I've always suspected this. It's very unlikely that video would cross cars, there are already enough pins on the couplers and I believe this would invoke FRA re

I've always suspected this. It's very unlikely that video would cross cars, there are already enough pins on the couplers and I believe this would invoke FRA requirements on the engineering. I'm not sure when the cameras were installed, but the solid-state DVRs usually used on vehicles probably weren't available yet, given the age of the BART rolling stock. Tape-loop recorders would have been very high maintenance. My suspicion is that some or all BART cars actually are equipped with tape-loop recorders, and what they call 'dummy cameras' are simply recorders which are broken or without tape because of lack of maintenance. The replacement tapes are also getting hard to obtain. There are several good commercial options for vehicle surveillance now (Safety Vision being a prominent one), but across BART's ~650 cars this would easily turn into a several million dollar project. Let's just keep holding out for the new rolling stock...