From the Berkeley station brothel that got busted to the time a bunch of clowns crowded onto a train car to the bar car that never was, there’s a lot to BART’s history that’s been lost to the annals of time.

Dusting off the forgotten gems of BART lore is local historian Liam O’Donoghue, host of the podcast, East Bay Yesterday, with a live taping of a new episode featuring Mr. BART himself, longtime agency spokesman Michael Healy. The event will be held Wednesday, Oct. 9, at the Oakland Public Library’s main branch in the city’s downtown. It’s free, so show up early to ensure a seat.

The mouthpiece of BART for more than three decades, Healy not only witnessed the agency’s ups and downs first-hand, but he had a backstage pass, sitting in on the general manager’s meetings and trying to forestall publicity pitfalls before they happened. He chronicled the sometimes irreverent, sometimes surprising history of the Bay Area’s most iconic passenger railroad in his 2016 book, “BART: The Dramatic History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System.”

In many ways, the fact that most Bay Area residents take the system for granted, grumbling when the train is delayed or too packed, is proof of how indispensable it has become, O’Donoghue said. What many don’t know is just how close it came to being nothing more than an idea on a piece of paper.

“It was a tremendous feat of engineering and political willpower and fundraising to make it happen,” O’Donoghue said, adding that learning the history through Healy’s book has changed his perception of the system. “I ride through the (Transbay) Tube really differently that I did before.”

What started as the dream of a regional transit system spanning all nine Bay Area counties was eventually pared down to just five — Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa — and then to three after Marin and San Mateo counties dropped out. There were concerns in Marin about crime and development, Healy said, but the real nail in the coffin was a decision by the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District that the bridge couldn’t handle a second deck with train tracks running below cars. Without the bridge crossing, BART would have been forced to build a second tube, increasing the costs dramatically, he said.

In San Mateo County, mall owner David Bohannon influenced several supervisors to drop out of the district, Healy said, fearing it would siphon customers from his car-oriented shopping center and impact planned development along I-280. Contra Costa County nearly dropped out, too, he said, and if it had, BART would never have been built.

“It came within a gnat’s eyelash of never happening,” Healy said. “It was really that close.”

A combination of deft political maneuvering, along with a certain Flash Gordon marketing appeal, eventually turned the tides in BART’s favor, Healy said, forever changing the landscape of the Bay Area. The system’s triumphant opening day on Sept. 11, 1972 captured the attention of the nation and the world. Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav and England’s Prince Charles visited the system in its early years, along with future Governor Jerry Brown, Mohammad Ali and celebrities galore. President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat Nixon, took a ride shortly after the system opened.

“It was an ultra-modern system that pioneered new technology,” he said. “BART became a catalyst for a new world, a new renaissance in rail transportation.”

BART’s drama-filled start was far from the end of sometimes turbulent days to come, however. A fire in the Transbay Tube in 1979 that killed one firefighter marked one of the agency’s darkest days, as did the fatal shooting of a young black man at the hands of a BART police officer in early 1990s, Healy said. A brush with bankruptcy not long after the system opened and a three-month labor strike in the late 1970s tested the agency’s permanency, O’Donoghue said.

But there were also many bright spots along the way, Healy said. The system proved its resiliency after withstanding the Loma Prieta earthquake, shuttling commuters while the Bay Bridge was closed to traffic. And it’s continued to grow, he said, expanding from the initial 12 stations along 28 miles when it opened in 1972 to 48 stations spanning 122 miles of tracks today, with two more stations and 10 more miles to be added once the Milpitas and Berryessa stations open later this year.

Love it or love to hate it, BART has continued to capture the public’s attention and imagination, luring movie maker Steven Spielberg and cartoon creators Matt Groening of The Simpsons to come knocking, even if the agency ultimately turned down offers for screen time, Healy said.

“It’s kind of amazing,” O’Donoghue said, “BART has to exist. The Bay Area would grind to a halt without it.”

If you go:

When: Wednesday, Oct. 9

Time: 6 p.m.

Where: Oakland Public Library, 125 14th Street

How much: Free

Our tip: Arrive early to secure a seat