Merced station is an intercity rail station located in

Merced, California Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on Apri ...

, United States. The station is served by seven daily round trips of the '' San Joaquins'' and is a transfer point between trains and Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) buses serving

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The p ...

. Merced station has

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

s adjacent to the tracks of the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

Stockton Subdivision The Stockton Subdivision is a railroad line in the U.S. state of California owned by the BNSF Railway. It runs from the Port of Richmond, where trains interchange with the Richmond Pacific Railroad, to Fresno where the railway continues south a ...

. The

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

(SP) opened through Merced in 1872, followed by the

San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad The San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad was a California rail line between Stockton and Bakersfield constructed in the late 1890s and very shortly thereafter purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and became their Val ...

in 1896. The

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

(AT&SF) purchased the latter railroad in 1899 and erected a larger station in 1917. Service on both the SP and AT&SF ended in 1971; Amtrak ''San Joaquin'' service began on the AT&SF line in 1974. In 2000, the city replaced the 1917-built station with a modern facility of similar design.

History

The first railroad through Merced was the Central Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), which reached the village on January 15, 1872. Charles Henry Huffman, who was the SP's agent for land acquisition, founded Merced and moved there when the railroad opened. The original village was along Bear Creek, but the town center quickly became the SP station. A branch to Oakdale (later extended to Stockton) was completed in 1891. The SP later built a new station off 16th Street at N Street. The San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad opened through Merced in 1896. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) – the SP's main rival – purchased the line in 1899, providing it a parallel competing mainline through the Central Valley. In 1907, the Yosemite Valley Railroad (YVRR) began service from Merced to El Portal – the gateway to Yosemite National Park. The YVRR connected with both mainlines in Merced; its shops were northwest of downtown, while its station was adjacent to the AT&SF station. In 1917, the AT&SF built a new station at 24th Street and J Street. Unlike most of the railroad's stations in California, which were in the

Mission Revival The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

style, the Merced station was also influenced by the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

. The lower part of the walls was bare brick, while the rest was coated in

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

to approximate the look of

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

. The eaves of the gabled roof provided shelter for passengers, and the northwest end of the station was open with broad arches. Passenger service on both branch lines ended in the 1940s. Merced remained an important stop on the two mainlines, serving named trains including the '' San Francisco Chief'' and ''

Golden Gate The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...

'' on the AT&SF, and the '' San Joaquin Daylight'' and '' Sacramento Daylight'' on the SP. On May 1, 1971,

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

took over intercity passenger service in the United States from the private railroads. Amtrak chose to run its San Francisco–Los Angeles service over the Coast Line rather than the Central Valley, and passenger service to Merced ended. Amtrak began the Oakland–Bakersfield '' San Joaquins'' on March 5, 1974. The ''San Joaquin'' was controversially routed over the AT&SF rather than the SP (which ran through more major cities); the AT&SF station in Merced was used by Amtrak. The SP station was renovated in the 1990s to serve as the city bus terminal. By the end of the century, the 1917-built station was in poor shape. In 2000, it was replaced by a new station on the same site. The new station, which was funded by

Caltrans The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an Executive (government), executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the Government of California#State agencies, cabinet-level California State Tran ...

, copies the basic design of the former station but with modern improvements. It includes improved facilities for Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) bus service to Yosemite (which serves as

Amtrak Thruway Amtrak Thruway is a system of through-ticketed transportation services to connect passengers with areas not served by Amtrak trains. In most cases these are dedicated motorcoach routes, but can also be non-dedicated intercity bus services, transi ...

route 15A). The planned Merced station of the

California High-Speed Rail California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) is a publicly funded high-speed rail system being developed in California by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Phase 1, about long, is planned to run from San Francisco, California, San Francisco to ...

system will be built along the ex-SP alignment at R and 15th. ''San Joaquins'' services are expected to cease here once high-speed services begin.

References

External links

*USA RailGuide
Merced, CA (MCD)
{{Amtrak California stations Railway stations in Merced County, California Former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway stations Buildings and structures in Merced, California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1917 Amtrak stations in California Merced station Railway stations in the United States closed in 1971 Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach stations in California