Merced station is a proposed California High-Speed Rail station in Merced, California, located in Downtown Merced on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near the interchange with Route 99/59, and is about 7 blocks south from the existing Merced Amtrak station. The station was initially intended to be the northern terminus of the system's Initial Construction Segment. The high-speed rail line runs along the right-of-way of the Union Pacific Railroad at this location. The station is north of the planned Chowchilla Wye, where the high-speed rail splits into two branches. Merced is on the eastern branch, which at the conclusion of Phase II will continue northwards to Sacramento. The California High-Speed Rail Authority's February 2016 draft business plan said that the Merced station would not begin service at the same time as the initial San Jose to Bakersfield route in 2025, but would likely open in 2029 instead. The Merced City Council vigorously opposed the delay in the station opening, noting that Merced would be a prime area for commuters seeking to use high-speed rail to access jobs in Silicon Valley. In response, the April 2016 revisions to the business plan indeed included Merced in the initial construction segment, initially as a single-track spur connecting only to the westbound track to the Bay Area, with buildout of the full Chowchilla Wye happening later. The station was chosen as the terminus of the Altamont Corridor Expresscommuter rail extension into Stanislaus and Merced Counties; the siting of ACE platforms will be dependent on the HSR location selection and may also change accordingly. The line is planned to open to the station in 2027, anticipating high-speed services. Additionally, the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority has plans to run San Joaquins trains to the station as a feeder line into the Merced to Bakersfield high speed segment. A new rail link connecting the BNSF line on the north of Merced to the high speed rail station will facilitate the transfer.
