Diridon Station

San Jose Diridon Amtrak station Caltrain and ACE commuter rail station VTA light railstation California Shuttle Bus San Francisco-Los Angeles
Station statistics
Address	65 Cahill Street San Jose, California 95110
Coordinates	37°19′48″N 121°54′10″W / 37.329961°N 121.902795°W / 37.329961; -121.902795Coordinates: 37°19′48″N 121°54′10″W / 37.329961°N 121.902795°W / 37.329961; -121.902795
Lines	Amtrak   Coast Starlight   Capitol Corridor Caltrain   Local service   Limited-stop service   Baby Bullet ACE   ACE VTA Light Rail   Mountain View–Winchester
Connections	VTA Bus Routes 22, 63, 64, 65, 68, 168, 180, 181, 522, DASH Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach Route: 6 Stockton-San Jose
Platforms	3
Tracks	6
Parking	$4.00 a space per day (Caltrain only)
Bicycle facilities	Racks available (Caltrain)
Other information
Opened	December 1935 (SP) 1987 (Caltrain) 1998 (ACE) 2005 (VTA Extension)
Rebuilt	1996
Accessible
Code	SJC (Amtrak) SJD (ACE)
Owned by	Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board
Fare zone	4 (Caltrain)
Traffic
Passengers (2010)	202,512[1]  2.15% (Amtrak)
Passengers (weekday avg. boardings February 2009)	2,983[2]  8.5% (Caltrain)
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station Oakland – Jack London Square toward Seattle Coast Starlight Salinas toward Los Angeles Great America-Santa Clara toward Auburn Capitol Corridor Terminus Caltrain College Park toward 4th & King Local service Tamien Terminus Santa Clara toward 4th & King Limited-stop service Tamien toward Tamien Gilroy during peak hours Sunnyvale toward 4th & King Limited-stop service Tamien toward Tamien Gilroy during peak hours Mountain View toward 4th & King Baby Bullet Tamien Terminus Sunnyvale toward 4th & King Baby Bullet Tamien Terminus Altamont Commuter Express Santa Clara toward Stockton ACE Terminus VTA Light Rail San Fernando toward Mountain View Mountain View–Winchester Race toward Winchester
Southern Pacific Depot U.S. National Register of Historic Places Daytime Photo of Diridon Station Location: San Jose, California Coordinates: 37°19′48″N 121°54′10″W / 37.33°N 121.90278°W / 37.33; -121.90278 Built: 1935 Architect: John H. Christie Architectural style: Italian Renaissance Revival Governing body: Private NRHP Reference#: 93000274 [3] Added to NRHP: April 1, 1993

Diridon Station (formerly the Cahill Depot or the Southern Pacific Depot; also known as San Jose Diridon or Downtown San Jose-Diridon Station) 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. It will have Bay Area Rapid Transit service when the Silicon Valley BART extension is complete.

The station is served by Caltrain, ACE, VTA light rail, Amtrak and in the future BART.^[4] This is in addition to 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. This station serves San Francisco via Caltrain.

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.

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 in honor of 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 is 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.

California Shuttle Bus runs from San Francisco and Oakland to Los Angeles.

The BART station will be called Diridon/Arena and will be located between the Santa Clara and Alum Rock stations with direct service to Santa Clara, San Francisco/Daly City, and Richmond.

Ridership

Of Amtrak's 73 California stations, San Jose was the 19th-busiest in FY2010, boarding or detraining an average of approximately 550 passengers daily.^[1]

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.

Transit connections

• VTA Route 22
• VTA Route 63
• VTA Route 64
• VTA Route 65
• VTA Route 68
• VTA Express Route 180
• VTA Limited Route 305
• VTA Rapid Route 522
• Highway 17 Express - VTA's site
• Highway 17 Express - Santa Cruz Metro's site
• MST Express Route 55
• Downtown Area Shuttle (DASH) (free)
• Amtrak Thruway Bus - San Joaquin Route

Possible California High-Speed Rail and future BART service

The San Jose Diridon station is planned as a future station for the California High-Speed Rail and second phase of BART extension in Santa Clara County. BART is planned to be in a subway station adjacent to the train station and Santa Clara Street. The high-speed rail track and platform locations have not been determined yet. The BART line will lay between the Santa Clara and Downtown San Jose BART stations with direct service to Santa Clara, San Francisco and Richmond.^[4]

If these plans are completed, Diridon Station would offer connections between Caltrain, high-speed rail, Amtrak's Capitol Corridor and Coast Starlight lines, ACE, and VTA light rail and buses, and BART.

The City of San Jose has brought in the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to assist in considering transportation and urban planning issues surrounding such a large-scale transit hub. The group will be led by a professor with experience directing urban planning projects in Dubai, Moscow, Budapest, Seoul, Buenos Aires and Bilbao. The results of 12 graduate student studies will be made available to the city for inclusion in its official planning process for the expansion of the Diridon Station and surroundings.^[7]

See also

• List of attractions in Silicon Valley
• Downtown San Jose

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2010, State of California" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2010. http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/CALIFORNIA10.pdf. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
2. ^ Caltrain.com - Ridership
3. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2006-03-15. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
4. ^ ^{a b} 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. http://www.vta.org/projects/vasona/. Retrieved 2008-11-16. 
7. ^ "Diridon Station to Be Focus of Harvard Design Group". MarketWatch. 2009-02-10. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/diridon-station-focus-harvard-design/story.aspx?guid={9D334AF3-D895-41E9-B3D8-4AFE5D9AEE04}. Retrieved 2009-02-11. 

References

• "Southern Pacific Depot". California's Historic Silicon Valley. National Park Service. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/santaclara/spd.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-09. 

External links

Media related to San José Diridon Station at Wikimedia Commons

• Caltrain San Jose Diridon station page
• Altamont Commuter Express
• Amtrak California
  • Capitol Corridor
• Amtrak
  • Coast Starlight
• Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)
• Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (Highway 17 Express)
• Transit Unlimited - San Jose Diridon Station

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.