Anaheim, CA (ANA)

Ticket Revenue

FY 2011

$4,322,672

Station Ridership

FY 2011

352,363

Note: Fiscal year is from
October through September.

Amtrak passengers share this open, modern single-story brick and stucco structure with Metrolink’s Orange County Line trains. Passengers may make connections to city transit and Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) buses. Bike racks and electric vehicle charging stations are also available. This intermodal station is situated at the north side of the Anaheim Angels stadium parking lot and just southwest of the Honda Center. Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center are less than three miles away. Additionally, the Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Orange Freeway interchange is approximately three miles south of the station, providing convenient automotive access.

The city of Anaheim was planning a platform for local trains near the current location as early as 1978, with a budget of $80,000. Agreements with the city allowing Amtrak to construct a station were signed in 1982 and the San Diegan, the predecessor to the Pacific Surfliner, began serving a location, belonging to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, about 600 feet southeast of the current station in 1984. The stop moved to the current facility by October, 1986 and service has been continuous at this location since that date. The city extended the platforms and added a crosswalk and shelters in the late 1990s, with improvements funded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

ARTIC

The city and Orange County began the project for a much larger and grander intermodal station site in 2006, with the choice of a site that expands northward of the current station into the then-county-owned Katella Yard. This new facility, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), is intended to serve as a transportation hub for Orange County and southern California, providing a centralized meeting point for Amtrak, Metrolink, city bus rapid transit, bikes and pedestrians. The planned fixed-rail Anaheim Rapid Connection (ARC) is intended connect this hub to Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle—a high density, mixed use development—and the nearby Anaheim Resorts. The ARTIC facility will be an essential part of their transportation-oriented development scheme in this part of the city.

Additionally, the hub may become one terminus of the Cal-Nevada Superspeed Train Service, as well as a stop on the future California High-Speed Rail.

In 2009, the Anaheim City Council retained Irvine-based KTGY Group as Urban Design Advisor on the ARTIC project. Shortly thereafter, engineering and architectural firms Parsons Brinckerhoff and HOK won a contract for up to $24.3 million to design and lay the groundwork for the facility on the 16-acre ARTIC site. HOK is known for its sustainable designs, and this one is modern and iconic, inspired by stations such as New York’s Grand Central Terminal. The facility will be designed to meet LEED platinum certification. The soaring arch of the central area will be columnless, constructed with an expandable EFTE membrane, a material that expands and contracts to control natural light. It will also be fitted with photovoltaics and hot water heating cells. The design includes a terminal building, civic spaces, retail uses, and public art; 1,000 foot platforms; pedestrian under or over crossing; and surface parking.

May of 2010 saw the Southern California Association of Governments awarding the ARTIC plans the 2010 Compass Blueprint Recognition Award for Sustained Leadership. The award program honors plans and projects throughout Southern California that coordinate land use and transportation initiatives and work toward improving the mobility, livability, prosperity and sustainability in the regions.

On September 28, 2010, the Anaheim City Council unanimously approved the project's plans. ARTIC is currently funded at approximately $183.8 million: $7.6 million from the Federal Transit Administration, $3.2 million in a Federal earmark, and the remainder from state programs. It is expected that the amount and kind of construction between ARTIC and the Platinum Triangle will contribute significantly to the economy of the area while reducing the amount of vehicular traffic in this busy downtown area. ARTIC is currently undergoing state and federal environmental clearance processes, and is slated to be completed by 2013.

Home on the Santa Ana River

Anaheim was not such a metropolis in the beginning, when in 1857 a group of German farmers and vintners came to settle the fertile area beside the Santa Ana River. Founder George Hansen surveyed the original 200 acres in what no comprises the city’s downtown area, bounded by North, South, East and West Streets. From this original “home on the Santa Ana River” comes the city’s name. Grapes for wine were the principal crop here until a pestilential infestation in the 1870s killed all the vineyards, and the farmers turned to growing oranges as well as olives and walnuts. And so, the first commercially grown oranges in Orange County came from Anaheim, where the growers attributed their success to the protection of the local hills. This pastoral town grew once the first Santa Fe depot was built in 1875, linking Anaheim’s growers with the east, opening a vital market, and it incorporated in 1876.

In 1917, the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad began constructing a depot at 625 East Lincoln Avenue, a little more than a mile away from the current station. While a more modest station would have sufficed, this white-washed cement depot, with its Mission style, long arched colonnade and decorative center-gabled red-tiled roof, represented the railroad’s confidence in the growing city. World War I interrupted its construction, which was not completed until 1923—in time to handle that year’s Valencia orange crop.

Anaheim was last city on the line, and two trains arrived from Los Angeles daily and returned to make connections to the rest of the country. For about 10 years, Union Pacific used the station for passengers and freight, and then the UP stopped running passenger trains to the station, choosing to bus passengers from the depot to a station in East Los Angeles. When the UP dropped passenger service entirely in 1971, it turned part of the depot over to a school supply store—it having been saved from razing by protesters—which operated for 16 years until the building was closed in preparation for a move. UP used part of the station as a freight depot into the 1980s.

In 1990, the Anaheim city council voted to restore the UP station and include it in downtown redevelopment. Thus, the station building was moved from East Lincoln Avenue to 210 South Atchison Street and renovated, which cost just under $500,000. Now owned by Anaheim’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the station was converted to a daycare center in 1993, which still operates today.

Meanwhile, Anaheim had shed its rural origins, beginning in the 1950s when Walt Disney, disappointed at having his ideas for a family-oriented Mickey Mouse Park turned down by city of Burbank, took a drive. After coming down the new Santa Ana Freeway and stopping in a sleepy small town which reminded him of his boyhood home in Marceline, Mo., Disney decided to put his magical work in Anaheim amongst the orange groves. The fledgling ABC Network invested in Disney’s project, and the Disneyland television show it hosted became integral to the park’s success. On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened for business, and no one knew if it would succeed. But only seven weeks later the one-millionth visitor passed through the park’s turnstiles, through the tunnels, and into Main Street and history.

For the balance of the decade, tourism and construction became the city’s mainstays, and by the 1960s, it had outgrown its original town center. Even the city’s historic Carnegie Library had become too small, and eventually became a city museum in 1987. However, much of Disneyland’s business was only seasonal at first, and this led to mid-year economic slumps in the city. In 1960, the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau formed to capitalize on Disneyland’s success with a Convention Center that would be amenable to families and which would bring in business year round. The original center boasted 400,000 square feet and included a 19,000-seat arena when it opened in 1967. Further expansion was supported when the Angels moved to Anaheim, starting their stadium in 1964 and opening their 1966 season there.

Rapid growth changed the city, and since the 1970s, the city’s leaders have worked to combat deterioration of the city center with a vision of urban growth in several stages. The first was centered on the area of the original settlement, funded by proceeds from the stadium’s growth and expansion. Gradually, a new Arts Center, a new Civic Center, and expansions of the Convention center began to reverse the trend. The development of the Platinum Triangle and Anaheim Resorts, adjacent to the stadium, Honda Center and Disneyland will continue the vision of a vibrant downtown into the future.

The Pacific Surfliner is primarily financed through funds made available by the California Department of Transportation. Amtrak provides both ticketing and baggage checking at the staffed Anaheim station, which is served by 24 daily trains.