BART officials ratchet up effort to solve mystery power surges

A BART train runs along Highway 4 between the Pittsburg-Bay Point and North Concord stations on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Concord, Calif. Transit officials said they haven't pinpointed a "root cause" for a track power-surge problem that halted service between the two stations starting last week. less A BART train runs along Highway 4 between the Pittsburg-Bay Point and North Concord stations on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Concord, Calif. Transit officials said they haven't pinpointed a "root cause" for a ... more Photo: NOAH BERGER / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Photo: NOAH BERGER / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close BART officials ratchet up effort to solve mystery power surges 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

Frustrated BART officials, still unable to pinpoint — and fix — the cause of train-damaging electrical surges, appointed a team of experts Thursday to delve into the problem even as they stopped using a bus bridge and took steps to restore direct service to the end-of-the-line Pittsburg/Bay Point Station.

Since March 16, when the mystery surge began zapping trains north of the North Concord/Martinez Station, BART engineers and three expert consultants have engaged in an exhaustive, but unsuccessful, search for the cause.

Assistant General Manager Paul Oversier said at a BART Board of Directors meeting Thursday that it was time for a fresh set of eyes to focus solely on the power spike problem until it is resolved. Six to seven BART managers, with different areas of technical expertise, will be pulled from their usual jobs and given all the resources they need, inside and outside BART, to find the gremlin causing the surges, Oversier said.

“We had to try something different,” he said.

BART’s investigation has determined that the power surges occur in nanoseconds. They happen all over the system on a weekly basis, Oversier said, but are usually quickly resolved. The problem of persistent spikes surfaced about three weeks ago when a concentration near the West Oakland Station knocked 80 cars out of service before the problem disappeared.

Crippling power surges

As BART officials tried to sleuth out that problem, the North Concord situation arose. The mysterious power spikes knocked 50 rail cars out of service and forced BART to stop running trains between the North Concord and Pittsburg/ Bay Point stations for five days.

Since then, the 6,500 passengers who use the station on weekdays have had to rely on a bus bridge or, as of Monday, shuttle trains during the morning and evening commutes. BART officials increased the frequency of the shuttle trains Wednesday to every 10 minutes and on Thursday extended them to all-day service, halting the bus bridge.

The agency is able to run shuttle trains but not direct service because the shuttles are made up of types of rail cars that have resisted damage from voltage spikes. Passengers must transfer at North Concord Station because the train moves only between the two stations.

BART is working on plans to restore direct service to the Pittsburg/Bay Point Station, Oversier said, by using only rail cars that are less susceptible to being damaged by the surges. Significant damage has been largely limited to BART’s C cars, a type of car that can run in the middle, front or back of the train. Removing those cars from the Pittsburg/Bay Point line would require reconfiguring where BART stores and dispatches its trains. Once a plan is ready, Oversier said, it could take days to shuffle the rail cars into place.

Directors grilled Oversier on the details of the investigation, and an angry Director Joel Keller, who represents most of the commuters affected by the problem, demanded direct service be restored immediately. Keller said he feared the shuttle train arrangement would become permanent.

“This is not what people are used to, not what they were guaranteed for the last 20 years,” he said, referring to the opening of the extension. “I will not let this issue go unnoticed. ... We have to find a way to restore service.”

Questions about new cars

Directors also had plenty of questions about whether BART’s new rail cars, under assembly in Plattsburgh, N.Y., will be delivered promptly. The first test car to arrive at the Hayward yard last week was a year behind schedule, and the next 259 are expected to arrive about five months later than anticipated. But directors were most concerned over the financial problems of Bombardier, the Canadian company manufacturing the new trains.

The company recently received a bailout from the Canadian government and has missed car delivery deadlines in New York City and Toronto. But John Garnham, the project manager for the new rail cars, said Bombardier has sped up its production schedule and will be able to deliver most of the cars on time. The BART car delays, he said, were due to changes decided upon after testing, and not financial problems.

The first car, and nine more test cars, will be run on a test track and occasionally after service stops over the next six months. If no problems arise, the new 10-car train will start hauling passengers around the system in a final test before the production line gets cranked up.

“If everything goes well, a new 10-car train will be carrying passengers around the system by the end of the year,” said spokeswoman Alicia Trost.

Michael Cabanatuan and Hamed Aleaziz are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan, @haleaziz