Update on New BART Cars from Bombardier

[R36 Combine Coach]

Will the older cars be phased by age (the A/Bs from early 1970s first) or the C units first?

[lpetrich]

I have no idea. Many of BART's railcars have been refurbished over the years, but I don't know how much difference that will make.

A big reason for getting the new ones is the difficulty of finding spare parts for the existing ones -- many of them have gone out of production over the 45 to 50 years since the oldest cars were built.

[Fan Railer]

C cars should be going first, as they have never been overhauled.

On a different note, does anyone know the fleet numbering for the new cars?

[csor2010]

C cars should be going first, as they have never been overhauled.

On a different note, does anyone know the fleet numbering for the new cars?

As far as I know, 3000 series for the D (cab) cars and 4000 series for the E (cabless) cars.

[lpetrich]

2 New BART Cars Go Out Of Service - YouTube -- because of some unstated problems with them.

Some people grumbled about the lack of Wi-Fi, but it apparently isn't installed yet.

New BART train at Ashby Station 01/24/2018 - YouTube
I rode the new BART train! - YouTube
and several other videos there. I see it, therefore I believe it. :D

[YOLO]

Did anyone figure out the make and model of the propulsion engine? Sounds very similar to the WMATA 1000 trains.

[tommyboy6181]

Did anyone figure out the make and model of the propulsion engine? Sounds very similar to the WMATA 1000 trains.

It's a Bombardier MITRAC system as the Bombardier site has confirmed this in the past. BART likely has a variant of the MITRAC DR1200 series motor combined with a variant of the MITRAC TC-1410 or TC-1420 IGBT inverter module. They definitely use the MITRAC TCMS for the monitoring system. Now what BART has is not the only system that has a similar sound. Usually most of the propulsion motors/inverters rated at 1000VDC or above will have the higher pitched whine.

Examples of other Bombardier systems sounding similar are below:
Shenzhen Metro (1500VDC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ef_VAhzzE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Guangzhou Metro (1500VDC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki78NHPcT4U&t=1s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Rome Metro (1500VDC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdEockO0mb8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Madrid Metro (1500VDC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVnidJwDC-E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
BART (1000VDC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE5OaurgBeY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The one thing I noticed between all of them is that BART is slightly lower in pitch running 1000 volts of current compared to the other systems running 1500 volts.