OAKLAND, Calif. — A computer network failure set in motion the events leading to the New Year’s Day derailment and fire involving a Bay Area Rapid Transit train, BART’s board of directors was told at a Thursday meeting.
Nine people were injured in the incident in the East Bay between the Orinda and Lafayette stations [see “Nine injured as BART train derails,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 1, 2024], which saw two cars catch fire after derailing.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Shane Edwards, BART assistant general manager for operations, said a “field interface protocol failure” meant BART’s operations control center was unable to remotely control the interlocking between the two stations, requiring the train operator to leave the train to manually align a switch. The operator reported having properly aligned the track, but control center was unable to tell if that was correct. BART subsequently reported that the train initially started onto the wrong track, and that the derailment occurred while the train was reversing directions to correct that error [see “BART train briefly head on to wrong track …,” News Wire, Jan. 5, 2024].
Edwards told the BART board the damage at the derailment scene was far less than it could have been because the track had been replaced within the last three years. Otherwise, he said, “The existing infrastructure probably would have been completely destroyed. As it turns out, the damage in this case, although it looked catastrophic, was quite minimal.”
The California Public Utilities Commission is investigating the incident.
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