OAKLAND, Calif. — After a pause of more than a year, Bay Area Rapid Transit has resumed accepting delivery of its “Fleet of the Future” railcars, saying the manufacturer has sufficiently resolved reliability issues.
BART stopped receiving new railcars on Jan. 8, 2021 [see “Digest: BART, citing reliability issues, says it will stop accepting delivery …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 29, 2020]. In the interim, manufacturer Bombardier has been purchased by Alstom, and BART and the manufacturer “have made necessary upgrades,” according to a BART press release. “These changes, along with several software improvements, have significantly improved the overall performance of the new cars.”
As of Feb. 16, BART has received 308 of the new cars, with 293 certified for service and 219 currently in operation. Twenty-three trains of the new equipment are in service. A total of 775 cars are part of the equipment order; the first went into service in January 2018.
