Restored: Southern Pacific Railway Station, San Luis Obispo

Although it’s 10 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, San Luis Obispo is considered part of California’s “central coast.” A city of 45,00 people, it was founded in 1772 as one of the original California missions, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.

The thriving town, 190 miles north of Los Angeles, was once a center of farming and cattle ranching. Today, it’s the home of prestigious California Polytechnic State University. It also hosts an extensive Saturday farmers’ market, and a is a base for exploring the semi-arid California coastal range. Now that you’re acquainted, you can refer to the city as Californians do: SLO, and you can ride the local public transportation service, the ironically-named SLO Transit.

The town is replete with interesting local architecture. In addition to the old mission, as I’ve written here before (click on links), there’s a former Carnegie library building, now a museum, and an office building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright A small gem of a place, easily missed, is by Julia Morgan, whose long, successful career as California’s first female architect is defined by her work on William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon — Hearst Castle — about 40 miles north of San Luis Obispo. Her 1933 Women’s Monday Club building still houses its founding organization.

As the Southern Pacific Railroad built its first rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1890s, the steepest and most demanding portion of the line passed through rugged country to the south before reaching San Luis Obispo. The original station buildings were replaced in 1942 by a modern structure which still serves passengers traveling along Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight trains.

The somewhat austere Spanish Colonial Revival style is as good a representation as any of the Southern Pacific’s consistent attempts to fit its operations into the local vernacular. Here, seen from the track side.

Inside, the original wooden benches and something of the original ambience of the waiting area are extant. Yes, there’s an Amtrak ticket window with an agent to book your ride.

The Competition Appears

When SP built the San Luis station, the great days of American rail travel were near their end. Interestingly, the harbinger of the decline of rail travel had already taken root right there in San Luis Obispo, 30 years earlier. Automobiles and highways would come to dominate the way we travel across America. The world’s first roadside motel, the Motel Inn, had been in business along U.S. Route 101 since 1925. Now a ruin, here’s how it looked more than a dozen years ago.

No, one can no longer book a room at the Motel Inn (although SLO offers plenty of modern accommodations). One can, however, board the Pacific Surfliner at SLO, its northern terminus, southbound for Los Angeles or San Diego, or catch the Coast Starlight to Portland or Seattle. I was there to see a train pull in, disembarking students returning to classes at Cal Poly.

Visiting

The San Luis Obispo station is at 1011 Railroad Ave. There are connections to SLO Transit buses.

Is there a classic railroad station in your town, or one that Under Western Skies readers should see? Leave a comment.

© Brad Nixon 2019