Carpinteria is a small oceanfront suburb of Santa Barbara (that has bus service up to there every hour) that has its own Surfliner stop, just a few blocks from the state beach. The station opened on June 21, 1997 ('All Aboard for Carpinteria Beach' LA Times May 25, 1997 Link) while first starting to appear in the public timetables with 'This Station will open on a date to be announced' in November 1996. Service to the station is only from the five roundtrips per day Surfliner trains since the Coast Starlight bypasses. There is a thruway stop on the opposite side of the parking lot from the station (at the NW corner of Linden Avenue and 7th Street) for three daily round-trips buses over to Bakersfield to connect with the San Joaquin. There is also one late night northbound Surfliner throughway bus up from Los Angeles that will also stop to discharge passengers here.
The station consists of a single low-level platform that begins just north of the grade crossing of Linden Avenue, where there is a short sidewalk up to that end. The platform is alongside a decent sized 120 space (according to Amtrak) parking lot that is not signed for the train station but for Downtown and Beach. This parking lot runs about two-thirds of the length of the platform between it and 5th Street. In the corner near the bus stop is a small restrooms shed. For trains, the slightly raised platform has green fencing and three short ramps up from the parking lot over a stretch of greenery. There are modern lampposts with each post holding up two lamps are also green along length of the platform. The middle of the platform has a single green canopy over with a red gabled roof. Along the green beam around the roof are the only station signs. These are just white Carpinteria lettering. There are also little wooden Amtrak pointless arrow logos, beneath these white lettering reads Elevation: 7 Feet. The canopy also shelters two benches, a payphone post missing the phone itself and one Metrolink TVM for purchasing tickets. For train information there is an empty infopost (look like narrow ones found at bus stops the same ones used in California for thruway bus connections) beneath the canopy. A label behind, blocked by an insert, says "for the display of Amtrak San Diegan Route schedules". There is also a larger information panel that displays the current schedule and another discusses how Carpinteria is an unstaffed station. For accessible boarding there is a mini-high ramp towards the southern end of the platform and just north of the canopy in its own special fenced off area extension of the platform (the same green railing) is a mobile-lift.
All photos taken on 23 February, 2012
Santa Barbara, CA 