First BART Car (1965)

BART’s first electrically powered railcars were fluted metal boxes, and hardly the awaited streamlined revenue cars. These 3 cars, named A, B, and C, were rolling labs to evaluate different types of technology to be used on the BART system. The first one was lab car C, sometimes called “Clara” or “Claire” and was the most conventional car, using equipment most similar to other rapid transit cars of the day. It was delivered March 24, 1965 and started rolling on April 7th, followed by further tests including automatic operation on May 12, 1965.
 
The car was rebuilt to test the Westinghouse ATC system ahead of the delivery of Rohr revenue cars. Once deliveries picked up in 1972, the car was stored and finally decommissioned in December 1982.

Here is a picture of Old Clara taken 60 years ago.