BARTCHIVES
  • Home
  • The Fleet
    • Legacy Fleet
      • A Cars
      • A2 Cars
        • All A2 Cars
      • B Cars
      • B2 Cars
      • C1 Cars
      • C2 Cars
      • Car Plates
    • Fleet of the Future
      • FOTF Production
      • D Cars
      • E Cars
    • eBART
    • OAC
    • Laboratory Cars
    • BART Express
    • The Two Bagger
  • History
    • A History of the Legacy Fleet
    • 1962-1971
      • Design
        • Railway Age Weekly 8-2-65
      • Rohr Background on BART Car
    • 1972 - 1982
      • Orders and Deliveries
      • A to B Conversion
      • Mail on BART
    • 1983 - 1992
      • History in the Making
    • 1993-2002
      • Rebuilding
    • 2003-2012
    • 2013-2022
      • Ad Wraps
    • Fact Sheets
      • Art in BART
    • BART Times
      • 1980s
      • 1990s
      • 2000s
    • Car Ads
  • The Lines
    • Green
    • Orange
    • Purple
    • Oakland Wye
    • A Line
    • E Line
    • K Line
    • L Line
    • Golden Gate Bridge
  • Other BART Things
    • Automatic Train Control
      • AATC
    • George and Gracie
    • Fare Media
    • Schedules
    • Quality of Life Issues
  • Other Transit
    • Ferries
      • Golden Gate Ferry
      • SF Bay Ferry
      • Treasure Island
    • Airports
      • SFO AirTrain
  • FAQ
    • Wide Gauge
    • Harassment
  • About
    • BART Model Railroad
  • Home
  • The Fleet
    • Legacy Fleet
      • A Cars
      • A2 Cars
        • All A2 Cars
      • B Cars
      • B2 Cars
      • C1 Cars
      • C2 Cars
      • Car Plates
    • Fleet of the Future
      • FOTF Production
      • D Cars
      • E Cars
    • eBART
    • OAC
    • Laboratory Cars
    • BART Express
    • The Two Bagger
  • History
    • A History of the Legacy Fleet
    • 1962-1971
      • Design
        • Railway Age Weekly 8-2-65
      • Rohr Background on BART Car
    • 1972 - 1982
      • Orders and Deliveries
      • A to B Conversion
      • Mail on BART
    • 1983 - 1992
      • History in the Making
    • 1993-2002
      • Rebuilding
    • 2003-2012
    • 2013-2022
      • Ad Wraps
    • Fact Sheets
      • Art in BART
    • BART Times
      • 1980s
      • 1990s
      • 2000s
    • Car Ads
  • The Lines
    • Green
    • Orange
    • Purple
    • Oakland Wye
    • A Line
    • E Line
    • K Line
    • L Line
    • Golden Gate Bridge
  • Other BART Things
    • Automatic Train Control
      • AATC
    • George and Gracie
    • Fare Media
    • Schedules
    • Quality of Life Issues
  • Other Transit
    • Ferries
      • Golden Gate Ferry
      • SF Bay Ferry
      • Treasure Island
    • Airports
      • SFO AirTrain
  • FAQ
    • Wide Gauge
    • Harassment
  • About
    • BART Model Railroad
Search

BART and snowy Diablo Range

2/24/2023

0 Comments

 
Snow up on Mission Peak/Mount Allison/Monument Peak today, 2/24/23
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Historic Article: How Key System's Emblem Evolved

2/18/2023

0 Comments

 
Old article from Pacific Bus Museum Archives. BART and Key System
Picture
0 Comments

Celebrating the opening of the R line: 1973-2023

1/29/2023

0 Comments

 
Fifty years ago today (1/29/1973), the R line (MacArthur to Richmond) opened for revenue service. Here are some pictures of the line around the time it opened, and some pictures of the station plaques and art.

This was the second segment of the BART system to open, after the A and K lines (MacArthur to Fremont) on September 11, 1972.

Photo gallery: click on the thumbnails to view the full size images.
0 Comments

Demoro on BART's Troubles, 1980

1/28/2023

0 Comments

 
AN: Harre Demoro (1939-1993) was the Tribune’s reporter on BART construction for a decade and a half, from groundbreaking to the 1970s. His work is imbedded throughout this site. It appears the years of BART delays and unreliability worn into him through the end of the 1970s and 1980s. As much as he was a supporter in the 1960s, he was a critic in the early 1980s. Many times, his criticism was valid as much as it was then as it is today. If he was alive today, he would likely be aghast at the crime, dirtiness, and other “quality-of-life” conditions (alongside reliability and BART still being unable to “run the system like they promised”), but perhaps most supportive of the Legacy Fleet reaching 50 years of service.

The following essay was published in the February 1980 issue of Pacific News, under the Column “Out West.” Demoro writes:

It is common for electric rail rapid transit cars to outlive their usefulness, to continue to run long after they have become obsolete. The East Boston subway cars built in 1923-24 by Pullman, are just now being phased out. Most Philadelphia Broad Street cars are past forty years of age. New York, the toughest subway town in the world, obtains thirty to forty years of life from its cars. The situation is different in the San Francisco area, where planners for B A RT - the Bay Area Rapid Transit system - are busily drafting plans and specifications for at least two hundred proposed new rapid transit cars that will cost $ 1 million each and, with luck, would go into service in 1985 [A/N: The C1 cars, as they are known now, entered service on 3/28/1988].

We might recall that B A RT did not open its first line until 1 972, and that except for a few cars rebuilt from the prototypes delivered in 1 970, there is not a BART car in 1980 that is even ten years old. The 450 cars built by Rohr Industries were expected to last at least thirty years, but it now seems clear a significant number of them will be gone before they are fifteen years old. Some have already been scrapped due to wrecks and fires.

Having covered B A RT as a newspaperman from 1962- 1 977, watching the engineers and bureaucrats plan, design, build and operate the system, I might be expected to be surprised at the short lifespan of the rail cars. But when I look back, I realize I should not be. The car reflects almost none of the experience gathered by the electric railway industry during seventy years prior to the BART design effort. Too much attention was paid to innovation.

Some history: The last major electric railway design effort was the Electric Railway President's Conference Committee, which produced PCC streetcars, such as those in San Francisco (PACIFIC NEWS, November, 1979), and the PCC rapid transit car, still in use in Boston, Cleveland and Chicago. That program died in 1952 for streetcars, and about a decade later for rapid transit, with Chicago and Boston carrying on the final research. By the time BART was in detailed design, the platoons of experts who knew something about subway car design were either retired, deceased or happily employed on the other rail systems. There was an undisguised snobbery among BART engineers who held that the past was not worth considering, and that modern methods, such as computers and aerospace technology, would be sufficient. It is true that many of the innovations BART attempted had merit. The 1000-volt DC power system was modern and on paper was the electrical network needed to propel the high-performance trains. The solid-state chopper system that feeds electricity to the traction motors was a necessary improvement, both for the high performance required and for its ability to react instantly to the automated control system. But as we now know, the chopper control and motors are erratic, the 1000-volt power system had to be extensively modified - and the cars are getting shabbier and, to this rider, noisier and looser, by the minute. If the cars had been reliable, the awkward arrangement of having end cab (or A) cars with controls, and mid train (or B cars) without controls, would have proven successful.

On a system as unreliable as BART, one component failure takes the entire train to the yard. On a real subway, with all cars alike, the defective car can be switched out of a train at a siding called a pocket track, and the remaining cars continue in service. BART, unfortunately, only has three pocket tracks. The new cars, I am told, will have flat ends with doors. One may assume that with a flat end the car with controls can be put in the middle of the train in an emergency. At long last a design that is aimed at getting passengers home, rather than one pleasing engineers who like to tinker, may be assured for BART.

The new cars are to have control cabs at one end and will replace most or all of the slant-end cab cars now in use. The present cab cars that appear to have a few miles left on their aluminum shells are to be rebuilt as midtrain, or B cars. BART already is cutting the noses off of some of the worn-out cab cars and making them B cars. Ultimately, the present cars will be more fire-resistant. Perhaps by 1985, thirteen years after the system opened to the public, BART may begin to operate like other rail systems. The fact that these others, including new subways in Washington, D. C. and Atlanta, have a car design that is practical, should be a lesson to the BART designers.
0 Comments

BART's First Paying Passenger

12/25/2022

0 Comments

 
BART's first paying passenger was Gertrude Guild of San Leandro, who entered the system at Lake Merritt station. Here she is at the faregate, learning how to use her ticket.

September 11, 1972

Picture
0 Comments

Latest BART Disruption: Blue line cancelled and unstaffed stations

12/25/2022

0 Comments

 
Last night - Christmas eve, around 11 PM:

Earlier, BART posted its "top 22 accomplishments" for 2022. Now in the field:

There were almost two dozen unstaffed stations (station agent shortage) last night, and the entire blue line was cancelled (no dublin service - "seek alternative transportation" due to operator shortage). So, only the yellow and orange lines were running, like it was 1992.

Hopefully this is a Christmas eve left for memories only. Hoping for a better 2023!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

0 Comments

Latest BART Delay: "Icy Weather Conditions"

12/14/2022

0 Comments

 
Once again, BART can't run in any weather. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Wet weather conditions aka rain (e.g. 12/22). Starts with 10 minute delays in the morning, 20 minutes in the PM
  • Icy weather (12/14/22) - today
  • Hot weather (6/22/22) - train derailed on the C line due to rail kink.

Waiting for BART delays due to "dark conditions" AKA night and later, "sunny conditions."


And don't get me started on "oh, your car drives slower in the rain." Yeah, and rapid transit systems in the east coast (Miami, NYC, PATCO) battle far worse weather than the Bay Area, without 20 minute delays everywhere. BART is incompetent.


Happy 50th. End rant/
Picture
0 Comments

C1 Car 361 - 1991 Ads

12/5/2022

0 Comments

 
C1 car 361 (entered service in 1988) sports two 1991 BART PD ads, as of December 2022.
0 Comments

A Bright New Day for the Bay Area

12/1/2022

0 Comments

 
Welcome to "The Two Bagger" - a somewhat frequented corner of the BARTchives in which I'll post somewhat frequently tidbits about various cars, pictures, and other stuff.

If you'd like to have a short write-up on a specific car, please contact me (under the about page). Thanks for visiting "The Two Bagger."
Picture
0 Comments

A car 101 - First of the Fleet

12/1/2022

0 Comments

 
The first car delivered by Rohr was A car 101, a prototype car used to identify and resolve various bugs with the new cars' construction and simulated operation.
Picture
The 101 rolled out of Chula Vista (on a trailer) and was delivered to Hayward Shops on 8/27/1970. Unique among the fleet, the cab of 101 was painted grey/silver - other protoype cars had different colors of cabs. For about a month, A car 101 was the only Rohr car delivered, so there are a few pics of this single car rolling down the A line (attached).
Picture
Like most of the protoype cars, the 101 was returned to Rohr (c. 6/1972) and scrapped. From what I recall reading, Rohr decided it was not worth the effort to rebuild these A cars, and replaced them with new A cars (A car 101 II -> B car 821 -> B2 car 1821 in this case).
0 Comments
<<Previous

    About

    "The Two Bagger" is meant to be a place to store more "blog" style posts on various cars, pictures, and random tidbits. At BART, a "two bagger" is a rather informal name for a two car train. Two car trains rolled in revenue service back in 1972.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022

    Categories

    All
    1960s
    1970s
    1980s
    50 Years Of Service
    800s B Cars Converted A Cars
    800s B Cars - Converted A Cars
    A2 Car
    A Car
    Accidents And Incidents
    Ads
    Adtranz/Bombardier Rebuild
    A Line
    ATC Failure
    B2 Car
    B Car
    C1 Cars
    Car By Car
    C Cars
    C - Line
    Delays
    Fleet Of The Future
    Fremont
    Fremont Flyer
    Harre Demoro
    Hayward Yard
    Key System
    Legacy Fleet
    Logo
    One Car Train
    Orange Line
    Prototype Cars
    R Line
    Rohr
    San Francisco
    S Line
    Snow
    Two Car Train
    Weather
    Yellow Line

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • The Fleet
    • Legacy Fleet
      • A Cars
      • A2 Cars
        • All A2 Cars
      • B Cars
      • B2 Cars
      • C1 Cars
      • C2 Cars
      • Car Plates
    • Fleet of the Future
      • FOTF Production
      • D Cars
      • E Cars
    • eBART
    • OAC
    • Laboratory Cars
    • BART Express
    • The Two Bagger
  • History
    • A History of the Legacy Fleet
    • 1962-1971
      • Design
        • Railway Age Weekly 8-2-65
      • Rohr Background on BART Car
    • 1972 - 1982
      • Orders and Deliveries
      • A to B Conversion
      • Mail on BART
    • 1983 - 1992
      • History in the Making
    • 1993-2002
      • Rebuilding
    • 2003-2012
    • 2013-2022
      • Ad Wraps
    • Fact Sheets
      • Art in BART
    • BART Times
      • 1980s
      • 1990s
      • 2000s
    • Car Ads
  • The Lines
    • Green
    • Orange
    • Purple
    • Oakland Wye
    • A Line
    • E Line
    • K Line
    • L Line
    • Golden Gate Bridge
  • Other BART Things
    • Automatic Train Control
      • AATC
    • George and Gracie
    • Fare Media
    • Schedules
    • Quality of Life Issues
  • Other Transit
    • Ferries
      • Golden Gate Ferry
      • SF Bay Ferry
      • Treasure Island
    • Airports
      • SFO AirTrain
  • FAQ
    • Wide Gauge
    • Harassment
  • About
    • BART Model Railroad