When did BART get new trains?

A New Era Begins The first of 775 new BART train cars went into service January 2018 and are ready to take you on a quieter, cooler, and more comfortable ride. The new cars will help relieve crowding on the BART system. Here are some tips to help you navigate the Fleet of the Future. Is that my train?



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Since 1972, BART's train cars have been safely and reliably carrying riders around the Bay Area.

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BART to run only new trains as the base schedule beginning September 11, 2023. BART will exclusively run Fleet of the Future trains for the base schedule as part of its reimagined schedule launch on September 11th. This change represents a big improvement in the rider experience as well as on-time performance.

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The majority of the old cars will be recycled. The Fleet Disposition Team will manage the process, including selecting which parts should be harvested from retired vehicles and choosing which cars with the highest failure rates get retired first.

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Q9: Will the new cars be faster? A: No. The new cars have a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour. To go faster than that, changes would need to be made, not only to the rail car propulsion systems, but also to other BART infrastructure.

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In celebration of BART's upcoming 50th anniversary on September 11, BART is offering a 50% discount for the entire month of September 2022. The reduced fare will be automatically deducted when using Clipper at the fare gates.

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Taking the train has long been less expensive than driving when considering bridge tolls and parking — and now it's an even more affordable option when you consider most Bay Area gas stations are charging more than $6 a gallon.

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Like most trains, BART wheels are tied together with rigid axels and no differentials. This means the wheels always rotate at the same speed, even around corners. Because the inner radius is smaller, there is less distance to travel, which can cause a slippage between the wheels and track, which is noisy.

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BART plans to launch the Fleet of the Future trains using eight-car and six-car trains but will adjust as ridership grows. Running trains with fewer cars will allow the BART Police Department (PD) to increase its visibility on trains and platforms while using the same number of staff.

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Testing has shown a drop of as many as 20 decibels in sound intensity. One way to think about the difference is if the decibel level of riding on a BART train with the old wheel profile and rail sounded like standing near a lawnmower the new system is more like being next to a dishwasher.

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BART actually has a big machine that grinds down the bumps on corrugated track, eliminating some of the noise. This explains why sometimes a portion of the BART system makes loud uuunnnhhh sounds one day and doesn't make a peep the next. You aren't crazy -- they just smoothed out the track at night.

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Seats are scrubbed with hot water and disinfectant soap during a thorough clean. BART recently increased the frequency of thorough cleans from every 900 hours of train car service to every 450 hours, meaning we've doubled the number of times the cars in our system undergo a deep clean.

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This is the deep clean -- BART's all-out, every-nook-and-cranny effort to fight back against whatever the Bay Area throws at or into these trains. Every 400 hours we come in, Burditt explained. From top to bottom. Each car takes two people and about two to three hours to complete.

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24 presentation (PDF) prepared for the board that running shorter trains will make the system safer by making it easier for police and non-uniformed personnel to patrol trains. Having denser passenger loads could also discourage “anti-social behavior,” BART says, and make it easier to keep trains clean.

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Constructed in 57 sections, and reposing on the bay floor as deep as 135 feet beneath the surface, the remarkable $180 million structure took six years of toil and seismic studies to design, and less than three years to contract.

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Average weekday ridership in October was down slightly to 171k, consistent with expected seasonal variation. Weekends saw a boost with Fleet Week and other special events. Saturday ridership, at 100,700 average exits, was 62% of pre-COVID expectations, and Sundays, at 70,900 average exits, was 63%.

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In many places, it's not much deeper than a swimming pool. In between Hayward and San Mateo, it's a mere 12 inches. Under the Golden Gate Bridge, however, the depth reaches just over 370 feet.

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