It could take months before BART can begin accepting new Fleet of the Future cars again.
The delivery is on hold right now as the agency’s manufacturer works to improve reliability. BART paused the delivery of new train cars earlier this month for two reasons, according to Spokesperson Jim Allison.
"Number one is to give the manufacturer time to make some changes that we hope will improve the reliability of the cars," he explained. "Also, to alleviate rail car storage constraints we have at our maintenance yard."
The new cars have had problems with an automatic train control system.
"That requires the train operator to reboot the system and that can cause a five to 10-minute delay, so this is a software problem that we hope can be fixed," Allison said.
When the cars are stopped under wet or rainy conditions, another concern is that the wheels can develop flat spots, meaning BART would have to remove those cars out of service to change out the wheels.
"We’re just giving the manufacturer time to fix those problems," he added. "We’re going to keep the cars we have now. There’s not any kind of safety issue with them."
So far, about 280 cars have been delivered out of 775 and 17 new trains are in service. It could take BART up to six months to fully operate the new fleet.
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