A BART car caught fire and partially derailed Monday morning in the East Bay but no one was injured and passengers were safely evacuated, BART officials said.
The incident was reported shortly after 9 a.m. on BART’s yellow line in the eastbound direction, between the Lafayette and Orinda stations, BART spokesman Jim Allison said.
Passengers aboard the train were taken to the Orinda station by BART staff. Two cars were reported to be on fire, Allision said.
There are currently major delays on BART and there is no service between Rockridge and Walnut Creek, officials said shortly before 10 a.m.
There is a station closure at Lafayette and Orinda stations.
BART riders should seek an alternate means of transportation, officials said.
9 comments
New year, same BART. Vote no on new taxes. No new independent inspector and audit, no new money. Reform first, then ask for money. Especially after the BART board recently elected Bevan Dufty to be president (hint: former SF Mayor appointed Dufty as his “homeless czar”).
Just the “unhoused” trying to get warm?
From picture on another site, appears derailment happened in area of track crossover switches just east of Orinda station. First car is on different set of track, could have split a switch.
It appears from what passengers are saying that the operator stopped with the lead car on the crossover, manually switched the crossover, and then backed up. This put the lead car on the westbound tracks, the second car spanning the gap between the westbound and eastbound tracks, and the remainder of the train on the eastbound tracks. The electrified third rail is on the outside in the area of crossovers and is a bit higher than the main rails. The operator continued to back the train up away from the crossover until it got to the section of track where electrified third is on inside. The second car that was dangling between the sets of tracks was now dragging across the electrified third rails for both the westbound and westbound tracks. That created an electrical short. The operator was drug tested and is on administrative leave.
I suspect BART operations also bears some responsibility. They would have been the ones to tell the train operator do the manual switch. This particular crossover was fully rebuilt in first part of 2020 and likely has many cameras and likely has indicators to show how the crossover is configured.
Everything related to government, public transit and PUC is a grift.
The homeless industrial complex repurposes billions of dollars in to the pockets of the already wealthy, money is not the solution, building mental hospitals and jails is the solution, but that eats up the grift money, so it’s never even entertained.
BART is no different, 2.6 BILLION dollar annual budget for 2024, yet the changes you see are infinitesimal, and fares must be raised to close the gap. Money goes out the back door to the grift, leaving little for the actual improvements needed, so they increase fares and parking. You and me are stuck, either we pay $7 toll, gas and wear, or we kneel at the feet of BART and take it like a man.
Vaccine grift is one of the biggest money winners in history. BILLIONS spent and redirected to businessmen and politicians. Go to DC a working man, spend a term in office and come home with multi-millions socked away.
We’ve given over 75 BILLION to Ukraine, this money isn’t for bullets and bombs, it’s to pay pensions, line the pockets of the arms dealers, support oligarchs and corrupt politicians. Even Old Joe himself knew that the corruption over there was off the charts, nothing has changed since then, so let’s send them 75 Billion and counting. The poor fighters on the front still have inadequate clothing, bullets, food, protection, etc. I’m hopeful this is the end of the money, the Ukrainians will pay with their lives and quality of life, but it’s not the USA’s responsibility to send our money into a known corrupted system.
PG&E got ‘burned’ for relaxing their inspection of their lines and equipment because they had to redirect money to the useless wind farms and solar panels to appease the greenies. Something had to give, so they didn’t do their inspections, upgrades and maintenance on the existing infrastructure. Then the fires, then the blame, then the settlement. Where does that settlement money come from? All you people yelling for PG&E’s head should be the ones to pay the rate increases, you’re too dense to figure out that it was all going to come from your pocket. You required big, bad PG&E to go green, chasing windmills like Don Quixote and then are pissed off when something had to be sacrificed. which contributed to the horrific firestorms. I would have rather had each rate payer contribute a fixed amount directly to a burned out family than authorized PG&E to increase rates. They will never go back down, and the money will likely never get to those who actually need and deserve it.
Now the minimum wage increase. Bye bye entry level jobs, bye bye affordable fast food, bye bye many tax paying companies that will just close down and leave the state. Even the laborers at Home Depot want $30 an hour and will flip you off if you offer less.
Our once beautiful state, the envy of the nation is circling the drain. It used to be that everybody I knew wanted to one day live in California, now they look at me like I’m the idiot for living here….and maybe they’re not wrong.
Jan 1 rant off/
Not an especially uplifting message, but very accurate and well said. A few of my favorite quotes seem appropriate here:
“It;s an exclusive club, and you ain’t in it” -George Carlin
“Number one ain’t you; you ain’t even number two” -Frank Zappa
“A politician is someone who rises on what the people will fall for” -Mad Magazine
I can’t believe anyone would seriously vote for Gavin Newsom to be President of the United States.
And of course, County Connection has no bus service today.
Has Newsom ever stepped foot on bart for a ride? I remember a night at Balboa Cafe in SF when he showed up in his personal limo, chugged a few while it waited , tripped off the curb and left..
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