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There are many other historic Southern Pacific depots along the Amtrak line from San Jose to Colfax. You will find them at San Jose, College Park (a passenger shelter shed), Santa Clara, Agnew, Berkeley, Crockett, Martinez, Suisun City, Davis, Sacramento, Loomis, Auburn, and Colfax.

After communities lost their passenger trains, depots were often relocated or converted to non-railroad uses. Some of these depots are at Alviso, Niles, Sunol, San Leandro, East Oakland, Oakland 16th St., Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville, and Walnut Creek. Alternate uses include homes, restaurants, museums, and businesses.

Like most major railroads, Southern Pacific adopted "Common Standards" for their fixed facilities, as well as for locomotives and cars. They used standard designs for depots, bridges, water tanks, roundhouses, dormitories- as well as standard colors in which to paint them. Even the station signs were standard, with the size and style of lettering, and its placement and colors precisely spelled out by company drawings.

Facing the need for literally hundreds of depots spread across thousands of miles of track, Southern Pacific wasn't about to employ an army of architects to design them. From 1877 through about 1894, the Southern Pacific carefully developed more than two dozen standard designs "in house" using their own drafting department. Their designers addressed needs a railroad understood well. A one-story depot was chosen if the station agent and his family could find suitable housing in a near-by town. A two-story depot contained compact living quarters on the second floor, and the station agent - and family - simply moved in. Other areas of the design efficiently performed functions that were almost universal to railroad depots: a ticket sales counter, an area to check baggage, a telegraph "bay", and a small attached warehouse for freight were all incorporated into most of Southern Pacific's standard designs. All of these functional areas were part of the original plan for the Centerville depot.

For almost seventy years, Southern Pacific painted its wooden depots in the standard colors of colonial yellow, dark yellow, and medium brown, the roof in moss green, and the window sash in white. Depots painted in these colors became "trademarks" for the Southern Pacific. So familiar were these colors that the railroad did not see the need to place the railroad's logo or Southern Pacific name on each depot. The restoration plans for the Centerville depot included repainting the depot in these historic standard colors.

The most common depot of standard design built by Southern Pacific in California was its "Two Story Combination Depot No. 22". Of about ninety built between 1894 and 1916, less than a dozen survive and none are used in active service today. The existing Southern Pacific Depot at Pleasanton was built in 1901 according to this design. So well known was this depot design in California, a new depot was built in Roseville in 1994 based on the original plans.

In the East Bay, there were once nine different examples of standard-design Southern Pacific depots- at Newark, Decoto, Hayward, Lorenzo, Warm Springs, Niles, Livermore, Sunol, and Pleasanton. Of these original nine structures, only the latter four survive.

Please click on an image to view it full size.

	Arden Shelter Shed in 1913  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Danville Depot in 1912 Standard Plan No. 18 Southern Pacific Lines Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Drawbridge Depot in 1912  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Hayward Depot in 1912 (Southern Pacific) Southern Pacific Photo Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Irvington Depot in 1913  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Irvington Depot, August 19, 1950  A. C. Phelps Photograph  William G. Wullenjohn Sr. Collection
	Mattos Shelter Shed in 1913  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Mowry Depot in Newark, 1913  William A. Wulf Collection
	1904 Newark Depot, 1913 Photo  Erle C. Hanson Collection
	Niles Depot, 1913  Erle C. Hanson Collection
	Pleasanton Depot in 1913    Two Story Combination Depot No. 22      Southern Pacific Photo Union Pacific Museum Collection
	San Leandro Depot in 1996 William G. Wullenjohn Sr. Photo
	Sunol Depot in 1913  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Sunol Depot in 1913 - Freight End of Depot  Southern Pacific Photo  Union Pacific Museum Collection
	Warm Springs Depot in 1912 Western Railway Museum Vernon Sappers Collection Southern Pacific Photograph

Southern Pacific Niles Freight Depot Constructed before 1900, 1941 Photograph Note 70' open shed extension on north end of building and two-tone paint scheme that matches 1904 passenger depot. The wood frame freight platform (dock) measured 33' wide by 246' long. The freight house (enclosed portion) measured 18' wide by 97' long. The open shed extension on the north end measured 18' wide by 70' long. The construction date is unknown because SP's records were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The freight depot could be as old as the original 1870 Niles passenger depot. Because the construction date is unknown, the freight depot may have been constructed by the Central Pacific. SP retired 3,440 sq. ft. of the frame platform and 35' of the open shed on May 29, 1953. The remaining 35' of the open shed was retired on March 31, 1954. Only the original enclosed freight house portion remains.

Southern Pacific Niles Freight Depot Roof Sign "Southern Pacific Freight Station" Date of Photograph Unknown, but before May of 1953