For no apparent reason that the BART folks can give, a SF-bound BART train conked out and stopped in the middle of the Transbay Tube at about 8:25 this morning, leaving a lot of frustrated commuters jammed together while the train operator walked to the back of the train, switched the thing to manual mode, and drove it back to West Oakland Station. Needless to say there were residual delays from then on throughout the system.
Delays ranged from 10 to 20 minutes, and trains were single-tracking through the tube while the disabled train was moved and emptied.
At least one person caught in the delays reported a "burning" smell in the tunnel.
Below, some of the sad Twitter evidence from stuck commuters.
A stall in Transbay Tube has @SFBART experiencing delays as long as a half hour. http://t.co/N3V8AMyZoU
— Rick Hurd (@3rdERH) August 14, 2013
Why does @sfbart continue to operate a system with such susceptibility to a single point of failure? Stop the extensions & build a 2nd tube!
— Daniel Diiulio (@checkereddan) August 14, 2013
Right. My Bart commute was really missing that 30min delay and smell of burning in the tube.
— KC (@KdotCdot) August 14, 2013
I think I will spend as much time on Bart as I do at work by the end of my lifetime #bartfail
— haley wilkerson (@heyitshaley) August 14, 2013
