BART Says It Has Ironed Out Problems With New Cars, and You Can Ride ... Soonish

BART says it has unraveled two problems that delayed the debut of its new train cars and -- wait for it -- the agency could begin carrying paying passengers on its Fleet of the Future by mid-December.

The new cars suffered an embarrassing failure earlier this month with inspectors from the California Public Utilities Commission on board -- with a 10-car train deciding it was actually a three-car train and doors on seven of 10 cars refusing to open.

The agency has been subjecting the new cars to rigorous testing for more than a year. With 10 cars of the eventual 775-car fleet on hand, the agency had hoped to begin carrying passengers this week.

BART spokesman Jim Allison said Monday that the cars' manufacturer, Montreal-based Bombardier, had traced the failure to two issues: fluctuating voltage in the electrical cable connecting the 10 cars and a failed circuit board that prevented doors from opening.

Allison said the fluctuating voltage caused the train to go into a safe mode that recognized only three cars as operational.

"And so the trailing seven cars were essentially drones -- the doors wouldn't open and the train operator wasn't able to control those cars," Allison said. "That was a relatively simple fix to make with hardware."

Bombardier also found that one of two circuit boards needed for doors to open had failed on one of the cars.

"These two circuit boards that are on the train cars -- they have to match in terms of the signal that the doors are OK to open," Allison said. "So one of those boards physically failed. We replaced that board ... and then the other thing we did was a software fix, so that if a circuit board does fail, the train car searches for another circuit board farther down the train that will give it a match and therefore open the doors."

With those problems apparently fixed, BART will reschedule a test ride with inspectors from the CPUC, which regulates the state's transit agencies. The test run will take the new 10-car train through all 46 BART stations.

Paul Oversier, BART's assistant general manager for operations, told the agency's board of directors last week that "depending on any other hiccups we have," and assuming the test goes well and the CPUC gives its OK, the new cars could begin carrying paying passengers sometime between the end of November and Dec. 15. Long ago, BART talked about putting the first cars of the $2.6 billion new fleet on the rails by late 2016.

BART officials have said that once they have dealt with all bugs in the new cars -- vehicles that Allison likened to new airliners in their complexity -- that Bombardier will rapidly ramp up production.

BART recently received its 11th car, and the 12th is expected to arrive, on a flatbed truck from the Bombardier plant in Plattsburgh, New York, any day now. Another 15 cars are currently on the New York production line. The shells for two more cars, which are being fabricated at Bombardier's facility in Sahagun, Mexico, and shipped to New York, are complete. The shell for car number 30 is expected to ship in mid-December, Oversier said.