BART officials say that an initial assessment of Tuesday’s partial train derailment in Concord shows that heat played the “main role” in the event after excessive temperatures on Tuesday caused a curve in the track.
Approximately 50 passengers were safely evacuated when the 10-car train derailed near Hastings Drive and David Avenue, Contra Costa Fire reported at 6:27 p.m.
A small number of passengers reported minor injuries, Con Fire said.
Con Fire was on the scene to extinguish spot fires.
Due to the downed BART service between Pleasant Hill and Concord, Contra Costa County buses numbers 11 and 14 are available between Pleasant Hill and Concord stations, and will accept BART tickets as fare, a spokesperson for BART said.
BART reps said that it will remain closed this evening between Pleasant Hill and Concord but they anticipate returning to single-tracking at a minimum on Wednesday.
Crews will remain through the night to remove the train and then cut out the damaged track and replace it, BART said.
24 comments
What a load of complete anti science crap. Anyone going along with this is brain dead. Climate change hoax 100%. I can even believe someone had the nerve to say this. This is what testing the population with masks was all about. They thought we were dumb, now they know..
No one said climate change had anything to do with it except the clueless people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Heat damage to steel rails is a real thing. The sensors on board the train worked perfectly which brought the train to a stop just as it is supposed to do.
Isn’t this the stretch of track that was being worked on for a long period of time? Trains were single tracking on the weekends.
Heat played a role.
I hope we hear a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
I believe it was so hot that the track may have melted.
Poor engineering at best. Guess BART would never survive in Arizona.
BART didn’t have to go to Arizona. Arizona came to BART! The system was designed in the 1960’s and built in the 1970’s, before global warming increased exponentially as result of all the greenhouses gases and other compounds humans spew into the atmosphere. We’re like the bacteria in grape juice at the wineries, consuming the sweet sugar, reproducing without constraint, and releasing ethanol, the toxic byproduct that will eventually kill them off. That’s right! We’re as dumb as bacteria.
Global warming derails trains. Pete Buttigieg would be so proud.
I am very concerned this might also have an effect on Newsom’s Merced to Bakersfield Cannonball Diesel train. Yes, his low speed high pollution diesel train to the least desirable city in California uses the same rail design. Newsom’s Choo Choo further pollutes driving climate change and therefore contributes to its own possible derailment. Wow, that seems like an accident waiting to happen.
@Phil You’re joking, right? Being mostly German, I often can’t tell if people are joking.
I see all the Railroad experts are chiming in. “Heat Kink” is an absolutely real occurrence when extreme temperatures and sun contact steel rails.
Go to a search engine and type in “heat kink rail”.
You’ll find plenty of stories of similar events all over the country, and the world.
Right? It blows my mind how many of these experts continue to spout off stupid stuff when they clearly don’t know what they are talking about. People just like to stir up trouble! Idiots!
Lots of this stuff is just common sense. It’s amazing that since BART actually goes under the bay, they don’t have requirements for lifeboats and flotation devices.
Hey Bill, how come the track didn’t kink in those 115 degree summers we had back in the 1980s? And no one blamed global warming then.
Is this a joke? The 100 degree heat played the “main role”? What about all the rail laid in deserts?
It’s Putin’s fault.
It’s called heat Kink, pretty common in railroads when it’s hot. The rails get so hot causes them to expand and distorts and distorts the track, happens all the time…… In Arizona too, everywhere where it gets hot
an old neighbor works for union pacific. told me it is their routine to have trains reduce speed and they check the rails when temperatures exceeded 90 degrees…. this would be his sole purpose at times for days and weeks on end…. said the overtime pay was great !
BART???????
Is this like a partial pregnancy?
Or maybe the train identifies as being fully ontracked……anyone suggesting otherwise is a hateful bigot.
If one rail out of thousands warps it wasn’t installed properly.
Too wet, too cold, too dry, too hot. There’s always an excuse instead of admitting that maintenance and/or design engineering at at-fault.
Sounds like a train system only Goldilocks could love.
It’s either Trump’s or Putin’s fault…
Ho hum. Keep moving, nothing to see here. The BART tracks getting hot and misaligning has been going on the whole 20+ years I have been here.Yes they get soft – sort of melting when temps get over 100. There are stretches where the train is going 15mph or so to avoid derailing. Its not new. BART has chosen to not fix it
A comforting thought to ponder while speeding along on those high overpasses.
Of course. Climate change caused derailment. BEE-ESS!
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