Emeryville Station is an Amtrak station located in Emeryville, California. Built in 1994, it is (at present) the newest Amtrak station in California. It is located in the city of Emeryville, a city of about 12,000 people located in Alameda County, between Oakland and Berkley. The station itself is modern, but modest, only having basic facilities. Anyone who wants more than vending machine food will have to go to the mall across the street.
Four major routes serve Emeryville: the California Zephyr, the Capital Corridor, the Coast Starlight and the San Joaquins.
Emeryville is, in essence, "San Francisco" for train travelers. The San Francisco peninsula itself, including the city of San Francisco is small, and full of hilly terrain and very expensive real estate. For this reason, bringing an Amtrak train to San Francisco is currently prohibitively difficult as far as logistics go. For this reason, train travelers who wish to go to San Francisco must get off in Emeryville, less than a half mile from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, where travelers can connect with an Amtrak Thruway bus, as well as with local bus service. The station is also about a half mile from a BART station.
The existence of Emeryville has caused a number of nomenclature problems for me over the years. If I mention to someone who is not well-versed in train network topology that I went from "Denver to Emeryville" I will be greeted with blank stares, because for all they know, Emeryville is in Nebraska. I usually refer to it as San Francisco, or, a little more accurately, Oakland just to make it simpler for me. However, I also have to remember that if I am talking to a frequent Amtrak rider, or an Amtrak ticket agent when buying tickets, I should not call it "San Francisco", or else I will confuse someone and/or get a useless ticket for a Thruway bus over the bridge.