Chatsworth Rail Hub on Track to Old West

A commuter rail station and transportation center in Chatsworth will open in October, 1992, and will include a Western museum and a replica of the historic Chatsworth station, city and transportation officials said Friday during a groundbreaking ceremony.

“Finally, the San Fernando Valley will get a return for the money that has been spent on transportation,” Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson said during the event on a wind-whipped, dirt-covered lot on Devonshire Street at the Southern Pacific railroad crossing.

It will be the first station in the San Fernando Valley in a system of commuter trains running from Ventura County to downtown Los Angeles on Southern Pacific’s main coastal track, said Bernson, a key supporter of a proposal to turn the site into a super-transit hub, where connections could be made among buses, cars, bicycles, commuter vans and trains.

Construction of the $30-million project is scheduled to begin in the spring. Initially, the station will consist only of a platform and a few canopies.

The groundbreaking ceremony Friday coincided with the opening of a three-day carnival and fair--including a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round--to help raise money for construction of the Western museum and a community center.

“It’s so wonderful to see a community get behind something like this,” said Francine Oschin, a legislative deputy for Bernson.

The Old West-style train depot, expected to cost about $1 million, is intended to resemble the Chatsworth station house that was demolished in 1962, said project manager Cynthia Pansing. The Western museum will include statues, displays and historic artifacts reflecting the history of Chatsworth, she said.

“This is a back-to-the-future event because we are going back to use the technology of the past to build a transit system for the future,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a county transportation commissioner, at the groundbreaking.

Antonovich said the station could help take as many as 12,000 cars off nearby freeways.

The 13-acre site was purchased jointly by the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The transportation center proposal was developed after Bernson succeeded in quashing a Southern Pacific plan to turn the site into a lumber transfer yard, which had drawn protests from neighboring homeowners.