Fontana
Rialto was one of the two intermediate stops that opened on May 17, 1993 when service was extended from Montclair to San Bernardino. The station is located at the John Longville Depot, named after the mayor of Rialto from 1987 to 1998, and a councilman before that. The stop has a modern wood framed depot building that is open to the public with restrooms and vending machines Monday through Saturday. The building was designed to resemble the original 1888 wood framed depot, that was replaced by a stucco and brick building by the Santa Fe Railroad that was used from 1946 until 1965. It has white with black text historic-looking signs on it.
The station consists of a single platform along the single-tracked railroad line. This platform begins about 100 feet west of the grade-crossing of Riverside Avenue and runs west. The platform leads back to a parking lot with 280 spaces, including cars parked right up along the platform. The parking lot stretches for 3 city blocks from Riverside Avenue to the next grade-crossing west of the station at Willow Avenue. Palm Avenue and Orange Avenue both end inside the Parking lot. The end of Palm Avenue is where the depot is along the western end of the train platform. Orange Avenue ends at a small platform entrance area with a wooden canopy structure in the style of the historic depot covering TVMs. There are four additional wooden canopy structures that run along the platform covering benches and complement the wood-framed replica historic depot nicely.
The station has an art installation that celebrates Rialto’s agricultural past with a sculpture between the grade-crossing of Riverside Avenue and the platform. Fruit crates are stacked to form a pyramid on top of each other and have historical photographs. There are some white spherical forms that look like melons along the sculpture. Rialto is proudly cut out of white curving frames on multiple sides of the sculpture. This art installation extends to the parking lot with lampposts housing large historical banners for the Rialto’s agriculture past. Near the sculpture, along the tracks at Riverside Avenue are white sculpted letters that spell out Metrolink.
Photos 1-36 taken on February 26, 2012
