Emeryville, CA | Capitol Corridor | Oakland Coliseum, CA |
Coast Starlight | San Jose, CA | |
San Joaquin |
The Oakland/Jack London Square · C.L. Dellums Station (a Sleeping Car Porter fired by the the Pullman Company and then co-founder of the brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) consists of a large modern green station building with mostly glass walls that allows for an airy waiting room with tall ceilings. Chairs are modern and black like those found in many airports. One wall is brick (the other three glass with white support beams) and has the station's services. There is a fully staffed ticket window with baggage service, restrooms but the only food options within the station are vending machines. A final neat amenity is the S.P. safe on display that was once at the 16th Street-Oakland Station. This building runs between the station tracks and 2nd Street acros parallel to them across from the end of Alice Street. with a number of automatic door entrances. An outdoor brick plaza with a statue of C.L. Dellums in the middle of it is next to the depot also connects 2nd Street and the station platform. There is a green arch that marks the entrance to the station.
For trains the station is located just west of the end of 4 blocks where two tracks run down the middle of a street, the Embarcadero. The Embarcadero continues along the south side of the tracks, opposite the station. The station itself has three tracks with the north track splitting into two tracks (1 and 2) at either end of the station platform. The station has the side platform with pedestrian crossings to island platform design. Trains running in separate directions will routinely pass in the station but the platforms are long enough that by staggering the stopping positions of the short Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin Trains (and the slow speeds already required by the characteristics of street running) allow trains to make timed meets and board at the same time as another train. The Coast Starlight can pose an issue during its service stop in Oakland but even then people can walk around the front or back of this train to reach the island platform and other track. The side platform for Track 1 is extremely long running all the way from the grade-crossing of Oak Street (at the eastern end) with entrances at the ends of Madison Street, Jackson Street, the depot followed by the station's bus loop on the ground floor of a parking garage and then finally becoming a sidewalk along the tracks (as they switch into two) before Webster Street's grade-crossing. The island platform for track 2 is also of decent but not quite extreme length, running from Harrison Street to between Jackson and Madison Streets with 6 pedestrian crossings.
The island platform has no amenities except white lampposts. Passengers wait on the side platform until their train arrives. I did ask a ticket agent when I was waiting to board a train here in Oakland what track? and the response was that he wouldn't know either until the train actually arrives. The side platform has a half-circular green canopy held up by white posts that covers the platform outside the depot. This canopy originally extended to the western end of the platform but when the station's parking lot was upbuilt into a parking garage (and the station's bus loop moved underneath instead of outside) the canopy was cut back as part of that project. A short covered walkway does connect this platform to the entrance to the pedestrian bridge and this canopy providing almost sheltered boarding. Signage is small green circles that say Jack London Square — Port of Oakland in gold. Finally the station has a green footbridge from right outside the depot to the southern side of Embarcadero South. The footbridge has mesh enclosed walls with a tubular roof and a staircase wrapping around an elevator for each entrance that makes up the bridge's two supports. One side of the footbridge has pointless arrows above the entrance shaft and the middle of the footbridge beneath the walkway has large gold letters spelling out Jack London Square · Oakland between two old Southern Pacific Lines logos. There is another footbridge across the western end of the platforms connecting two parking garages (the one that includes the station's bus loop on its ground floor) built sometime between 2006 and 2006 that was built on the original location of the station's parking lot. The new garage has six levels.
Photos 1-15 taken on 20 April, 2006, 16-123 on 16 June, 2013, 124-128 on 26 June, 2013, 129-158 on 18 January, 2014