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The Student News Site of San Francisco State University

Golden Gate Xpress

The Student News Site of San Francisco State University

Golden Gate Xpress

BART power outage stalls trains for hours

Photo+by+Eric+Fischer+via+Flikr.+
Photo by Eric Fischer via Flikr.

BART resumed service after a computer glitch prompted a system-wide power outage Saturday morning, halting all trains for hours until power was restored.

BART released a statement on their website saying the power was down at 5:42 a.m. Stations reopened by 9:09 a.m., but provided limited train options, forcing passengers traveling between Daly City and Millbrae to take a shuttle bus. Service to San Francisco International Airport was suspended completely.

Cassandra Gonzalez, a 4th-year childhood and adolescent development (CAD) major said she usually drives her friend Ana Medina, 5th-year CAD major, from the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland to SF State for class.

Medina relies on BART to get to Fruitvale from Hayward, but due to suspended train operations her dad had to drive her all the way from Hayward to Fruitvale so Gonzalez could pick her up.

“It was very inconvenient because I was going to miss class,” Medina said. She got to the BART station at 7:20 a.m only to find it closed.

“I went to the BART website to see why BART was closed but they had nothing on there,” Medina said.

BART posted on Twitter at 6:05 a.m. alerting passengers. According to a BART release, the agency failed to put out alerts earlier due to the technical issues.

The shutdown occurred after BART workers in Oakland encountered problems overnight with BART’s traction power supply. Traction power funnels energy to the trains and controls the routing systems that determine a train’s path and orientation.

The power loss followed a network failure at 2:45 a.m. BART said in their release that it will perform an analysis over the next several days to determine the cause of the power outage.

Maintenance scheduled earlier at Richmond Station will continue, causing possible 5-10 minute delays.

For alternate routes when select trains are down, BART recommends travelers use the trip planner at bart.gov.

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BART power outage stalls trains for hours