Nearly 24 hours after a BART train derailed in the East Bay, crews are still working on repairs and figuring out exactly what happened.
The incident happened between Concord and Pleasant Hill Tuesday and on Wednesday, trains were back moving on the yellow line but with some delays, forcing some riders to choose alternative routes.
“It's not safe, of course, it's not safe, regardless if it is just the next stop,” said BART commuter Moises Negrete. “I have an interview at 1, I will probably just take the bus instead.”
As repair crews work to replace the damaged rail, BART ran a single-track service between the two stations in both directions causing trains to briefly stall in Concord, and leaving some commuters confused
“They didn’t tell us anything,” said BART commuter Patrick Gomez. “We have just been waiting here for like 10 minutes.”
BART suspects heat is to blame for the derailment. While the tracks are treated to withstand heat, it’s not designed to exceed more than 115 degrees.
Tuesday’s triple-digit temps spiked the rails’ temperature to over 140 degrees.
“Whenever that temperature gets more than 20 degrees above that neutral temperature of the rail that opens the possibility that the rail could misalign,” said Chris Philippi, BART spokesperson. “It appears that may have happened in this case.”
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Philippi said they have a control system monitoring the heat to prevent this from happening again.
They’re also looking at slowing down trains as a precaution. Something frustrated commuters didn’t want to hear.
“It kind of sucks, it's inconvenient, a lot of us need to get to work,” said BART commuter Demetrius Semien.
Both national and state agencies are looking into the derailment. BART says it’s unclear when the tracks will fully reopen.
