Via Princessa was the last of the emergency stations to open on the Antelope Valley line after the Northridge Earthquake after ridership boomed at Santa Clarita (the only station open to serve that city at the time). It opened on February 7, 1994. It is the only emergency station to still retain some of its built quickly emergency characteristics and in the early years was called just Princessa. It is named for the nearest main street to the station. The stop has one extra long simple concrete side platform on the northside of the tracks with wood between the low-level platform and the track. The platform also has never received a yellow tactile warning strip. It is old-fashioned with just a simple yellow line painted to stand behind. The platform is on the edge of an empty desert field and there is a simple low chain-link fence along this side of the platform. All lighting for the platform is from streetlights protruding from simple wooden telephone poles (the parking lot is the same way). There is a caution sign about rattlesnakes being present in the area. Waiting amenities are minimal, and my 1998 (Simburger, 107) guide to Metrolink discusses how the station is well lighted but without any shelter. A few have been added since then. There are first two are simple black bus shelters with their plastic white domed roofs. Next is a modern shleter on its own special stretch of lighter slate sidewalk, outlined by red tiles. This shelter is in the southwest style with white walls holding up a small canopy in the middle with one bench beneath and a clay roof, a bush or ivy has been plated behind. On either side are wooden structures plus a trash can and water fountain and a tree that can grow in the desert climate of the station. Next is the wheelchair mini-high platform signalizing where the rear door from the cab of the cab car stops, then is another identical modern shelter. Signage for the station's name is minimal, just a wooden sign in each of the two modern shelters. This is followed by the pedestrian grade crossing, painted like a sidewalk. This is used to cross the single track and reach the station's parking lot. The simple platform (with no canopies) extends south of here a good ways, designed for when the Santa Clarita/Antelope Valley Line was running ten car trains right after the earthquake, unused today. Arriving to the parking lot on the opposite side of the train track (a low chain-link fence only lets passengers cross at the legal grade crossing) there is first a modern canopy with a ceramic roof and the station's two TVMs beneath. There is also another bus shelter. These are on the access road to the parking lot, the only way for pedestrians as well as autos to access the station. This leads out to dead-end Weyerhauser Way that quickly intersects Via Princessa at a traffic light. There is no station name sign anymore (in 1998 there was) at the entrance, just a few road signs to direct motorists in. The station's large 521 space parking lot is between the tracks and Via Princessa with the access road on its eastern side. There is one final real building in this parking lot, Spanish revival-style white with a ceramic roof. This building houses restrooms (only open on weekdays) with little wheelchair ramps up to each of the doors and the one little section with windows houses the security guard's office (no one was on patrol on a weekend).
All Photos taken on 25 February, 2012
Santa Clarita