, or fiberglass. Battens are variously used in construction, sailing, and other fields. In the lighting industry, battens refer to linea ...

depot was one of the two "way stations" built between

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and San Jose. Plans for a railroad linking San Francisco and San Jose began as early as 1851. Though the 1851 scheme ultimately failed, the incorporation of the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad in 1859 met with success. Most of the financing for the project came from county government in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, with the

University of Santa Clara Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

and local industry also playing a significant role in both

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

acquisition and choice of placement of the depot in Santa Clara. The first passenger service to San Francisco started in January 1864. The

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

acquired the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad in 1868. The depot, originally on the east side of the tracks, was moved to its present location in 1877 and attached to the existing freight house constructed several years earlier. Because of the large volume of agricultural freight shipped from the depot, the freight house was increased in size at that time to its present dimensions of . On November 1, 1877, the ''

San Jose Mercury ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'' reported the facility nearing completion. Following construction of the railroad, farming and fruit-related industries developed in the Santa Clara area, with the depot serving as a focal point for shipping. Rail service provided the direct link to San Francisco and, in the later 1870s, to

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. Typical of these efforts were those of James A. Dawson, who pioneered the area's fruit-canning industry in 1871. By the turn of the century, the Pratt-Low Preserving Company, the largest fruit packing plant in central California, was located just south of the depot. The

California Department of Transportation The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the cabinet-level California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA). Caltrans is headquartered in Sacrame ...

acquired the depot from Southern Pacific in 1980. It was placed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1985. In cooperation with the

South Bay Historical Railroad Society The South Bay Historical Railroad Society is located in Santa Clara, California and operates the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History in the Santa Clara Depot, as well as the Santa Clara Tower and two other buildings. The depot is the oldes ...

, a nonprofit group founded the same year, they began renovation work in 1986 on the depot, by then badly in need of repair. A group of volunteers spent over 25,000 hours hauling away debris, replacing support timbers, siding, exterior decking and interior flooring, scraping peeling paint, painting and many other repairs. With the major renovation complete since 1992, this 156-year-old building hosts a railroad library and museum with 2 large model railroad layouts and many other artifacts while still serving its original function as a passenger depot. Santa Clara was added as a station for the

(ACE) on March 5, 2001. ACE service to the station was discontinued on July 29, 2005, to allow for platform construction. ACE service to Santa Clara resumed on May 14, 2012; Amtrak ''Capitol Corridor'' trains began stopping at the station on May 21.

Future

Santa Clara is planned to be the

terminal station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

for the second phase of the

. Santa Clara was chosen as the terminal because of the access to the San Jose International Airport as well as the proposed BART maintenance facility located in the vicinity of the station at the former

rail yard. A new island platform will be constructed with a pedestrian underpass. An 800-space parking facility is included in the plans, and VTA is expected to develop transit oriented spaces adjacent the station. The station was considered for

California High-Speed Rail California High-Speed Rail (also known as CAHSR or CHSR) is a publicly funded high-speed rail system currently under construction in California in the United States. Planning for the project began in 1996, when the California Legislature and Gover ...

, but was rejected on the grounds that it was too close to the nearby, and much larger,

Diridon Station San Jose Diridon station is the central passenger rail depot for San Jose, California. It also serves as a major intermodal transit center for Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley. The station is named after former Santa Clara County Supervisor ...

in San Jose, and that the airport traffic that it would receive would not be enough to justify maintaining a separate station. It was also considered as the terminal for a

people mover A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of small scale automated guideway transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks. ...

to the airport; however, San Jose Diridon was later chosen as the terminal.

References

External links

Santa Clara – ACE

Santa Clara Transit Center – VTA
{{authority control Amtrak stations in Santa Clara County, California Caltrain stations in Santa Clara County, California Altamont Corridor Express stations in Santa Clara County, California Former Southern Pacific Railroad stations in California National Register of Historic Places in Santa Clara County, California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1864 Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in California Buildings and structures in Santa Clara, California Railroad museums in California Railway stations in California at university and college campuses Future Bay Area Rapid Transit stations