All Aboard! 8 Must-See Vintage Train Stations in SoCal
Whenever travel season comes around, it can get a little stressful trying to plan your trip around the traffic.
But hitting the road — and braving bottlenecked freeways — isn't your only option for travel within Southern California.
So next time you're putting together a day trip, a weekend getaway, or a holiday visit to family, why not ride the trails — and take a train from and/or to one of SoCal's most magnificent train stations?
The arrival of the railroad revolutionized access to Southern California — and between the communities within it. And train travel remains one of the most scenic and stress-free ways to explore the major transportation hubs of this diverse region.
From coastal cities to desert gateways and wine country weekenders, here are the most historic depots where you can take the train — and what to do once you arrive or before the conductor calls out, "All aboard!"
1. Union Station, Los Angeles
Built in 1939, Downtown L.A.'s Union Station is the last of the great railway stations of the early 20th century — in the days before car culture took over the post-World War II American West. At the same time both modern and Moorish, Union Station — one of many "union stations" throughout the country — is a triumph in both its details and its major features, like sandstone-colored travertine, mosaic tilework, Islamic crosses and stars, a Spanish tile roof and streamlined motifs.
Its classic grandeur and unusual combination of Art Deco and Spanish Colonial Revival architectural styles make it a destination for exploring even if you’re not taking the train.
The former ticketing area features elaborately-tiled floors, dark wood counters, and high, ornate ceilings; and the former Harvey House restaurant (one of the last remaining, now operating as Homebound Brewhaus) features a huge counter/bar and a colorful tile floor that resembles the pattern from a Navajo rug. Look for artwork — including murals, sculptures, and mosaics — throughout the historic part of the station as well as in the Patsaouras Bus Plaza (where you’ll even find a huge aquarium).
Arrive on foot, by Amtrakor Metrolink, or via Metrobus, subway, or lightrail. (Station tours are also conducted by Metro and by Los Angeles Conservancy.) When you walk into the station, it feels as though you're stepping into another time — into an era when travelers dressed dapper, doffed their hats indoors, and swept glamorously down the concourse, illuminated by the sun streaming through huge bay windows and the art deco chandeliers glowing from above. Stay awhile and have a vintage-inspired lunch or cocktails at Traxx, which is located inside the train station and is open daily.
2. Santa Fe Depot, San Diego
Built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to welcome visitors to the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-1917, San Diego's historic Santa Fe Depot features the same Spanish Colonial Revival architecture and tile work found in the extant structures from the Expo in Balboa Park, just a couple of miles northeast. The blue and white sign was added to the terra-cotta, red-tiled roof in the 1950s.
Inside the waiting room, you'll find century-old oak benches, redwood beamed ceilings (part of the design of the San Francisco-based architecture firm of Bakewell and Brown), original tile by California China Products Company of National City (some featuring the blue Santa Fe cross) and even exhibits of historical photos and artifacts.
As it’s still an active transportation center, you can get there by taking the COASTERregional commuter line from North San Diego County or Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner rail line or the from points farther north. Upon your arrival, it's an easy walk to San Diego’s harbor neighborhood, downtown, Gaslamp District, and even the Coronado ferry. You can also hop on the San Diego Trolley to reach popular destinations like Old Town and the Mexican border crossing at San Ysidro.
3. Santa Fe Depot, San Bernardino, Inland Empire
With its Moorish domes and Mission Revival architecture, the "San Berdoo" train station is lovely — reflective of high-class train travel of days of yore, with its original ceiling light fixtures, wall tiles, and red Mexican floor tiles. There's even an elegant lounge outside the ladies' powder room. The historic Harvey House restaurant may have closed in the 1950s, but you can see it through the slats of some window blinds. (There are hopes to reopen it someday.)
The San Bernardino History & Railroad Museum inside the station is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., when you can take a depot and museum tour. (For tours on other days or for special groups, call 951-544-4449.) There's lots of stuff to look at in the museum there, which is located in the former baggage room with its great rolling garage doors and original brick floors. From precision-accurate clocks and watches to signals, bells and whistles, maps, wagons, and ephemera, it’s a rain fan’s dream — and a historic visit for train travelers of all age.
The first passenger train ever to arrive in San Bernardino did so on the California Southern Railroad line (a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) in 1883 — but the current concrete-and-steel station, a national landmark, wasn’t built until 1918. (Its predecessor, a wooden structure built in 1886, burned down in a fire in 1916.) One of the oldest train stations in California, it was designed by architect W.A. Mohr and built at the cost of $800,000 — and at the time, it was the largest train station west of the Mississippi, with roundhouses and repair shops (long since demolished). Today, you can reach it via Amtrak's Southwest Chief line or Metrolink— or, of course, by just driving right up to it and parking your car.
4. Harvey House Railroad Depot, Barstow, Mojave Desert
Barstow's still-operating, 100+ year old train depot along the old Route 66 was formerly known as the Casa del Desierto ("House of the Desert") — and it really is a crown jewel of the Mojave Desert. Designed by the same architect as Union Station's Harvey House (see #1 above), Mary E. J. Coulter, it closed in 1971 and fell into severe disrepair throughout the 1980s as scavengers stripped it and squatters trashed it. It was nearly lost until the city of Barstow purchased it in 1990, restored it after damage sustained in the 1992 Landers earthquake, and reopened it in 1999. Now, the station once again welcomes passengers into the heart of the Mojave Desert, just as it did when it opened in 1911.
The Harvey House Railroad Depot gets its name from entrepreneur Fred Harvey, who opened a series of restaurants, bars, luncheonettes, etc. in the major train stations across the country — including Barstow, as well as several others in California (San Diego, L.A., Bakersfield, etc.) — to serve passengers on long train rides who would disembark to get something to eat in the days before dining cars. (Some would even spend the night in hotel rooms upstairs.)
The Harvey House depot-hotel that stands in Barstow today — a landmark on the stateand national level — is actually the fourth Harvey House in that location, the prior one having been built out of wood in 1885 and subsequently burned down in 1908. Now made entirely out of brick masonry with very little wood, its rich history includes having housed troops for World War II. Nowadays, it's also home to the Route 66 Mother Road Museum and the Western America Railroad Museum, both of which are free to visit and have fascinating exhibits about travel through the American Southwest (including an outdoor display of antique rolling stock at the railroad museum). Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak’s Southwest Chief line.
5. San Luis Obispo Train Station, San Luis Obispo, Central Coast
Until the late 19th century, San Luis Obispo was kind of an isolated island located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. For decades after the line from SF to L.A. was completed in 1876, the trains still bypassed San Luis Obispo. With lines extending east into Arizona and Texas, the Second Transcontinental Railroad (the country's "southern" one) was officially completed in 1883 — still 11 years before it would make its way to SLO. It wasn't until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived from Northern California in 1894 — and conquered a seemingly impassible stretch of terrain known as the Cuesta Grade — that SLO was connected to the rest of the Golden State.
The historic freight house of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which was built in 1894 alongside the original train depot (since demolished to make way for a parking lot) — houses the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum, which celebrated its grand opening in 2013, after spending more than a dozen years restoring its new home. Inside the museum is like a time capsule of 19th- and 20th-century railroading — whether passenger or freight, public or private.
The types of rolling stock in the museum's outdoor exhibit really run the gamut and come from all over — including a circa 1972 Southern Pacific Railroad caboose, boxcars, pushcars, and Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway's café observation car No. 1512 — one of five such cars built by Pullman Car Company in 1926. If you're ready to ride an actual train, hop on a northbound Amtrak to Paso Robles to experience the engineering marvel of several tunnels that cut through the Cuesta Grade. And at Paso's historic depot, stop for a winetasting at Cypher Winery.
6. Glendale Transportation Center, Glendale, L.A. County
Driving through the City of Glendale, about 6 miles north of Downtown Los Angeles, you might completely miss the fact that there’s a gorgeous train station that serves this community — because it’s tucked away on Cerritos Avenue, just about at the border of Glendale and the Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village.
Formerly known as "Tropico Station," the Glendale Transportation Center opened in 1924, replacing the Atwater Tract Office from 1883. This nationally landmarked, Spanish Colonial Revival Style depot by the architecture team of MacDonald and Couchot (the last remaining example of their station work) features Churrigueresque cast stone entry portals, plasterwork that mimics an adobe finish, and swirling wrought iron window grills and railings. The waiting room doors still bear the Southern Pacific seal, even though Southern Pacific sold the station to the City of Glendale in 1989.
This train station is accessible via Metro and Greyhound bus, Glendale’s Beeline Bus, and Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner line and Metrolinklines to Ventura County and Antelope Valley. In 2019, the City of Glendale Planning Division conducted feasibility studies for a potential streetcar route that would connect the transportation center with downtown Glendale, along Brand Boulevard and Central Avenue. In the meantime, the landmark Scottish-themed eatery Tam O'Shanter is just a 10-minute walk away.
7. San Juan Capistrano Historic Train Depot, San Juan Capistrano, Orange County
One of the most relaxing, worry-free ways of taking a day trip to San Juan Capistrano — whether you're visiting its mission or exploring its Mission District — is by taking a train to its historic depot from 1894, the oldest Mission Revival style train depot in SoCal. When you arrive, you’re right next to the oldest neighborhood in California, the Los Rios Historic District, where you can have afternoon tea, grab a cup of coffee, or visit the local butterfly garden on a residential street that contains over 30 landmarked structures (including a few adobes) dating back to 1794.
At the station itself, your trackside dining options include Trevor's at the Tracks (below the historic 40-foot brick tower and dome) and Paddy's Station (where you can dine inside a 1927 Pullman rail car). And once your belly is full, you’ll be just a block away from Mission San Juan Capistrano, too.
Your options for getting there include Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner line and Metrolink's Orange County and Inland Empire-Orange County lines. Take a moment to explore the "new" station — with offices and ticket windows located inside actual boxcars.
8. Fullerton Transportation Center, Fullerton, Orange County
The circa 1930 Santa Fe Depot at Fullerton Transportation Center still stands — and has been designated by Fullerton Heritage as Local Landmark No. 34. You'll find it across from the old Union Pacific Depot — relocated from West Truslow Avenue, just a couple of blocks away, and now occupied by The Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant (Local Landmark No. 7). And they're both just a couple of blocks away from Downtown Fullerton and its Art Walk, Lost Levels Arcade and Hopscotch Tavern, which is located in an Mission Revival-style depot from Pacific Electric's Fullerton Line (built in 1918, designated Local Landmark No. 5). As an added bonus, the tavern's back patio faces the station for a bit of trainspotting.
At the train station itself, you can also grab a snack at the Santa Fe Express Café. And at the far end of the loading dock, there are the five vintage railcars permanently on display as part of the Fullerton Train Museum, which is open the first and third Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to noon. The museum is maintained by the Southern California Railway Plaza Association, a non-profit whose mission is to help educate about and create awareness for the region’s railroad heritage.
A highlight is the annual Fullerton Railroad Days festival, which takes over the depot parking lot with visiting rolling stock (including from the Disneyland Railroad), train tours, model railroad displays, and more. It usually happens the first weekend of May (although 2020 and 2021 were canceled for the COVID-19 pandemic) — and in the past, Amtrak has offered free rides for kids on its Pacific Surfliner line to the festival. The Fullerton station is also served by Metrolink's Perris Valley and Orange County lines.
