Things don't happen fast when it comes to San Francisco's public transit systems. And in the case of Muni, that means a train-control apparatus that was installed in 1998 — and sounds like it might have been almost outdated even then — is finally going to get an update. But it will take a decade.

Yes, the SFMTA has approved a first contract for an engineering consulting firm to work on updating the digital backbone of the Muni light-rail train-control system. As the Chronicle reports from an SFMTA board meeting Tuesday, this first step in a project that's estimated to cost $700 million was a $30 million contract awarded to SF-based engineering firm PGH Wong, a firm that has previously worked with BART (an agency that also, infamously, was recently running on a decades-old computer system).

Dan Howard, the SFMTA's project manager for this undertaking, told the board that the agency has "received notifications from our supplier that there’s certain parts that we can no longer obtain," as the Chronicle reports.

The impending total obselescence of the train-control system has prompted the cash-strapped agency to act, and this seems to come with the warning that, until a new system can be installed, perhaps a decade from now, there will be an increased probability of train delays and system failures. So that's fun.

As it stands, the SFMTA is sourcing parts from other transit agencies and from eBay.

The train-control system has multiple components, including train-locating mechanisms at street level and in tunnels, and on-board computers on the trains that connect to the system so the trains run on autopilot while in the tunnels. The control system is responsible for maintaining even distances between the trains, and maintaining their speeds while underground. Operators take over control when the trains go above ground.

"The Automatic Train Control System is designed to communicate with Muni Metro trains along loop cable signal wires — a type of wireless technology from the 1980s," the SFMTA explains on the project's homepage. "This technology transmits data slower than a dial up modem and has less power than a modern cell phone."

They say the upgraded system will include computing technology that is "several generations ahead of the ones they replace and so the system would benefit from a quantum leap in computing power, data transmission rates and data storage capacity."

We should note that San Francisco would be the first major transit agency in the country to udpate its train-control system. Only the cities of Vancouver and London have take on such a project in recent years.

In April, ABC 7 reported on the antiquated Muni control system, which involves three-and-a-half inch floppy disks that get loaded into computers each day (the station called them five-inch floppy disks, but they appear to be these, which were commonly in use in 1998, not these).

In 2016, CNN reported that the US nuclear program is also still running on floppy-disk technology.

As another person on the train-control project, Mariana Maguire, told ABC 7, "The floppy disk is one component of one system. The system that automatically controls our trains inside the subway. But our metro system that operates citywide has many components to it."

This antiquated, pre-internet system got a shout-out the other week during that CrowdStrike meltdown that took out United Airlines and Delta's systems — a spokesperson from the SFMTA told the New York Times that Muni was running just fine that day, and "Long live floppy disks, I guess!"

SFMTA Chief Jeffrey Tumlin told ABC 7 that the 1998-era system was meant to last 20 to 25 years, so they are already behind on this project, which he estimates will take ten years to complete.

"This is effectively a multi-phase decade long project that starts with pieces of the Market Street subway and pieces in the surface," Tumlin told the station. "Ultimately our goal is to have a single train control system for the entire rail system."

The agency is hoping to offset much of the $700 million pricetag with state and federal grants. Those would be nice, given the SFMTA's projected $214 million deficit in the next budget cycle.

Construction on the new system is now scheduled to begin in 2027, and the SFMTA is hoping the SF Board of Supervisors will approve the first consultant contract by this fall. The design phase of the project is set to begin in early 2025.

Read more about the train-control system upgrade project here, on the SFMTA project page.