BART officials have deployed what is being reported as a "new high-tech tool" in the attempt to identify the source of an electrical spike that is damaging passenger cars and has forced the temporary shutdown of regular service between the North Concord and Pittsburgh/Bay Point stations.
BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost told CBS SF Bay Area that the new tool was installed Monday on a test train engineers are running along the troubled section to detect what is causing the electrical surge in the third rail that has knocked more than 50 passenger cars out of service.
According to the report, the tool can measure electrical current at a much more granular level providing the finite information needed "because what we know is the spike is occurring so quick – we are talking about 100th of a millisecond — and the instruments we had before weren’t picking it up.”
BART officials said the test train, which is carrying riders, was first deployed Sunday night and marks the first train cars moving between the two stations since service was halted by a problem reported around 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to a report from the San Francisco Examiner.
It was discovered that train cars were being hit with a voltage spike while passing between the stations that was damaging the cars’ propulsion systems.
