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 Post subject: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 6:11 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11482
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
The San Francisco-area Bay Area Rapid Transit system is historic in one aspect in that it was the first of the "Great Society" transit systems launched anew (as opposed to a development of an older system) in the latter half of the 20th century in North America, predating the Washington DC Metro by four years.

Now BART is retiring the last survivors of its original fleet--yes, 59 cars introduced in 1972 are still in service--and going public with discussions about their fates:

https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2019/news20190104

As much as a representative or two of such a "pioneering" system deserves preservation, this is a difficult prospect for anyone save for a static exhibit--the BART system is broad-gauge (5' 6").

Any interest? WRM Rio Vista is an obvious possibility, and San Francisco itself has a transit museum dedicated to PCCs and cable cars......


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 6:40 pm 

Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:54 am
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Location: New Franklin, OH
Reading the article, it seems it would boil down to the appraised value of each piece and if BART can make enough on the dispositions to cover what would be owed FTA if they were inclined to donate any equipment. Otherwise, pony up. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 12:44 am 

Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:04 pm
Posts: 174
Location: San Jose, CA
Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

As much as a representative or two of such a "pioneering" system deserves preservation, this is a difficult prospect for anyone save for a static exhibit--the BART system is broad-gauge (5' 6").

Any interest? WRM Rio Vista is an obvious possibility, and San Francisco itself has a transit museum dedicated to PCCs and cable cars......


Why limit to just the SF Bay region?

How many railroad artifacts are "preserved" outside their historic ranges? A GG1 and Big Boy in Frisco, Tx? A SP GS in St. Louis. etc etc.

An original BART car would provide various interpretive opportunities as a static display. Why the 5'6" gauge? The early BART system faced many problems with the "new" electronics...how has public rail passenger technology changed? In many ways, BART paved the way for the designs of our newest light rail systems.

At the minimum, an "A" BART car (the one's with the operator's compartment) should go to the Smithsonian.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 2:06 am 

Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:58 pm
Posts: 1346
Location: Chicago USA
Could they be regauged? Are the A cars the ones with the beveled ends? Can you hook two A's back to back? They'd look quite funny with trolley poles giving rides through the Illinois soybean fields.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:38 pm 

Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Posts: 297
Location: Los Altos, CA
Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:
Now BART is retiring the last survivors of its original fleet--yes, 59 cars introduced in 1972 are still in service--and going public with discussions about their fates.


Nitpick: BART’s legacy fleet is composed of 59 A2 cars and 380 B2 cars, plus some C cars they got back in the 1990s. The "A" cars are the ones everyone recognizes because they have the sleek front ends.

My .02, which I will submit during public comment, is that BART should maintain a "nostalgia train" of 2 As and a B that they can charter for foamer trips and trot out for special occasions.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:13 pm 

Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:56 am
Posts: 480
Location: Northern California
To operate a car at BART it must receive regular maintenance and inspections. It does not seem likely that BART would want to retain an inventory of necessary parts and train and certify mechanics and electronic technicians to maintain a fleet of 3 cars, which is the minimum allowable train lingth. Also each A car has a complete set of automatic train control equipment worth, I would estimate, over $100,000. This equipment would be transferred to the new cars or used to maintain the C car fleet. It seems unlikely that any A and B cars will be retained by BART for operation on the system.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 9:08 pm 

Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:41 am
Posts: 3911
Location: Inwood, W.Va.
Older thread on this same subject

(Gee, has it been that long?)

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31288


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:09 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11482
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
David Johnston wrote:
To operate a car at BART it must receive regular maintenance and inspections. It does not seem likely that BART would want to retain an inventory of necessary parts and train and certify mechanics and electronic technicians to maintain a fleet of 3 cars, which is the minimum allowable train lingth. Also each A car has a complete set of automatic train control equipment worth, I would estimate, over $100,000. This equipment would be transferred to the new cars or used to maintain the C car fleet. It seems unlikely that any A and B cars will be retained by BART for operation on the system.

Because certainly, no city transit agency in this part of the 21st Century can possibly allow or manage to keep vintage equipment rolling in this modern day and--

https://untappedcities.com/2018/06/15/r ... ge-trains/

Oh................. hmmmmmmmmmmm..........

Image


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:42 pm 

Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Posts: 297
Location: Los Altos, CA
Yes, I had the TA in mind when I wrote this. An agency with the resources like BART can can accomplish things that Ma and Pa Kettle's trolley museum cant.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:00 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:40 pm
Posts: 840
filmteknik wrote:
Could they be regauged? Are the A cars the ones with the beveled ends? Can you hook two A's back to back? They'd look quite funny with trolley poles giving rides through the Illinois soybean fields.


Good point.

A number of steam locomotives (and the "Little Joe" electrics) built in the USA and intended for export to Russia but then kept here instead were re-gauged to US standard gauge and then sold to domestic users. They ran off a lot of miles in service.

Not saying it would be all that cheap or easy on these cars, but certainly should not be insurmountable.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:45 am 

Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:41 am
Posts: 3911
Location: Inwood, W.Va.
Filmteknik and Lincolnpen may be interested in this comment by Robert MacDowell in the 2011 thread:

robertmacdowell wrote:
J3a-614 wrote:
Futuristic (and some would say ugly) it may be, but Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART, the San Francisco subway system) is now approaching its 40th anniversary, and the system is looking at eventual replacement of its entire car fleet.


Yes. After the PCC, all evolution in public transit stopped dead. Then there was 40 years of nothin'. And then BOOM, there was a rail renaissance. BART was on the lead, and BART was full of daring innovations (and mistakes), and no doubt of it -- BART is the most historically important of ALL OF THEM.

But this is a major, constitutional crisis for railway museums, and especially transit museums. Most are all about preserving pre-1950 transit, and being about the nostalgia, and about early 20th century engineering which was so stout and godly. Unspoken was the shared expectation that they were preserving an era that was gone for good. Most have spent their entire existence (many since WWII) being just that, and that's how everyone thinks.

So now there's this NEWKRAP.

It's a much sharper distinction than steam vs. diesel... And you know all the hand-wringing museums had over THAT.

See the pickle? As a museum full of pre-1940 cars... do we preserve TRANSIT? Or do we preserve early 20th century transit specifically? Will other museums preserve this newkrap? (not likely.)

Does our museum stick with early 20th century railroading, and slowly watch our relevance as a museum diminish, as no one still lives who remembers anything in our collection? Or do we slowly come around to the notion of saving newkrap, too late to preserve the first generation, then spend the next 200 years explaining why these key developments are missing from our collection?

For instance WRM is a museum that is basically complete. It's all indoors. We're in the phase of replacing carbarns now. Our mission is to preserve electric railroading in the west, but our master planning is completely unprepared for the onslaught of BART, Sacramento, San Jose, Sandy Eggo, L.A.'s variety of lines, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake, Phoenix... to say nothing of San Francisco, and we can't refuse them!!! This is all LARGE equipment which ran M.U. so we can't do it justice without two each. We don't have the barn space, and the approved master-plan has nowhere to put the barns if we wanted to. So you're talking about, essentially, a whole 'nother Lone Mountain retreat intensive to reestablish who the heck WRM is; new site approval, practically reboot the museum.

Quote:
Historic preservation of anything from this car fleet has some interesting challenges. They include an oddball track gauge, a unique 1,000-volt DC power supply, unusual carbody construction (partially to allow for an unusual car lifting system), unusual composite wheels, all that automated high-tech gear that is now 40 years old (and in reality, older), high-level only loading. . .whew!

Let's see...

The oddball track gage is a very special problem, because the BART "air bag suspension" truck design is entirely unique to BART... and one other system. The Washington Metro Gen-1 Rohr cars, the infamous crashy ones. And yes, they are standard gage. DC can't get rid of those things fast enough, so as a practical concern, preserving BART actually starts Right Now in Washington.

The voltage is the least of my concerns. Actually the prototype BART substation is at BAERA, and powers operation daily. That's about the only thing from the BART prototype era that got preserved. The American Aerotrain is better preserved.

The carbody construction isn't so bizarre that you couldn't work with it. Mostly, it's flimsy. Those cars were intended to be extremely light.

I don't believe the composite wheels exist anymore, however, the axles are hollow.

If only we were preserving 40-year-old "high tech" gear. That stuff is manageable. All the original BART cars have been refitted with more modern controls. Some got AC drive, which will make truck swaps real interesting. The signature "Bizzzzzzzzzz" of pulling out of a station -- gone. The old warbling "Bwauuummmm" of the doors abut to close - fixed. The old brown seats and carpet - blue now. (somebody read "Dress for success".) It all went in a dumpster in Sacramento in the 1990s and nobody thought to preserve it, because nobody conceived of preserving a BART train, let alone rolling one back technically to 1968.

High level loading is standard on third rail systems. The real problem is that BART cars are really wide, so existing high-level stations like at IRM won't do.

Preserving the minidresses: You know, it was (approximately) the Summer of Love.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:10 am 

Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:27 am
Posts: 569
Location: Winters, TX
I think it comes down to practicality. The many problems with adapting the cars for museum operation seems like it would be economically prohibitive. Which leaves static display. Given the gauge and possibly the width of the cars, they couldn't be tucked away in an existing carbarn. Which means displaying them outdoors, or possibly building a special carbarn.

Would the public be that interested in these cars? Are they that different than what BART runs now other than exterior appearance of the "A" cars?

I think the high level loading is also an issue. Consider that only one LACMTA "Blue Line" car is being preserved in a museum whereas several of the San Diego U2 cars are finding their way to museums.

Just my two cents worth.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:31 am 

Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:05 pm
Posts: 92
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Last edited by Robert J on Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:55 pm 

Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:58 pm
Posts: 1346
Location: Chicago USA
There are more appropriate places to preserve and possibly operate BART equipment and the regauging question applies to them as well. As for IRM, only if no one else steps up and there is sufficient interest to generate donations that cover the costs. Anything is possible if people are willing to pony up.


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 Post subject: Re: BART's Original Rolling Stock: A Preservation Challenge?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:32 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 1:02 am
Posts: 136
Location: Northern California
We are finding that it is much more difficult to keep electric railway equipment built in recent years operating than it is to keep equipment that is more than a century old operating. For historical reasons it is important that we preserve equipment like the BART cars, or light rail cars from current operations, but I am afraid that we will have to accept that the best we will be able do is well-interpreted static display.

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