Atherton station is a former Caltrain station in Atherton, California. The station had one side platform and one island platform serving the two tracks of the Peninsula Subdivision, with a concrete and wooden shelter on the west side of the tracks. The station opened by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1866 as Fair Oaks and was renamed Atherton in 1912. Caltrain cut weekday service to the station in 2005 due to low ridership and a hold-out rule that prohibited two trains from being at the station simultaneously. Weekend service continued until December 2020.
A southbound train at Atherton station in December 2020
Atherton station in 1971
Atherton station in May 2023, after closing
Caltrain is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley. The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far as Gilroy. The northern terminus of the line is in San Francisco at 4th and King Street. Caltrain has 28 regular stops, one limited-service weekday-only stop, one weekend-only stop (Broadway), and one football-only stop (Stanford). While average weekday ridership in 2019 exceeded 63,000, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been significant: in August 2022, Caltrain had an average weekday ridership of 18,600 passengers.
Southbound train at Palo Alto in 2014
A Southern Pacific locomotive pulls a Peninsula Commute train past Bayshore in April 1985.
A Caltrain car manufactured by Nippon Sharyo
Baby Bullet service was originally provided by MPI MP36PH-3C locomotives, although currently both types of equipment are used.