
BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected - luu
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-slows-rollout-of-new-trains-as-it-contends-13837200.php?psid=exR3U
======
pmoriarty
About 20 to 25 years ago, I took a trip from the US (where I'd lived most of
my life) to travel around Europe by train, and I was immensely impressed by
its far superior train system. The best trains of all the countries I visited
were in Sweden, which had trains which were so modern that they seemed like
something out of the future, even compared to the best trains I'd seen in the
US by that time, Amtrak trains.

The new BART trains that are only now rolling out remind me a lot of the
Swedish trains I saw more than 20 years ago, except that the BART trains have
flat panel screens in them that I doubt those Swedish trains had back then,
but the Swedish trains had doors that would silently and easily slide open
when you held your hands up to them -- that was something that had greatly
impressed me back then, because all the trains I'd been to before had really
heavy doors that you'd have to struggle with to open by hand, while on the
Swedish trains you just held your hand up and the doors would glide open like
on the spacecraft on Star Trek.

The whole experience had left me embarrassed for the US, which I'd seen as a
technological leader up to that point. I came away from that trip with an
impression that the US was very backwards in many ways. The train system and
train differences were just one glaring example, but also politically and in
many other ways the US was very backwards.

Now finally these new BART trains rolling out, some NYC trains were also
modernizing some about a decade ago, but I haven't been to Sweden or much of
the rest of Europe in a long time, and I wonder how much further they've
progressed.

~~~
hyperbovine
It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the
upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio:
about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours
drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide
superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together
as far as public transit is concerned (ha), but getting that level of service
to the US as a whole would be a totally different beast.

~~~
mhb
Is there any Ohio-sized area in the US that has a system comparable to the
Swedish one?

~~~
bobthepanda
Funnily enough, the Midwest is pretty much a spoke and hub of medium sized
metro areas focused around Chicago.

There’s the Northeast corridor (and its cousin the Southeast corridor going
down to Atlanta).

The PNW cities also are clustered like this but have difficult geography.

California and the Central Valley with the Bay and LA also meet this criteria,
but CAHSR is run by a mix of incompetents and constrained by the wording of
the ballot initiative that got it approved.

~~~
craftyguy
> The PNW cities also are clustered like this but have difficult geography.

Not really. It's pretty flat here in the Willamette valley, where the majority
of Oregon's population lives, and relatively flat going north into Washington
to Seattle... But the best we've got for long distance trains is Amtrak which
shares the tracks with commercial traffic, where Amtrak gets basically the
lowest priority on the tracks.

------
bradleybuda
> “I don’t know everything these new trains can do — they probably have
> artificial intelligence or something — but I know they’re better than these
> buckets of steel we’re sitting in,” said Board President Bevan Dufty.

Maybe this guy shouldn’t be president of the BART board? I mean, lots of other
people quoted in the article seem to know what they do.

~~~
erikpukinskis
The role of a President is NOT to set strategy or even understand it. That’s a
CEO.

The role of President is to gladhand and otherwise maintain relationships
necessary for the partners to feel safe continuing their contracts.

That kind of “aw, shucks” mentality is very useful for this.

------
tialaramex
Change Control for trains is fun, because there's lots of safety testing it
can take a lot of time for a change which is either purely cosmetic or fixes
something that has a well-understood workaround to actually make it to
production.

Several years ago the main type of train I use, Class 444 Desiro got a
firmware upgrade to teach it Selective Door Operation. Meaning now it knows
this platform is 8 carriages long, this is a ten carriage train, so disable
the doors in the rear two carriages and make an announcement automatically.
Nice. But the firmware upgrade messed up the clock. So for example maybe it's
about lunch time, the train displays 12:05 but is it actually 12:05? Nah,
might be 13:20 or 11:50. After several months they fixed the clock, but now it
is only shown intermittently. So when it says 12:05 that's definitely 12:05
but it might not remember to show the time for five minutes which is little
help.

They took months to ship firmware with a fixed clock.

The SDO change also resulted in the computer becoming convinced in certain
places that, as it annunciates, ""There is a fault with the door system, this
is being attended to. Please do not operate any emergency equipment". There
isn't a fault. But since "Ignore spurious door message" is a workaround there
is no hurry to qualify a new firmware release that fixes it.

~~~
greeneggs
The Los Angeles Metro solved the clock problem by showing the day of the week
(Monday, Tuesday, …) in a large font, with the time hidden away in a tiny font
[1]. The time is usually wrong, but nobody can read it anyway. It's been like
this for years; that photo is from 2016. Since the trains don't run on a
schedule, I guess it doesn't matter.

[1] See the top photo here [https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-
architecture/e...](https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-
architecture/everything-you-need-to-know-to-ride-the-expo-line)

------
hamandcheese
> BART gets to withhold the last 5 percent payment for the $2.5 billion fleet
> until both sets of cars hit their maintenance targets

Is it just me or does 5% not seem like nearly a large enough percent? If I
only had to hit 20% of my expected performance in exchange for 95% of my
pay... I would have a lot more hobbies.

~~~
yardie
Most of these large capital contracts leave very little money for profit
upfront. That comes from long term maintenance. If they are the lowest bidder
they are probably losing money even at 95% payout.

~~~
adrianmonk
While true, once you reach a certain point, that's all water under the bridge,
and the only question that remains is how motivating it is to pursue that last
5%.

~~~
yardie
I’m not sure about civil projects. I’m mildly familiar with commercial
construction projects. Those have milestones and due dates built in. And if
those are missed the GC doesn’t get paid until they are met. If dates are
missed they can incur penalties. This is done to ensure the GC doesn’t pull
resources off to another project.

~~~
adrianmonk
I guess it would all depend on the rules or how the contract is written.
Certainly taking care to have the right incentives in place is a good idea,
though I'm not sure it's always practiced.

------
pilif
The Swiss national train company has their own share of issues with trains
built by Bombardier. After years of delays, what was finally delivered is
horribly unreliable and passengers also don't like the shaking feeling when
they do run.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502)

Two examples doesn't make a trend, but seeing how similar the issues are,
maybe there is some systemic issue plaguing them.

~~~
slavik81
Kind of off-topic, but Bombardier was running a really terrible ad on TV in
Canada a few years back.

It featured a couple of tourists in Europe asking a lady to take a photo for
them. She purposefully waited until a train blocked the shot, so they got a
photo of the train instead of the view they wanted. She then shows them the
sabotaged photo and says something like, "I made that train! It's Bombardier."

I think the point of the ad was that they're an important exporter that
creates good jobs and that earns international recognition. It was clearly
designed for strengthening political support from the provincial and federal
governments, not for selling trains. To me, though, it just made them seem
like selfish assholes.

I wish I could find the ad, but Google just returns a mountain of news reports
and marketing videos.

------
spenrose
Most of BART’s challenges stem from 180 software packages and 30
microprocessors that make up each Bombardier vehicle. Each is a complex
symphony of systems that communicate over an Ethernet backbone. A bug in one
line of code could shut the whole thing down, requiring a rigorous safety
review process that may take months before engineers can reinstall the
software."

~~~
jgibson
Not that this makes the Bombardier problem trivial, but that seems fairly
simple compared to most cars on the road today, which have over 100 micros.
Software can be done well in complicated systems if you have the expertise,
design, time and money to get it right.

------
BurningFrog
Of course, these "unexpected" delays were expected by everyone with any
experience in Bay Area public projects.

------
trebligdivad
Manchester's Metrolink uses Bombardier M5000's (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000)
) that seem to have worked OK. But I do wonder - is there anyone other than
Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days?

~~~
yardie
> is there anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles
> these days?

Siemens, Alstom, and Mitsubishi off the top of my head. There probably is some
Chinese companies but I’m not familiar with them.

~~~
malloryerik
Also Hyundai Rotem
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Rotem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Rotem)

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travisoneill1
Why are they buying new trains instead of fixing the tracks? There are many
places on the BART system where the track have not been replaced in so long
that trains have to slow to a crawl for safety reasons. New trains don't solve
that.

~~~
bluejekyll
“In 2018, we replaced 22 miles of track, reprofiled 231.6 miles of track to
reduce railway noise, overhauled a critical track section near the West
Oakland and 12th Street Stations, and replaced five miles of 34.5 kV
electrical cable system in downtown Oakland to provide reliable power for
trains. All these improvements will collectively create a more reliable,
quieter, smoother and safer experience for our riders.”

[https://www.bart.gov/better-bart](https://www.bart.gov/better-bart)

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throwaway_17426
Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains?

It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that
there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a
password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some
programming.

For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious.

Also, this is another step toward pervasive surveillance in the public sphere.
Default-on all-angles video recording normalizes what infrastructure operators
(and their third-party contractors) are allowed to learn about you, your work,
and your life.

~~~
chrischen
1) Unless you're going from end-to-end, you're unlikely to do a 60 minute
commute on a BART

2) It turned out a lot of BART cameras were fake.
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-
ross/article/Repl...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-
ross/article/Replacing-BART-s-fake-cameras-with-real-ones-13102017.php)

3) If they got rid of cameras you'd still not be able to use your computer
during your commute because you'd almost certainly be robbed within the year
if you were to use it every day on the BART for a year. In fact, even with
cameras this will be true.

~~~
luckydata
That's complete hogwash. It is very common to commute 60 minutes, for example
looks like half the workforce at Salesforce lives in Fremont. In the morning
the train fills up right at warm springs and gets empty at embarcadero. This
legend that Bart is mostly for short rides is just that, a legend. Most people
using Bart have pretty long commute from Concord, Dublin and Fremont into the
city.

~~~
mktmkr
I don’t know if that is true or not but rider enter/exit flows are open data
provided by BART in their web site, in case anyone wants to settle the debate.

I will say that Warm Springs is one of the least-used stations so I somewhat
doubt this story of full trains departing. It only has 4400 pax/day.

~~~
luckydata
at warm springs you get about 70% of the seats filled on an old style train
and it's rapidly increasing week over week as more people start using it. At
Fremont you have every single seat occupied and several people standing. By
the time the train leaves Union City most cars are what you would consider at
capacity. After that it gets more and more uncomfortable until the pressure is
released at Embarcadero.

I also don't believe Bart's stats, the incompetence of the people running it
is so massive that everything they do is suspect in my eyes. An example:
[https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/BART-escalator-
repairs-...](https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/BART-escalator-repairs-
delayed-pigeon-14114828.php)

------
zeristor
I’ve noticed Siemens’ trains out of London have quiet electric motors, whereas
even the other new electric trains have noisy humming motors.

I believe the AC motor wave forms maybe smoothed out, I was very impressed by
it. To the UK train companies just not value it? To me it was an impressive
quality improvement. It is a detriment to all the other trains I travel on.

------
curioussavage
I really hate the new cars. Yay more standing room but now everywhere you
stand you are awkwardly in the way. So happy I’m moving out of the bay and
won’t have to ride them more than once or twice a year anymore.

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mc32
I thought BaRT had technology from either Siemens or Daimler but that was
wrong. Their rolling stock has been provided by a variety of manufacturers[1].
One thing that makes things expensive for BaRT is the choice of non-standard
gauge they are bound by. That’s not going to change.

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolling_stock)

~~~
Eopia
Daimler's rail division was acquired by Bombardier IIRC

------
erikpukinskis
The one I rode the other day felt wobbly. If that’s the trade-off for not
squealing it’s worth it though.

------
BurningFrog
(Article is from May 11)

------
samstave
Man, i wish they had included isb power or power outlets on the new cars.

~~~
ggreer
If they did, those spots on the cars would be constantly occupied by homeless
people.

~~~
samstave
They should have the entire window bank’s row of sill filled with countless
usb ports. A fucking ford f150 has like 6.

A bart train car (an electric train) should have like 50 - in Silicon fucking
Valley) - and/or a giant induction charger in the middle.

Dont give me crap about the homeless - give that to the city.

We are silicon freaking valley and if you hVe never been to any other country
with public transport we look like freaking idiots.

Sweden, japan, Singapore, china, all have severely more advanced transport
systems than we.

Bart is a pos embarrassment.

------
moreira
I think there’s a general feeling (propaganda?) that the US is a technological
leader, but... there’s nothing to support that, especially when it comes to
infrastructure. The US is really far behind other developed countries in a lot
of ways but few people in the US notice because most Americans rarely ever
look outside their culture bubble or see another country.

There are big-ass tech companies, of course, but the country itself is not
exactly a paragon of progress.

~~~
qaq
I think you are oversimplifying the issue. There are cultural differences that
influence things like that too. As priorities shift things can change. So in
US you have people living in large houses driving large cars and on average
having crappy public transport infra. In Europe you have people living in much
more modest size houses mostly driving tiny cars and often having good public
transport infra. For me European option is better cause I do not drive my wife
much prefers the US option.

~~~
pizza234
I find it scandalous the perception that anything that is not a SUV is tiny.

One of the most sold cars in Europe is the Volkswagen Golf; I don't see how
that is tiny.

Interestingly, I see that mid and large size classes (mid-size being a "large
family car") originated in USA, which makes me wonder if that's a typical
American perception.

I'd even argue that 1400+ kg for moving around an average of 1.5 person/120 kg
(I think an average of 2 people is too generous), during a time of ecological
crisis, is tragic, and in my opinion, describes perfectly how there's no hope.

~~~
frankharv
The Golf has been a compact car in the USA since the day it was delivered to
our shores in the 70's.

Are compact cars tiny? That is debatable. Compared to a 1961 Lincon
Continental with suicide doors it is very tiny.

