Electrical fire at BART substation disrupts Richmond line service

What happened

BART officials said an electrical fire at one of the transit agency's substations caused a loss of power on the tracks and led BART to suspend service between Downtown Berkeley and Richmond stations, near Berkeley, California. By the time of the report, service had resumed between El Cerrito del Norte and Richmond stations, and work was continuing to restore service between El Cerrito del Norte and Downtown Berkeley. BART said it would look closely at what happened and check the infrastructure and repairs. The report does not give the date of the fire, its cause, the substation's identity or the time full service was restored.

Contributing factors

BART described an electrical supply issue and an electrical fire at one of its substations as the cause of the power loss. The source does not state the cause of the fire.

Lessons learned

1. Substations that feed rail lines benefit from fire detection and isolation, so that a fault in one unit does not cut power across a whole line section.
2. Transit operators can plan alternative services and passenger information for outages that last beyond one service period.
3. Restoration work can include checks of nearby equipment, not only the failed unit.

More lessons on detection and monitoring, from every incident on the register.

Source

abc7news.com