Partway through the ribbon-cutting on Sunday, October 18, Vice Mayor Rick DeGolia had to stop speaking. A southbound Caltrain was coming through the old Atherton depot, and it did not slow down. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that about 200 people waited for the electric train to pass. DeGolia then finished his remarks, and the crowd went into the small station house to see what the Town had put inside.
That pause sums up the Atherton Train Station Museum. The building could become a museum only because the trains stopped stopping. The exhibit inside traces more than 150 years of rail travel, from early wood-burning locomotives to today's electric trains. The line is still running a few feet away, with trains passing at least twice an hour, so its most current chapter is outside the glass.
A depot freed up when the trains stopped stopping
Before Atherton was Atherton, the stop here was called Fair Oaks. It began as a flag stop on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, a line the Town notes was built largely by Chinese laborers. Trains stopped there only when someone on the platform waved a flag. Over the next century the building changed several times. It began as a modest wood-framed structure with a terra cotta roof. It became a four-sided glass station, rare for its time, and by the 1950s it was the enclosed depot generations of commuters knew. The Chronicle dates the glass enclosure to 1951. The whole station house is 680 square feet.
The depot also lived through regional history. The Town's history notes that it saw the 1906 earthquake, when trains helped carry thousands of refugees out of San Francisco, and later the shift from steam to diesel.
The decline happened slowly. DeGolia told the Chronicle that in the peak commute years of the late 20th century, the stop served maybe 1,000 commuters a week. The Almanac reported that weekday service ended in 2005, leaving only weekend trains. In January 2020 the Town Council approved Caltrain's plan to close the station permanently. Service was formally ended that year, ahead of electrifying and speeding up the line. Riders who still take the train now board at Menlo Park or Redwood City.
The closure is what made the museum possible. The Chronicle put it plainly: Caltrain no longer stops in Atherton, which is the whole reason the glass depot was available to become a monument to the old commuter line.
Five eras inside, and the current one outside
The centerpiece is a 30-foot diorama that links five eras of Peninsula train travel, starting with the Fair Oaks flag stop. It was built to exact scale from historic photographs of the station in the Richmond shop of Images of the Past, a firm that also builds exhibits for the Walt Disney Museum. In an InMenlo preview before the opening, DeGolia described the five models as moving forward through the decades, "showing wagons and different types of cars from different periods."
The idea came from former Mayor Diana Hawkins-Manuelian, who carried it through and cut the ribbon herself. She explained the design to the Chronicle:
"The whole premise of this museum is that you're looking at the same place over time. The technology has changed, the people have changed, the culture has changed, and even the building itself has changed."
It is a still exhibit. The Chronicle notes that the model trains sit on track, and the only motion is in the introductory video, where trains pull out of the station. Hawkins-Manuelian said she wants children to study the details and "see how the train evolved from wood burning to coal to diesel to electric."
The last stage of that sequence needs no model. Real trains pass the depot at least twice an hour, and visitors can watch them from inside the museum. They also arrive almost without warning. At the Town's request, Caltrain stopped sounding its horn here when it stopped serving the station, and the electric trains are quieter than the diesels were. "But their presence is still felt," Hawkins-Manuelian told the Chronicle.
The cost of keeping a station that no longer serves trains
The money came in stages, and the gaps between them explain why opening took years after the closure.
- A farewell grant. When Caltrain closed the stop, it gave the Town $400,000 to refurbish the station, according to the Chronicle. By late 2022 the Town had hired San Francisco-based Garavaglia Architecture for the design, The Almanac reported.
- A construction contract. In April 2023 the Council voted unanimously to award Castillo Plumbing, Inc. of Hayward a $302,000 contract to restore the building. By then the Town had already committed $96,000 to design, according to The Almanac.
- A second grant for the exhibit itself. Hawkins-Manuelian told the Chronicle she had "naively thought" Caltrain's money would also pay for the museum inside. It ran out once the renovation was done. Filling the building took a separate $50,000 grant from the Town budget.
- Footage already on hand. The $50,000 went further than it might have because two videos already existed, one on the town's history and one on the train's, made for Atherton's 2023 centennial. They now open the museum's timeline.
The Chronicle reported that the whole process took four years. For a town that, by the Chronicle's account, does not court publicity or outside visitors, the result is unusual. It is a free public museum, open to nonresidents.
Plan a weekday visit
Opening day was the only weekend with set hours, and the museum has no docents or staff yet. As of the Chronicle's opening-day report, it follows the schedule of the Town Center next door.
- Where: Dinkelspiel Station Lane, next to Atherton Town Center and the Atherton Library.
- When: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. Weekends by request.
- Admission: Free and open to nonresidents.
- More information: The Chronicle's listing directs visitors to the Town of Atherton website.
- Pairing: The museum's subject suits children, and the library next door has a new 6,200-square-foot Children's Garden with an outdoor classroom, a willow hut, a tree house and a climbing boulder, according to the San Mateo County Libraries.
The visit is short. The building is small and the diorama is the main event. For anyone timing a visit, the most memorable moment comes when a train passes. The schedule puts that at least twice an hour, so a visitor who stays a little while is likely to see one go through. Hawkins-Manuelian hopes to recruit a roster of docents and extend the hours.
The lane outside is being studied too
The street outside is also changing. At its June 17 meeting the Council directed further study of a pedestrian path and one-way options for Dinkelspiel Station Lane, and made a Watkins Avenue crosswalk a priority, according to the Town's council recap. In September the Council asked for more analysis of options that would protect the lane's trees, the September recap shows. The Council has also added design work for a Watkins Avenue walkway and fencing to its Middlefield Road traffic study.
That work concerns the same short stretch of road that now leads to the Town Center, the library and a museum anyone can walk into. The Town's next seasonal event is its Tree Lighting at sunset on Thursday, December 10, listed in the Town Manager's October report. A December weekday afternoon spent with the diorama would also offer the chance to watch a quiet electric train pass the glass.
Reopening a 680-square-foot depot took two grants, a restoration contract and four years. If you are weighing the history of a property of your own, whether that means an older home, a long-held parcel or a family estate, Helen & Brad Miller offer quiet, considered counsel on stewardship and value. Reach Out Today.
