The building on Dinkelspiel Station Lane started as a flag stop called Fair Oaks on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. The Town's newsletter notes that Chinese laborers did much of the work of building that line. The first structure was wood-framed with a terra cotta roof. Later came a four-sided glass station, one of the few fully glass-enclosed railroad stations of its time. By the 1950s it had grown into the enclosed depot that generations of commuters knew.
The last passenger train stopped there in December 2020. This fall, the Town scheduled the ribbon cutting for its second life, as the Atherton Train Station Museum, on Sunday, Oct. 18. The Town took part in both decisions. It agreed with Caltrain to end train service at the station, and later it chose to preserve and restore the building, which is now meant to hold the railroad's history instead of its schedule.
A station that was barely a station
The closure makes sense once you see how little service the stop had left. Weekday trains stopped serving Atherton in 2005. In the years before the pandemic, the station got only limited weekend service, with a train every 90 minutes, and it averaged 114 passengers per weekend day. The Caltrain Board voted to close it in November 2020.
Caltrain's December 7, 2020 notice said plainly where the decision came from. "Caltrain's agreement with the Town of Atherton will result in that station being permanently closed as of Saturday, December 19." The railroad said the closure would let it shift service to Menlo Park and Redwood City, stations with much higher ridership.
Here is how the building's history lines up, using dates from Caltrain and the Town:
| Era | What the building was |
|---|---|
| Earliest years | Fair Oaks, a flag stop on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad |
| Early structure | Wood-framed station with a terra cotta roof |
| Later | Four-sided glass station, one of the few fully glass-enclosed stations of its time |
| By the 1950s | The enclosed depot most longtime residents remember |
| 2005 | Weekday service ends; weekends only |
| Dec. 19, 2020 | Permanently closed under Caltrain's agreement with the Town |
| Oct. 18, 2026 | Ribbon cutting scheduled for the Atherton Train Station Museum |
The station also saw some of the Peninsula's biggest moments. It was standing during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when trains helped evacuate thousands of refugees, and it saw the change from steam engines to diesel. After the closure, the Fall 2026 Athertonian says, "the Town chose to preserve and restore the historic site."
The railroad helped pay for its own memorial
Caltrain left, but its money stayed behind. In April 2023, The Almanac reported that the Town had awarded a $302,000 construction contract to Castillo Plumbing, Inc. of Hayward. The same story described a $400,000 Caltrain grant set aside for the museum, $96,000 the Town had committed to design, and about $43,000 in extra work the grant didn't cover. That extra work included HVAC, restoring the monument sign, and cleaning and repainting the clock.
The plan described in that 2023 story was small and specific: displays on the station's history, its trains and its riders, a video display, benches, and a display case for model trains. It also called for restriped accessible parking and a path from Town Center and its parking into the building. Those figures and exhibits are the 2023 plan, not a final accounting. The Town's own description of the finished museum is broader, covering more than 150 years of railroad history, "from early wood-burning locomotives to today's electric trains."
The last item on that list connects back to 2020. Caltrain's electric trains pass a station that once served them, and the museum is set up to tell their story.
It took a while. A Town announcement in June 2025 expected the museum to open in October 2025. The opening date moved by a full year. When the City Manager introduced the fall newsletter, he called it "the long-awaited opening" and credited "the volunteers who helped bring it back to life."
The newsletter that announced the museum also carried a profile of the Atherton Heritage Association. Its archives hold records for every property in Atherton, files on past and present residents, maps going back to the 1800s, 1940s subdivision maps, and research on Phar Lap, the racehorse with Atherton ties. The archive is open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. If the museum makes you curious about the town around the tracks, that's the place to go next.
The same pattern, half a mile away at Holbrook-Palmer Park
Atherton has few shared public places, and this fall two of them are coming back within a month of each other. The children's playground at Holbrook-Palmer Park, 150 Watkins Ave., closed for renovation on Monday, May 4, 2026. It reopens with a ribbon cutting on Saturday, Nov. 14, at noon. Mayor Holland and Vice Mayor DeGolia are scheduled to speak, and a reception with food and refreshments follows in Jennings Pavilion. The Town is asking people to RSVP through its announcement.
Like the museum, the new playground had a long run-up. In February 2023, a routine inspection found "significant deterioration" in the supports of the older children's play structure, and it was taped off. That April, the council set aside $65,045 for repairs, including a $5,000 contingency. The Almanac's coverage captured where the conversation was already going:
"Whatever gets it back on the ground working the fastest is the best, and simultaneously, I wholeheartedly think we need to be reevaluating our playground for the future because it's not consistent with the rest of the neighborhood."
That was Stacy Miles Holland, then a council member. At the same meeting, she said, "Our playground is not as nice as our neighboring communities." The repaired structure reopened, and by January 2024 The Almanac reported that the community was being surveyed about a possible new one. On Nov. 14, Holland cuts the ribbon as mayor.
The park has always been built this way. Atherton accepted Olive Holbrook Palmer's 22-acre farm, Elmwood, in 1964, and the Holbrook-Palmer Park Recreation Foundation formed soon after as a volunteer nonprofit. Over six decades, the Foundation and its affiliate, the Atherton Dames, have paid for improvements to the Event Garden, the tennis and pickleball courts, the Gen Merrill Carriage House, the pedestrian bridge, the historic water tower, the children's playground, fitness amenities and public art. Most recently, the Foundation fully funded the restoration of the original Estate Fountain in front of the main house. Membership is $50 a year or $1,000 for life. We covered the park's court dispute and its role as the town's only shared green space earlier this fall.
What's on the calendar from here
The station and the park sit inside a busy few weeks on the Town's calendar:
- Thursday, Nov. 12, 6 p.m. Fall ADU Mixer, part of the Town's work with the HIP Housing ADU Match Program.
- Saturday, Nov. 14, noon. Ribbon cutting for the Holbrook-Palmer Park playground, with a reception at Jennings Pavilion.
- Saturday, Nov. 14. TEDx Menlo College, themed "Sustaining What Matters," open to Atherton residents with registration through Menlo College.
- Wednesdays, Dec. 2, 9 and 16, from noon. Open Studio at Holbrook-Palmer Park with the Atherton Arts Foundation. Bring an unfinished piece or start a new one.
- Thursday, Dec. 10, at sunset, about 6:30 p.m. The Town's Tree Lighting.
- Every Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Atherton Heritage Association archive hours.
The Atherton Library is closed on Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, and Thursday and Friday, Nov. 26 and 27, for Thanksgiving. It closes early on Wednesday, Nov. 25. For museum visiting details, contact the Town of Atherton directly.
The station's story is also a story about old buildings: a wood-framed stop that became a glass station, then an enclosed depot, then a restoration project with its own HVAC and clock-repainting line items. That's the kind of work David Bergman looks at every week as a licensed general contractor and Broker Associate. If you own an older Atherton home and want to know what restoring its original features would really involve, or what the Heritage Association's records on your property might mean for a future project, let's connect. You can also see more about the town on our Atherton neighborhood page.