A Couple of Things I was Surprised to See on BART ~ Saturday, May 19, 2012

The first was the internal combustion-equipment on an electric railroad. But I guess that's not so surprising, since work equipment needs to run when the power's out, for safety. But what's in the background is more surprising--a turntable. A turntable seems rather retro for as modern a system as BART, but they do have single-ended cab cars and I suppose they need to be turned once in a while. Note that there's no 3rd rail on the turntable, so some of those internal-combution work trains would need to shove them on and off.

This is at Colma, where BART has some maintenance facilities--actually their only shops on the west (SF) side of the bay. Earlier, on the train we saw this sticker, proudly identifying their work:

(At least that's what I'm assuming since Daly City is right next to Colma). We've seen similar stickers for the Concord shops, which I've posted before, and now Daly City and Richmond are getting into the act (still have to get a picture of the Richmod sticker); I bet Fremont will follow suit soon.

Here's a bit of the shops. There's a lot more to it than I'm showing, but it's hard to get a clear view from outside--although you pass right by it on the train.