Ventura is a station that took quite a long time to be built although it is a quite simple platform. The stop first appears in the timetables in October 1987 with a coming soon note, the timetable just before a single round-trip up to Santa Barbara began. Connecting bus service to city back then stopped at AAA, 1501 South Victoria Avenue, nowhere near downtown. The platform finally opened four years later sometime between April and October 1991 and today's station serves all five daily Surfliner round-trips the Coast Starlight bypasses. Thruway bus service, three round-trips per day, connect Ventura with Bakersfield for San Joaquin Service. There is also a single Surfliner bus round-trip to and from Los Angeles that supplements service. These now stop across the street from the train station. It is located a block from the ocean right near the Ventura County Fairgrounds and Raceway. The platform for the single track at the station is directly along the northern sidewalk of Harbor Blvd where there is minimal parking (Amtrak.com claims 20 spaces, I don't know where they would be) a short ways beyond the grade crossing of Figuera Street just before the underpass beneath the freeway for US-101 and downtown north of the stop.
At the intersection there is an Amtrak Station sign to indicate the station up the dead-end road. Next is a small passenger loading zone along the sidewalk for the station, before the platform begins. This platform has a green fence and lampposts and a tactile warning strip, and four total ramps up to it from the sidewalk of Figuera Street. There are three separate canopied sections, one at each end plus a slightly larger one in the middle. Each canopy has square columns holding up a green roof and waiting benches. The larger central one has an extra large sign on top of it that reads Venutra, along with a single Metrolink TVM for ticket purchases. A modern information panel is next to it. Signage is along the platform and has three separate panels, vertically arranged on a steel frame. The top one says Ventura on a blue background next to the modern Amtrak logo (definitely covering up an old pointless arrow). The middle one says Station on a red background also next to the logo. The bottom one has no logo and reads Train Information Call 1-800-USA-RAIL. For ADA boarding there is a wheelchair mini-high platform ramp at the extreme southern end and a mobile-lift left exposed and locked to a fence.
All photos taken on 23 February, 2012
Carpinteria, CA 