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BART to offer final rides on original equipment on April 20
- hilux 3y agoI rode on the "final scheduled train." Now this too!? It's a lot of work being a part of history.
- mistrial9 3y agofun fact - early runs to Concord did in fact open the doors of the train on the wrong side of the car, more than once.. source: eyewitness
- bluejekyll 3y agoGoodbye to the family seating. I have a lot of good memories riding with my family and friends in those living room like areas. I’m a little sad those are going away.
- lobsterthief 3y agoIt was great until someone really sketchy sat across from you. I remember riding during the pandemic and some guy sat across from me and started smoking crack. I guess that could happen with any seating arrangement, but it was particularly uncomfortable sitting right across from me and facing me. That’s a bigger problem than seating arrangement I guess.
- ericmcer 3y agoThe original Bart had wool seats and carpet. It is too bad that we need vinyl everything now or people will destroy it.
- kgermino 3y agoYou don’t have to be intentionally destructive to destroy fabric seats on a train. The number of peoples moving through every day (especially coming in from outside) will do a lot of damage on its own
- rangestransform 3y agojapanese metro trains with crazy high ridership numbers still have fabric seats (the yamanote line in Tokyo for sure), with swift and certain enforcement of existing rules, the US could have nice things again too
- hinoki 3y agoSometimes you still get sketchy passengers sitting across from you: https://twitter.com/PrectiveGallery/status/1766770987813769576 https://twitter.com/PrectiveGallery/status/17667709878137695... (Tweet about bedbugs on the yamanote line)
- dirtyhippiefree 3y agoBedbugs love fabric for hiding…many good reasons for the switch.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y agoVery cool to see these trains lasted 50+ years if I understand correctly (?). I wonder if there’s an opportunity for BART to switch to standard gauge in the future or as part of retiring trains, or if that’s even a good idea for cost savings? Could they build a narrow rail inside the wider rail? Or is this idea not worth it?
- Gigachad 3y agoIt is a thing that's done sometimes, usually for trains between cities which are on different gauges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_gauge
- danans 3y ago> I wonder if there’s an opportunity for BART to switch to standard gauge in the future or as part of retiring trains, or if that’s even a good idea for cost savings? I'm guessing it would be massively expensive, and it's not clear to what end they would change it. It's not like they could then buy cheaper off-the-shelf trains, since the trains still have to be designed and built for the particular system in other ways, i.e. controls, propulsion, and custom interiors. Also, BART doesn't share tracks with any other system, so there's no reason to do it for compatiblity's sake either.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoIt's not like they could then buy cheaper off-the-shelf trains, since the trains still have to be designed and built for the particular system in other ways, i.e. controls, propulsion, and custom interiors. They could but they've doubled down on American exceptionalism (or NIH if you prefer). For instance, Muni's Siemens trains (and the Boeing/Vertols and PCCs before them) are far closer to a standard train than BART's stuff. The real advantage is in cheaper propulsion and maintenance kit. BART runs a non-standard voltage and had a ton of trouble sourcing thyristors for their old fleet. Track maintenance vehicles also need to be custom built. BART doesn't share tracks with any other system, so there's no reason to do it for compatiblity's sake either. BART doesn't share tracks because they can't. As a result they run three separate fleets of wholly incompatible vehicles for no good reason. eBART is a standard gauge diesel multiple unit system – because even with BART's typically inflated ridership estimates they couldn't make the expensive mainline kit work. That would've been a perfect opportunity to start the excruciatingly slow process of converting the mainline to more current standards.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Lammy 3y agoI wish they could run one with the carpeted floors and fabric seats.
- paunchy 3y agoIt sounds like you've never sat down on a BART fabric seat only to discover it is wet. I won't miss the fabric seats.
- dehrmann 3y agoI think that's what GP meant. I wish we lived in a world where we could have nice things.
- musicale 3y agoExactly - fabric seats and carpet are more comfortable and help with noise, but they always get trashed and are eventually removed.
- presentation 3y agoNot here in Japan
- Symbiote 3y agoLondon also has them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moquette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moquette
- StrauXX 3y agoSame with Austrian trains.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoSure, and Marin (Bay Area) also has fabric seats, but their public transit sees much lower ridership. It's hard to overstate how vile the old wool seats were on BART. It took the NY Times reporting that the wool covers harbored MRSA and other nasties to prompt the switch to vinyl.
- jmward01 3y agoI read once that a huge issue with US metro is our over the top strength requirements. I wonder if that is still true. It is clear that Europe/basically anywhere has far more expertise and success in this than we do. Too bad it isn't as easy as 'we accept all country xxx regs and can start buying their stuff/using their designs'. I'm not that naive to think that is really a possibility, or that doing that would solve the other massive issues with US mass transit, but we can dream of transit like Tokyo can't we!
- gok 3y agoThe car strength requirements only apply to mainline rail, not rapid transit like BART which runs on dedicated rails. And even on mainline rail, the FRA now accepts Europeans rolling stock as of a few years ago.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThat being said, change is slow, and very few agencies have taken advantage of the new rules
- jajko 3y agoIf US doesn't accept say Swiss products/designs then there is some serious flaw in that process (probably stemming from protectionism/corruption)
- gok 3y agoSwiss trains from Stadler are in fact selling rather well in the US recently (Caltrain, e-BART, New Jersey Transit, Austin, Dallas, and most recently Metra in Chicago)
- ac29 3y agoThat Metra project looks interesting, they are buying battery powered trainsets: https://metra.com/newsroom/metra-buying-battery-powered-trainsets https://metra.com/newsroom/metra-buying-battery-powered-trai... 45-65 miles range, and 20-30 minutes to charge 20->80%. Better than I would have expected, and certainly could work well on shorter routes where full electrification is impractical. Sounds like it will be built in the US as well.
- SllX 3y agoIf you're looking to get between Oakland and Alameda and San Francisco on that day and avoid this and other events, I rather enjoy and can recommend the Ferry. It's slower and more expensive but also more pleasant. Go without hurry and bring a book if you don't want to stare out at the water.
- kstrauser 3y agoThe ferry is the most civilized transit in the area. They even have a bar on board. It’s very pleasant. I’d take it all the time if I didn’t have to drive to the terminal, as opposed to catching the transbay bus that stops a block from my house.
- valianteffort 3y agoRegrettably I lived in SF for years and never took the ferry across the bay. Will have to give it a try next time I'm out there.
- nox101 3y agoa fun activity is to ride a bike across the golden gate from SF up to Tiberon, have lunch, catch the ferry back. If Tiberon is too far you can also catch the ferry from Sausalito
- eweise 3y agoReading this I didn't think I'd feel so nostalgic for those cars but the track was at the end of my street where I grew up, so I saw and heard them all the time. My parents commuted to the city on Bart and for a few years after college we all commuted together. As kids, we terrorized the trains a bit and that's how we discovered that Bart had helicopters. The 70's sure were fun.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI just moved to Oakland a couple years ago and I recently watched the TV show I'm a Virgo, which is set in Oakland. I never realized how iconic that sound is until I saw it on a TV show and instantly recognized it.
- ProfessorLayton 3y agoI've been using BART all my life, and while I'm not old enough to have been doing so since it first came into service, I did get to experience it during its glory days. It legitimately felt like getting on an airplane, and it was fascinating to young-me, as trains are to many kids. For those who didn't know, bart used to have: - Generously padded cloth seats - Carpet (!!!) - Free parking - Magnetic paper tickets, and the turnstile machines would stamp the remaining balance upon exit. They'd also get demagnetized all the time, or get stuck in the machine. Yes, the cloth seats and carpet were terrible ideas, but before they got all disgusting, they looked and felt nice. Bart used to be really nice, it was clean, and people generally respected the system. I still think BART is fantastic, but I don't deny it has its problems. Anyway, BART dropped a ton of merch when they were decommissioning their old stock, and I managed to snag an aluminum car ID plate and a real system map! https://imgur.com/a/rCvf93S https://imgur.com/a/rCvf93S
- UncleEntity 3y agoI might be remembering this wrong but I seem to recall being able to start out on a bus in Livermore and make all the way to Fremont (or Frisco once to see The Smithereens doing a free concert in Justin Herman Plaza on a school day) just using transfers from the original ticket. Pretty sure the BART ticket would get you on a bus but not sure about the other way around as this was quite a long time ago. Pretty good deal for a delinquent minor with hardly any money.
- eweise 3y agoI remember it was a challenge to get the machines to accept your dollar bills.
- presentation 3y ago[flagged]
- luxuryballs 3y agoI was thinking this too “if you ever wanted to hot box a BART we are having a farewell event”…
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWhat is your definition of "hot box" here? (Yes, I know what "hot box" refers to on a train, but I don't see how one could deliberately choose to do to a train.)
- dumbo-octopus 3y agoWhat's hard to understand about hot boxing a train? One of my more memorable experiences on the LA Metro was walking into a train that smelled like 100% bona fide human fecal matter. As in, there is almost no way that if you went looking you would not have found a huge pile of it in some corner. Naturally, everybody went about their day acting like nothing was wrong. Except for one guy, who pulled out a huge blunt and just started huffing and puffing on it until eventually the weed was on-par with the shit, and later ended up totally overpowering it. I personally prefer not to involve myself with weed, but there's no denying it's a better experience than huffing literal shit.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoOn a train, a hot box is a failure of a bearing on an axle, resulting in heat, often smoke, and sometimes fire. If it's not caught in time, it ends up with the axle failing from the heat, resulting in a train derailment. It's a "stop this train sooner than immediately" kind of problem. It's not the kind of thing that people do to a train.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
- banish-m4 3y agoLast time I rode BART in 2013, the stations were creepy quiet and the cars were dilapidated. Fruitvale notwithstanding, it seemed like a place where people get stabbed. Has it improved? Or is still a typical American public transport Catch-22: not enough passengers to justify investment and not enough service to justify ridership.
- brcmthrowaway 3y agoEvery West Coast city has terrible public transportation systems.
- culopatin 3y agoAs opposed to what else in the US? I’d argue the public transportation is top 3 in SF and I can only think of NY and Boston as contenders.
- banish-m4 3y agoOuch. That's the problem. America is still too in love with Los Angeles-style layouts: expensive and unhealthy single-occupant ICE cars and urban sprawl with gridlock and long commutes between city cores and residential cul-de-sacs far away. The aim should either be vastly more remote work, residing closer to work, or closer to mass transit between work. The first way is simpler, cheaper, and does away with about half of a transportation needs.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoIs the fiendish high-pitched noise in the tunnels gone with the new trains?
- incompleteCode 3y agoI like it. It’s not deafening and has a unique profile. Granted I haven’t traveled much, so I don’t know if it’s globally unique.
- whalesalad 3y ago> I like it. It’s not deafening and has a unique profile. interesting - it's completely deafening and unbearable for me personally
- xg15 3y ago> BART Waiting for the first "LLM or municipal transport authority" guessing game to pop up... (Disclaimer: From Europe, so I didn't know about BART. Not that we don't have ridiculous authority names around here too...)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mattl 3y agoFirst sentence of the article: “A Bay Area Rapid Transit prototype train poses at the Lake Merritt station in Oakland prior to the start of service, in late 1971 or early 1972.”
- Pneumaticat 3y agoIt's both, actually! https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/en/model_doc/bart https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/en/model_doc/bart
- whalesalad 3y agodon't forget your ear plugs
- diebeforei485 3y agoThe new trains are superior in every aspect except they seem to oscillate in a weird way that gives some people motion sickness.
- HWR_14 3y agoMotion sickness seems like a pretty major negative.