16th Street Station, Oakland, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Oakland SP depot seen from I-880. SP suburban trains platforms in front; 16^th St. tower visible at left.

For many decades, the 16th Street Station was a major railroad station of the Southern Pacific railroad in Oakland, California. It was a companion (or "city station") for the Oakland Terminal, which was located two miles away on the Oakland Pier. The Terminal, also known as the "Mole", was demolished in 1960, leaving the 16th Street Station as the major Oakland rail hub. It suffered significant damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and was closed. Its railroad function has since been replaced by the major Amtrak station in nearby Emeryville.

The station is located in West Oakland at 16th and Wood Streets, adjacent to and visible from the Interstate 880 connector ramps of the MacArthur Maze. The station buildings remain, largely intact, including the switchman's tower and ironwork elevated platforms which, before the completion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, were utilized by commuter trains of SP's East Bay Electric Lines.

The station is presently (2007) being restored as part of a local redevelopment project and will not be used as a railroad station again. The tracks of the Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) main line were moved westward in the 1990s and today run on the other side of I-880, leaving the station isolated.

The original 16th Street depot was a smaller wood structure, built at a time when the site was on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. In the intervening years, the shoreline was filled in and now lies nearly a mile west.