Bay Area commuters are doubtlessly wondering why they didn't just "work from home" today, after a fire on BART's tracks halted travel for two hours this morning, and left the transit agency with delays expected to continue all day.

The misery began at around 4:45 this morning, when BART reported one of their ubiquitous "equipment problem"s on the trackway near the 24th Street Station in San Francisco.

The problem, according to CBS 5, was that "a bad insulator, one of the pieces of equipment that powers the third rail, failed and caused a small fire."

The fire stopped BART trains literally in their tracks, with no passage through the smoky area and service south of the station (including all eastbound travel from 24th Street on) halted.

The San Francisco Fire Department extinguished the blaze, and "trains were once again running south of the 24th Street Station by 6:50 a.m. but were single-tracking from 24th Street to Daly City," the Chron reports, making for a slow — but, at last, moving — commute.

According to the Chron, damage to BART's “automatic train control system" means that the transit agency will continue to single track through the area all day Friday. KQED reports that this should slow the average BART trip through the area down by six to eight minutes, so plan accordingly.

BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby says that BART should be back to their usual standard of excellence Saturday, however, as "damage to the automatic train control system at Balboa Park will be repaired overnight."