Track fire by the walnutcreek station ????
I was driving home from concord and I witnessed a light show in the sky only to find out that it was the bart tracks on fire (yes I said fire, it was quite visible from the freeway) It looked like a complete break of the 3rd rail with both ends on fire, quite a site to be seen. Anyone else see this happen, does anyone know when it's going to be fixed?
I'm so glad I moved to S.F. and no longer need to take the train from concord. Good luck to those of you who use that line.
apparently, one of the trains
apparently, one of the trains somehow managed to catch the track ON FIRE. . .
i got stuck in the concord station for over an hour while they were debating what to do.
ended up calling my girlfriend for a ride home. . .to oakland.
freaking bart always catching on fire and shit.
something hanging off the
something hanging off the sf-bound train touched the third rail and caught fire, plastic was melting onto 680 from what i hear. i left from work around 11:30 and they were single-tracking so i didn't get home til about 1 am in the city. of course while they were single-tracking there were two PBP-bound trains that came before one SF one did. ohhh bart!
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_11332667
What is there to burn? it is
What is there to burn? it is all concrete & steel, and a small amount of plastic covering the 3rd rail.
Oil, rubber, plastic,
Oil, rubber, plastic, garbage, vegetation...
I was delayed getting home
I was delayed getting home last night because of this; BART had to single track. Saw the train still sitting there at P.H. station and the T.O. was blown away. He said everything underneath the train was gone, brake shoes, etc. I'm not sure what is supposed to be under a BART train car. I think these cars are so old, they can't be repaired and the safety standards can no longer be maintained. I think if BART doesn't get some new cars soon, there will be more happenings such as yesterday.
At least I had the luxury of riding home on a 10-car train that wasn't packed to the gills which hasn't been the case in a long time. Some guys came from the 9th car came to the 10th car while we were waiting at Orinda station because some fat guy was hurling out the door at Orinda and Lafayette, as well as in the car, so be careful if you are boarding at the 9th car eastbound. T.O. didn't seem to care the guy was a barfing drunk and doubted the scrub crew was going to be by any time soon so I thought I should mention it somewhere else. One of the guys came up to report it. The other guy said people get beat up for reporting stuff like that.
We all exchanged our BART Barf stories for the remainder of our delay and the time went by rather quickly which made me happy because sometimes that BART ride home is a long one late at night.
Today, I decided to drive to Orinda so I could avoid all these delays as much as possible. First time I had to pay to park and all of that. Ended up paying twice. Oh well, guess that's better than a ticket.
Gheese, I couldn't believe Walnut Creek either. You can't drive through that town any more so you might as well ride BART and walk through it, just like SF; it's much faster. Yuck. They can have it. Walnut Creek was cool in the 70's. It sucks now.
I moved all my regular
I moved all my regular shopping trips out of Walnut Creek long ago. Getting around down there is impossible. It's faster to go to the Petco in Martinez from Walnut Creek than it is to try and go to the one downtown. Pretty much all the stores I have to go to regularly are either along CCB or near it. It's nice to patronize places in my own city too, even if it is a little bit more driving.
BART keeps saying they have
BART keeps saying they have to scrap the entire fleet and replace all the cars. That’s simply not true!
The “old” cars were rebuilt only a few years ago. They were stripped down to the aluminum shells and trucks. EVERYTHING about the original cars was trashed (except window glass) and replaced with current technology. The rebuilt cars have 4-digit numbers, beginning with 1.
BART definitely needs new cars - not because the old ones are outmoded but because there’s simply a shortage of cars. Accidents, collisions, etc. have reduced the total numbers of cars available for revenue service.
On the fire . . .
The fire in Walnut Creek was caused by a collector assembly shunt (cable) hanging loose under the train.
A likely scenario is, the shunt was damaged by a fallen coverboard. The dangling copper cable was tapping the center of 3rd rail insulators while the train was rolling down the track. (There is evidence of multiple insulator flashovers in the area). In Walnut Creek, an especially dirty insulator was tapped and caused a flashover and subsequent arcing and fire.
BART really needs to replace all the old sagging, cracking, and slipping coverboards in the system. Fallen coverboards snap collector shoes off the sides of the trains and cause major delays and other headaches for BART.
TOD