Wasco station is an

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

station on the '' San Joaquin'' located in

Wasco, California Wasco (formerly, Dewey and Deweyville) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley, in Kern County, California, United States. Wasco is located northwest of Bakersfield, at an elevation of . The population was 25,545 at the 2010 census, up from 21,26 ...

, United States. The station has one platform on the west side of a single track.

History

When construction of the

San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad The San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad was a California rail line between Stockton and Bakersfield constructed in the late 1890s and very shortly thereafter purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and became their Val ...

(SF&SJ) had reached the future townsite, a small, open-air, two story station was constructed. It cost $4,500 and followed their standard No. 2 design. There was also a large window, facing the tracks, for the station master to observe activity down the tracks. The town, named Dewey, would develop around the station. It would later be renamed Wasco. In 1899, the SF&SJ was purchased by the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

(part of the Valley Division) which continued to use the station for passenger and freight service. In 1907, the station was extended, to serve a growing demand for freight. In the 1950s, the waiting room was enclosed. The second floor was also reorganized as sleeping quarters. The station closed in 1971, when Amtrak was formed and none of the routes in the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

continued to run. In 1974, the ''San Joaquin'' route began operating through the valley. Initially, the train did not stop in Wasco. Amtrak added Wasco as a

flag stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, s ...

on October 26, 1975. The train station was demolished in 1978 and replaced with a couple of benches and a parking lot. Part of the train station would be used in the restoration of the Shafter Santa Fe station. At some point, Wasco became a regular stop for the ''San Joaquin'' route, and a shelter was built. In 2006, an entirely new station was constructed. It was designed as an open-air station, built in the Spanish Revival style. It would also house the Wasco Chamber of Commerce. With the coming of

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 ...

, Wasco city officials have expressed concerns that the Amtrak service might be discontinued. , no decision has been announced. The station building was demolished in April 2021 to make room for

(HSR), though the platform remains in use. A crossing is being built as part of the HSR project's Construction Package 4 to provide pedestrian access from the corner of G & 7th Streets, under the future High-Speed tracks, to the Amtrak platform. ''San Joaquins'' are expected to cease services here once high-speed operations begin.

References

External links

Wasco, CA – USA Rail Guide (TrainWeb)
{{Amtrak California stations Former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 2006 Amtrak stations in Kern County, California