BART service will be fully restored Wednesday after fire at San Leandro station
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) service in much of the East Bay was disrupted during the Tuesday afternoon commute, as crews made repairs following an early morning fire near the San Leandro station.
Systemwide service is expected to be restored by Wednesday, but trains will be running slower between the Bay Fair and Coliseum stations.
According to witnesses, the fire broke out shortly before 5 a.m. The fire led to service shutdowns during the morning commute, forcing riders to use alternate forms of transportation.
"I can confirm that one of our cables was damaged by this fire," BART spokesperson Chris Filippi told reporters. "It's a KV cable that provides power through the third rail to our trains, and that's the reason why we are not able to offer service."
BART said on social media that the fire had caused damage to equipment such as cables and other train control equipment.
"Crews are currently assessing and repairing," the agency said in a post at 9:40 a.m. "We estimate service will be restored in 6 to 8 hours."
The agency provided another update on social media around 3:30 p.m., saying that they were still completing fiber cable repairs needed to run service.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there is no Blue Line, Green Line or Orange Line service between the Lake Merritt station in Oakland, the Berryessa station in North San Jose and the Dublin / Pleasanton station.
AC Transit is offering mutual aid between Lake Merritt and Fremont stations and VTA is providing mutual aid between Milpitas and Berryessa stations. Yellow Line and Red Line service is not impacted.
Following the fire, power was out to more than 2,600 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers near the station. The utility has told CBS News Bay Area that power to the area has since been restored.
A cause of the fire has not been determined.
Tuesday's incident is the second major disruption to BART service in less than two weeks. On May 9, a computer glitch shut down the entire system for several hours during the morning commute, impacting tens of thousands of riders.
