Hubbry Logo
search
logo
1912467

San Jose Diridon station

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
1912467

San Jose Diridon station

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
San Jose 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 Rod Diridon Sr.

The station is on the Union Pacific Railroad Coast Line tracks (formerly Southern Pacific Transportation Company) 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 trains. The bus plaza at the station is served by Amtrak Thruway, Greyhound, Monterey–Salinas Transit, Santa Cruz METRO (Highway 17 Express), and VTA buses.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Green and Orange Line metro service to a new underground station is projected to begin in 2036 with the completion of the Silicon Valley BART extension.

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 depots built in California during the 1930s were the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and Stockton Cabral station.

A rail station at this location was established in 1878, when the narrow-gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad opened their San Jose Depot on the site. When Southern Pacific gained control of the railroad in 1887, the station was folded into the system and referred to as the West San Jose Depot.

The current station opened in December 1935 as Cahill Depot. 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, formerly located at Market and Bassett Streets, at the northern edge of Downtown near St. James Park. The new depot replaced the Fourth Street line's station for passengers, though freight operations persisted for some time at the old facility.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.