A break on BART — partial service
Commute- time trains run on troubled Pittsburg line
BART restored partial service Monday between the North Concord and Pittsburg/ Bay Point stations, allowing commuters to ride a shuttle train on the rails rather than a shuttle bus on packed freeways.
The limited service will run every 15 minutes during the morning and evening commutes — from 4 to 9 a. m. and 3 to 8 p. m. — with passengers the rest of the day still relegated to special buses connecting the stations.
But even as BART announced the shuttle train, officials couldn’t say how long customers would have to rely on it. Engineers and outside experts continued Monday to search for the elusive gremlin that’s causing train- damaging power spikes on the rails between the stations, but came
up empty. The mysterious power surges, which knocked 50 BART railcars out of service Wednesday north of the North Concord Station, prompted the transit agency to shut down service to the end- of- the- line Pittsburg/ Bay Point Station. It couldn’t risk continuing to run trains over the offending tracks.
That forced thousands of frustrated commuters to line up for the bus bridge. But BART was able to launch the limited service starting at 3 p. m. Monday. Because the new train is a special shuttle, moving only between the two stations, passengers must transfer at North Concord.
‘ Pushing and shoving’
A commuter at the North Concord/ Martinez Station on Monday night said the shuttle was disorganized and confusing with many riders unaware of the shift from a bus bridge to a shuttle train and other frustrated passengers impatient.
“The platform was so crowded you can’t fit on there,” said Paula Boring of Oakley, who just got off a train from San Francisco. “People are yelling and pushing and shoving, trying to get to the front.”
Boring, who rides from North Concord three days a week and Pittsburg/ Bay Point two days a week, offered to drive two strangers to spare them from the crowd.
“I think it’s a bad idea,” she said. “It’s too crowded. It’s going to cause problems.”
Paul Oversier, BART’s assistant general manager for operations, said Monday that engineers — including experts brought in from outside the agency — have yet to find the source of the surges, an unanticipated zap of high- voltage electricity that’s been knocking out semiconductor devices known as thyristors and forcing BART to remove the damaged railcars from service.
“Since then we have been working night and day,” said Oversier, who spoke in interviews with The Chronicle and KQED FM. “We have brought in outside experts. We have been working with PG& E.”
Oversier said engineers hunting the problem reconfigured BART’s system, powering the tracks with electricity from different substations, and with help from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. measured electrical output to see if there were fluctuations. They found none.
Trost said Monday evening that BART officials are buying a special tool that will allow them to measure what’s happening more precisely.
“They’re trying to get finite details of something that happens at one- one hundreth of a millisecond,” she said.
Repairing damaged cars
Starting Sunday night and continuing through Monday, BART ran a test train between the two Contra Costa County stations, carrying passengers at times.
Crews aboard the train used sophisticated devices to measure the voltage. They detected some very short power spikes between the stations, spokeswoman Alicia Trost said, but nothing that duplicated the damaging surges — or that pinpointed the source of the problem.
“The experts are providing a fresh set of eyes to the problem,” she said. “Crews have been systematically identifying all possibilities and then eliminating them one by one. While long and tedious, it will help crews get closer to the problem.”
The power surges pose no danger to passengers aboard trains, Trost said.
While crews tried to sleuth out the cause, workers in BART maintenance shops worked to repair damaged cars, replacing the thyristors. Oversier said 36 railcars were repaired and put back into service Monday, raising the total available to 557 and reducing the number of short trains pressed into service. On an average weekday, 579 cars are typically available.
Delays, shorter trains
BART carries an average of 440,000 people on weekdays, and passengers are already packed into cars during the morning and evening commutes. The car shortage has not only affected riders on the Pittsburg/ Bay Point line — the system’s busiest — but has led to shorter trains and delays through the rest of the system.
In late February and early March, 80 cars were taken out in similar fashion near BART’s West Oakland Station, including 40 in a single day. Chronicle staff writer Hamed Aleaziz
contributed to this report.