Atherton's Old Depot Opens as a Museum October 18. The Walk There Is Still Being Designed.

On Sunday, October 18, from 2 to 4 p.m., the Town of Atherton will hold a ribbon cutting to open the Atherton Train Station Museum in the depot on Dinkelspiel Station Lane. The last trains stopped there almost six years ago. The Town asks guests to register through the Eventbrite QR code on its event page.

The building is finally ready. The street outside it is not. Dinkelspiel Station Lane has no sidewalk or dedicated walkway between Maple Avenue and Watkins Avenue, and that is the stretch linking the Town Center to Holbrook-Palmer Park. The Town Council is still studying how to fix that. The station used to move people. Next it has to be easy to walk to.

A 620-Square-Foot Building, Six Years in the Making

The depot is small. When the Almanac covered the construction contract in April 2023, it put the building at 620 square feet. Here is the timeline from the Town's records and local reporting:

1. January 15, 2020. The City Council accepted Caltrain's proposal to close the station permanently. By then the station was running only on weekends.
2. Late 2020. Caltrain ended service in Atherton, so Menlo Park became the nearest stop.
3. March 16, 2022. A staff report proposed hiring Garavaglia Architecture, a San Francisco preservation firm, to design the restoration.
4. April 19, 2023. The Council awarded a $302,000 construction contract to Castillo Plumbing, Inc. of Hayward and voted unanimously to put a $400,000 Caltrain grant toward the project.
5. Summer 2026. The Town's Athertonian newsletter called the museum "nearing completion."
6. October 18, 2026. Ribbon cutting and opening.

In 2023, staff estimated construction would take four to six months. City Manager George Rodericks also told the Almanac that filling the building with memorabilia could take longer. Council members hoped the museum would open for the town's centennial celebration in September 2023, though the Almanac reported then that it might not. The opening comes about three years after that centennial.

Even the funding came with conditions. The Town never bought the depot. It got the right to use it under a Maintenance and Use Agreement, while the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board kept ownership of the property. The Town also became responsible for landscaping around the station, and the $400,000 grant tied to the closure was paid as reimbursement. In 2023 the Almanac reported that the Town had already committed about $96,000 to design. That left roughly $43,000 in desired work beyond what the grant could cover, including a heating and air conditioning unit, restoration of the monument sign, and repainting the clock. Staff had said the HVAC unit was needed to protect historic displays and electronics. The Town has not published a final total project cost.

Why the Station Closed in the First Place

The museum makes the most sense alongside the 2020 debate that led to it. Town staff estimated that upgrading the station to bring back full weekday service would cost about $30 million. Most public comments at the January 2020 meeting supported closing it, though then-Mayor Rick DeGolia said residents were more evenly split than the comments suggested.

"I'm willing to give up our cute little train station. I welcome a much faster express station in Menlo Park." A resident at the January 15, 2020 Council meeting

Former mayor Malcolm Dudley made the case for keeping the station and urged the town to "restore weekday service." Speakers on both sides also asked for something that had nothing to do with trains. They wanted a safe walking path south of Watkins Avenue to the Menlo Park station, so people would not have to walk along El Camino Real. Six years later the building has a new use, and the walking question is still open.

What the Town Planned to Put Inside

The Town describes the museum as a look at more than 150 years of railroad history, "from early wood-burning locomotives to today's electric trains." Its account starts with Fair Oaks, a simple flag stop on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, which was built largely by Chinese laborers. The station later became a four-sided glass building, one of the few fully glass-enclosed railroad stations of its time. Trains through the station helped evacuate thousands of refugees after the 1906 earthquake. The stop was renamed Atherton when the town incorporated in 1923.

The initial concept Town staff presented to the Council in October 2021 had three parts:

• Before the railroad. Free-standing displays on the Indigenous people who lived here, early settlers, stagecoach travel, and early railroad history.
• The trains, the station, and the riders. A model train on a track, arranged in time order, running from the Fair Oaks flag stop to the 2020 closure.
• A short historical video, with seating, and possibly wall-mounted photos or cases of memorabilia.

The proposed sources included the Atherton Heritage Association, the Town's own collections, San Mateo County historical archives, the Menlo Park Historical Society, and archives at the Sacramento rail museum. The Town also planned to ask residents to donate photos and objects. The model trains depended on finding them and on budget. The Town's opening announcement describes the museum's scope but does not list specific exhibits. The Town also has not posted regular hours or admission details for after opening day. Check with the Town before planning a visit later in the fall.

The Lane Outside the Door

The museum sits next to the Town Center on a lane with no walkway, so foot access is the next issue. In January 2026, the Council hired TJKM Transportation Consultants to study pedestrian connections between the Town Center and Holbrook-Palmer Park along Dinkelspiel Station Lane. TJKM presented two options on June 17:

For scale, the higher walkway estimate is about two-thirds of the $302,000 contract to restore the depot itself. Both options include a new crosswalk on Watkins Avenue south of the tracks, which would mean removing three more trees. Because the crossing would be so close to the Watkins Avenue rail crossing, the Town will need to consult the California Public Utilities Commission. That review could limit which warning signs and devices are allowed.

Neither option moved forward. Staff concluded that a full-length walkway that keeps as much parking and as many trees as possible would require one-way traffic. On September 16, the Council told staff to compare two one-way layouts with the current setup. One would run one way from Watkins to Maple. The other would run one way from Walnut to Maple and keep two-way traffic from Walnut to Watkins. The Council's priorities were protecting trees and providing at least a minimum-width walkway. The Watkins crosswalk is a confirmed priority. Nothing on the lane has been approved for construction.

Making an Afternoon of It

If you go on October 18, the park at the other end of the lane has a busy month. On October 7, the Town is holding a free bilingual composting workshop at the Holbrook-Palmer Park Compost Hub from 6 to 8 p.m., and participants can take home finished compost. The Atherton Arts Foundation has a nature-dye silk scarf workshop in the park on October 10, at $120 per class. It also hosts an Open Studio on October 14 from noon to 3:30 p.m. The park's Halloween Spooktacular is Thursday, October 29, from 3 to 5 p.m.

For now, getting from the depot to the park still means walking a lane with no walkway. The Council will choose a layout for Dinkelspiel Station Lane after the one-way study is finished.

Restoring the depot took six years of agreements, grants, and design choices. Long-held homes on Atherton's oak-lined streets get the same kind of care from the Anagnostou Team. If the station's history has you thinking about the history and value of your own property, we're glad to start with a quiet conversation. Request a Home Valuation.