Passenger Trains > Caltrain to Close Atherton Station

The poor, beleagured citizens of Atherton, CA will soon be losing service to their Caltrain
station.  In a quirk of Caltrain's schedule Atherton(along with Broadway in Burlingame) is
served on weekends only.  Extremely low ridership resulted in the discontinuance of weekday
service back in 2005.  No final closure date has been announced.

Atherton presently has the old style SP island platform for northbound passengers resulting in
the hold out rule being used which prevents two trains in a station at a time.  To restore weekday
service and bring Atherton station up to the standard of other stations would require it to be
completely redesigned with outside platforms and a shifting of the number one main.  Low ridership
projections rule out any such expensive rebuilding.

SP has had a stop at this location since 1866 when it was known as Fair Oaks.  The three attached
photos were taken this afternoon 1/22.  From the local print media:
https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/01/17/atherton-signs-off-on-caltrain-proposal-to-permanently-close-its-train-station

For those not familiar with the neighborhood here's a little about the town of Atherton:
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/atherton-is-americas-richest-town-for-the-third-year-running/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/20 16:50 by milepost20.

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Thanks, milepost20, for providing a link to an article describing Atherton's reaction to the station closing and a link to an article with some background information about Atherton.

Your third photo is an Image of the Day candidate.  Very nice!

That's unfortunate about Atherton Station closing. I only rode Caltrain once and I don't know too much about the ridership at that station. I will say from just reading about it, it seems that with a combination of very low ridership and the fact that only one train can serve Atherton at a time, it's not cost effective to continue having trains stop there. Here in New Jersey in NJT land not too far from where I live, Great Notch Station is a good example. The ridership was dismal there. Plus, only one train could serve that station at a time and more often than not, there has always been very few meets on the Boonton Line there. With the opening of Montclair State University and more and more people using that station, NJT felt that Great Notch should be closed. Not as many people as NJT predicted use the MSU Station as many of the access roads to get there are poor. Plus, it's a slow ride on a local train through Mtc, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield. I live in Montclair and have been there done that too many times. I won't stop doing it again soon. Great Notch had very little parking and the access with getting there wasn't the best either.

I grew up in Atherton, so it's sad to see the depot close. Although I actually lived closer to the Menlo Park depot, so that was my go-to spot when I was a kid to watch the Espee afternoon fleet roll down the Peninsula.

It's unfortunate the town council was unable to muster the will to fight for keeping the stop, even if it was for a handful of local weekday trains. I'm sure that could have been incorporated into the schedule with a minimum of disruption. As time marches on, I think the town will regret this decision. It's been about 15 years since the town saw weekday service. Not only is the stop convenient for many Athertonians, but it's the closest stop for the North Fair Oaks district in unincorporated San Mateo County. I think a solid ridership would develop if some trains stopped there.

Unfortunately, the town council is more focused on building a big, fancy police station instead of fighting for an amenity that people would actually benefit from.

If Caltrain can find reason to keep College Park open, they could certainly do so with Atherton, too

My uncle commuted from Atherton to San Francisco for 40-odd years, starting around 1960. His blue-grey Mercedes could always be found under an oak tree in the corner of the Atherton station lot. I wish I had talked to him about riding the train before he died.

milepost20 Wrote:
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> The poor, beleaguered citizens of Atherton, CA will
> soon be losing service to their Caltrain
> station.  

Sad news but just about no one in Athertion is poor & beleaguered, by a long shot!

Not to mention that the people of Atherton seem to always have an issue with CALTRAIN (horn loudness, time lost waiting at gates, high speed rail plans, etc.).  I bet CALTRAIN is glad to close their station.  Who needs public transit when you have BMW / MERCEDES / MASERATI / PORSCHE / AUDI in the driveway??

So the lovely station will be demolished??

That’s a good question, and I believe that would be up to the town council.

Unlike other depots and associated parking lots on the Caltrain line, the town of Atherton owns the land. That’s why the parking rules at Atherton are different than Caltrain-owned lots.

Atherton residents can park for free at the depot — with a windshield decal available at the police station — while non-residents use a vending machine to buy a ticket.

Posted from iPhone

Beautiful depot.

The parcel under the depot plus a strip of parking lot nearest the tracks is owned by "Peninsula Corridor JPB"

The remainder of the parking lot(s) are owned by "Town of Atherton".

I just checked San Mateo County Assessor records.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/20 09:00 by Duna.

Thanks for clearing that up.

At my old company, that was my stop until they closed it on weekdays.  I rode from downtown San Jose to Atherton, then later from Santa Clara to Atherton.

Maybe 5-6 people would get off when I did in the morning and very few got on.  Similar numbers got on with me in the evening.

Z

A place that has 730 sq foot houses going for $1.5 million doesn't need public transportation.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com