The Oakland Airport Connector

[lpetrich]

Tom Dunscombe - YouTube has some project-update videos. The most recent one was a month ago.

In that one, you can see a bogie at 0:36. Its four load-bearing wheels are rubber-tired, and it has four smaller positioning wheels with vertical axles. You can see some cable stringing at 1:09, and a trackwork car at 1:27. At 1:32 is the rails and cables up close. The rails are I-beams in the "I" position. The viaduct spans are all box girders - no concrete beams - though the piers are concrete.

Starting at 0:56 is an overpass between the Coliseum BART station and the Coliseum OAC station.

In the September 2013 one, you can see inside the wheelhouse at 0:55 - that's for moving the cables. At 1:26 is apparently a track switch, though not a very clear view of one. At 1:52 is where the two viaduct tracks converge onto a single station track at the BART end.

These two videos also show some of the railcars under construction.

[lpetrich]

As of last December, that overpass is still on the ground next to BART's viaduct. It looks like access to the OAC at BART's end will only be through the BART station.

[modorney]

Here's a video of the first car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJbf2-v ... e=youtu.be

WMATA Reston - May 2014
NYC 7 Line Extension - June 2014
OAK Airport Funicular - Oct 2014
Dallas DFW LRT - Dec 2014
PATH Calatrava Station - March 2015
10 New BART Cars (testing) - 2015
Warm Springs BART - Late 2015
Phoenix LRT Extension - Dec 2015
Irvington BART - 2015+ ??
E-BART (Antioch DMU) -2016
Dallas S. Oak Cliff - 2016
LA Extensions - 2016
Second Avenue Subway - Dec 2016
Berryessa BART 2017
Transbay Terminal - Aug 2017
Fresno-Bakersfield HSR - 2017
London Crossrail -2018
London Thameslink Upgrade - 2018
WMATA Dulles - June 2018
MBTA Somerville - June 2019
Brussels S-Bahn - 2019
SF Central Subway - 2019
NYC East Side Access - 2019
Honolulu LRT - 2019
Livermore BART - 2020

[lpetrich]

Strictly speaking, the OAC isn't a funicular, since the system's slopes are not very steep and since the railcars are not in pairs that counterbalance each other. Angels Flight in Los Angeles is a funicular, however.

But it's a nice video. At 0:27, you can see where the wheels go on the tracks. The big load-bearing wheels on top, and the vertical-axle positioners on the inner side. The railcars are three-segment articulated ones, with its four bogies near the ends and under the articulations.

Test train for BART Oakland airport connector unveiled - ContraCostaTimes.com
BART to begin testing Oakland Airport Connector | Railway Track & Structures
The system will have four railcars, and all four of them should be present by this spring. Each one should hold as many as 150 people, and travel at 30 mph. Their travel time should be 9 minutes as opposed to 20 or 25 minutes by AirBART bus under good conditions. The system should open by fall.

[lpetrich]

From SFBART (SFBART) on Twitter:

OAC railcar being tested: Ow.ly - image uploaded by @SFBART

[lpetrich]

BART Board sets fares for BART to Oakland International Airport service | bart.gov
First BART to Oakland International Airport Vehicle Run - YouTube

They have decided on $6 between the Coliseum station and Oakland Airport, in addition to whatever one paid to travel between the Coliseum station and elsewhere in the BART system.

That video claimed speeds of 14, 15, 16 m/s ~ 50, 54, 58 km/h ~ 31, 34, 36 mph. Not as fast as BART's main trains, but likely faster than the AirBART bus and certainly less obstructed.

They are now expecting the system to open sometime this fall.

[gprimr1]

I saw the tracks for this during my recent visit to Oakland. Very excited to see Oakland opened up by means other than bus.

[modorney]

Loren - yeah, it's technically not a funicular, it's got funi (rope), but no "cular" (circulation, meaning permanently connected cars.)

My high school, back in Massachusetts, wanted to build one of these in the late 1940's. A 1.2 mile link between the downtown high school and a huge athletic complex on the edge of town. A Doppelmayr salesman showed me his quote book and the system was still listed.

I would have preferred that BART rebuilt the Coliseum Station to side platforms (better for crowds on game days) and used a single track of conventional BART technology. A few extra sidings would allow for a storage area for game trains.

The fare pricing model is somewhat inelastic, and the BART board set the fare at $6. The argument was that the line will lose $7 or 8 million a year, with daily ridership starting around 2745 passengers. With less than a million passengers a year, this line would be the most subsidized BART line, with a farebox recovery around 40 or 45 percent. In theory, the rest of the rider's trip would offset that subsidy somewhat. Between the bikes and the luggage, those 3 car trains between Fremont an Richmond aren't going to cut it, and a four car minimum is needed.

http://transbayblog.com/2014/04/23/how- ... l-outlook/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

WMATA Reston - 26 July 2014
Tasman VTA Pocket Track - Aug 2014
Dallas DFW LRT - 18 Aug 2014
Wright Amendment Expires - 13 Oct 14
OAK Airport CABLE Liner (OAC) - Oct 2014
NYC 7 Line Extension - Nov 2014
PATH Calatrava Station - March 2015
10 New BART Cars (testing) - 2015
Warm Springs BART - Late 2015
Phoenix LRT Extension - Dec 2015
Irvington BART - 2015+ ??
E-BART (Antioch DMU) -2016
Dallas S. Oak Cliff - 2016
LA Extensions - 2016
Second Avenue Subway - Dec 2016
Berryessa BART 2017
Transbay Terminal - Aug 2017
Fresno-Bakersfield HSR - 2017
London Crossrail -2018
London Thameslink Upgrade - 2018
WMATA Dulles - June 2018
MBTA Somerville - June 2019
Brussels S-Bahn - 2019
SF Central Subway - 2019
NYC East Side Access - 2019
Honolulu LRT - 2019
Livermore BART - 2020

[lpetrich]

BART’s Oakland Airport Connector Passes Crucial Test | KQED News Fix

BART’s Oakland Airport Connector has reached a new milestone this week: A train completed its first fully automated loop around the system from the Coliseum station to airport terminals.

Its fare will be $6, about twice that of the existing AirBART bus ($3).

BART Plans to Open Oakland Airport Connector by Thanksgiving Holiday | NBC Bay Area
It will run about every 5 minutes and make the trip in about 12 minutes. Because of traffic, the AirBART bus can take as long as 20 minutes.

[lpetrich]

BART to OAK service to open in time for Thanksgiving travel | bart.gov -- Friday, November 22.

Their planned schedule is:
Weekdays 5 am - 6 am: every 20 min
Wkdys, Saturdays 6 am - 8 am: every 10 min
All days 8 am - 8 pm: every 5 min
All days 8 pm - 10 pm: every 10 min
All days 10 pm - midnight: every 20 min

[lpetrich]

Oops, November 22 is today, Saturday, not yesterday, Friday. BART’s Oakland Airport Connector ready to roll - SFGate contains some pictures of the system, as does BART to OAK service opens in time for Thanksgiving travel | bart.gov (BART's site). Checking there reveals that the the OAC is indeed running.

Some artwork at each end.
Coliseum: ▶ Around Oakland: Color and Beauty - YouTube
Airport: ▶ Periodic Motion - YouTube

Some of the cable mechanisms are shown in ▶ BART to OAK Preview - YouTube

BART even has some how-to-use videos: ▶ BART to OAK: To Coliseum Station - YouTube, ▶ BART to OAK: To Oakland International Airport - YouTube

From BART's channel BARTable - YouTube. Also see Tom Dunscombe - YouTube for more:

▶ BART to OAK Project Update June 2014 - YouTube, stations nearly done, ▶ BART to Oakland Airport - September 2014 Update - YouTube, final testing, ▶ BART to Oakland Airport - YouTube, from the airport to the Coliseum station.

The stations are single-track, while the line is double-track. There is a switch just outside the station for selecting which line track. The switch is more like a typical monorail switch than a typical railroad switch. It has four rails whose station end is moved past the two station rails. Also, at a station, the railcar ungrips one cable and grips the other, presumably to switch from incoming cable to outgoing cable.

There are BART faregates at the OAC"s Coliseum station, accessed from some stairs and an overpass from the BART Coliseum station platform. However, there seem to be no faregates at the airport station.

The narrator of the how-to-use videos pronounced the Oakland airport's abbreviation O-A-K, rather than the name of the tree.

[lpetrich]

No Ticket Needed To Ride: How To Navigate BART’s New Oakland Airport Connector « CBS San Francisco shows a poster of the system that's credited to BART, though I could not find a copy of it at BART's site. It's a nice schematic sort of diagram, showing the single/double tracking and where the faregates are -- only at the Coliseum end. The only access at that end is apparently through the regular BART station.

BART’s Oakland Airport shuttle gets rave reviews - SFGate

BART’s new Oakland airport service got off to a wet start Saturday — with crews forced to squeegee off rain that had blown in and flooded the airport station platform — but nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of its jubilant first-day riders.

It takes 8 minutes, faster than the AirBART bus and with a much less bumpy ride.

BART rolls out $484 million Oakland Airport connector (Video) - San Francisco Business Times has more details, like its fare being $6 instead of AirBART's $3. It also showed some more video, and one can see the system's screen doors at the platforms.