Current System
BART revenue routes total 104 miles (167 km) with 44 stations. The system uses a 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) Indian gauge and ballastless track, as opposed to the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge and railroad ties predominantly found in railroad systems in the United States. As a result, all maintenance and support equipment must be custom built. BART was the first systemwide deployment of ballastless track by a railway.
Trains can achieve a centrally controlled maximum speed of 80 mph (130 km/h) (although governed at 66 to 70 mph (106 to 110 km/h) to reduce wear and tear on equipment and track in order to keep maintenance costs lower) and provide a system-wide average speed of 33 mph (53 km/h) with twenty-second station stopping times (dwell times). Trains operate at a minimum length of three cars to a maximum length of 10 cars, spanning the entire 700 feet (213 m) length of a platform. At its maximum length of 710 feet (216 m), BART has the longest trains of any metro system in the United States. The system also features car widths of 10.5 feet (3.2 m) (the same width as a Budd Metroliner), a maximum gradient of four percent, and a minimum curve radius of 394 feet (120 m) on the main lines .
Electric current is delivered to the trains over a third rail. Inside stations, the third rail is always on the side away from the passenger platform, except the middle platform at the San Francisco International Airport station. This reduces the danger of a passenger either falling on the third rail, or stepping onto it to climb back to the platform after falling off. On ground-level tracks the third rail alternates from one side of the track to the other, providing breaks in the third rail to allow for emergency evacuations.
Underground tunnels, aerial structures and the Transbay Tube have evacuation walkways and passageways to allow for train evacuation without exposing passengers to contact with the third rail, which is located as far away from these walkways as possible. The voltage on the steel third rail is 1000 volts DC.
Many of the original system 1970s-era BART stations, especially the aerial stations, feature simple, Brutalist architecture, while the newer stations tend to be a mix of Neomodern and Postmodern architecture.
Read more about this topic: Bay Area Rapid Transit
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