Adventures in transbay tube on BART

Updated (again) @ 5:15pm - finally arrived at Lafayette. On the platform were several BART police and handcuffed were 3 individuals who were being questioned. As I exited BART, I saw 5 police cars (with 1 more arriving). I guess it was pretty significant. Here is a surreal iPhone snap of one of the cars (just for some color). The police were out in force around the station as well. As I was driving down the road, there were 2 more police cars that had pulled over people. Nice to be home!

Updated @ 5:00pm - guess I spoke too soon. As soon as I got to Orinda, they stopped the train and said that they were holding trains duree to “a police activity” at Lafayette station (MY station). Wonder what that is all about. THEN, the train operator came back on and said that he had to power down the train to “restart it” to resolve a break issues (oh great!). The “reboot” didn’t help so he did a walk through of the train to investigate. We are now moving. I just want to go home!!!!

On BART ride home, I had interesting experience. First, I was checking the BART status using their new wireless web page. There are actually two good services: Status Update and Estimated Arrival Times. All of these are available at http://www.bart.gov/wireless. The updates said there were delays up to 45 minutes.

Well, when I boarded my train at Embarcadero Station, joining me was a group of BART personnel. The overhead train announcements said that there was “an object on the track in the transbay tube.” So, what they had to do was to stop my car in the middle of the transbay tube, power down the train so that BART personnel could remove debris, and exit the train to get the object. They did this fairly quickly. I heard them saying that they put the “object” in the “cross passage hallway.” Mission accomplished!

I would think bringing it onto the train would have been better, simply because the speed with which the trains go through the tube causes quite a wind-tunnel effect. I would imagine that if something were not tied down, it might get sucked back on the tracks over time causing the issue all over again.This was a planned event by BART. I am in first car and there were many BART employees here “doing their job.”

Guess it could have been worse. I could have been in the train where the object was hit. There are other issues on the BART system today due to the crazy storms that have hit the Bay Area. There were reports of BART trains hitting trees, thus delaying service while they were removed.

I’m glad to say that as of this writing (writing wirelessly with my high-speed Verizon card), that I’m out of the tube and we are moving on.

HTD says: Glad to get through these “little” BART adventures!

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