BART partnering with BMW to design new railcars

Yes- BMW, the car company has entered into a partnership with BART. BMW DesignWorks USA is a design firm which is part of the car company and BART wants to utilize them to create new exteriors and interiors that will be unique but functional at the same time.

Link: http://www.designworksusa.com/dwusa/pre ... index.html

Now this is not the first time that BMW through its DesignWorks USA group has partnered to design subway cars. Recently, they partnered with the Warsaw Metro to design their new generation of railcars which are currently being built by Siemens. They definitely look interesting to say the least.

It is unknown at this time who will build the new BART cars. BART has released the names of the 5 companies bidding for the project: Alstom (built the BART C cars, Washington Metro 6k cars and rehabbed the 2k/3k cars, NYC R160A cars, among others), Bombardier (built the AirTrain at SFO, new Chicago 5000 series cars, R62/68/143 cars in NYC, among others), CAF (built the new Sacramento RT cars, Pittsburgh LRV cars, Washington Metro 5k cars, and new cars for Amtrak), CSR Rail (Chinese company that never built anything in the US but known for high speed trains in Asia and now partnering with GE to build high-speed rail in the US), and Hyundai-Rotem (based in South Korea, is building new commuter cars for LA, Boston, Miami, and Philadelphia as their first US projects.) If it were me, I would only choose between Alstom, Bombardier and CAF as they typically produce higher quality products. CSF has no track record, and Rotem has been hit or miss but mostly a miss on too many projects.

Hmmmmm. After the deliverance of the God-Awful Hyundai Rotems down here for Metrolink, I cringe to think that others will be subjected to the same stiff seated, poorly designed rolling stock that so many in LA are condemned to.

Although I'll miss that signature whine the Rohr cars make, it may very well be time for an upgrade.

I do love the whine those AdTranz/Bombardier motors make. Unfortunately since AdTranz isn't around anymore and Bombardier phased those products out for their own MITRAC motors, we may as well enjoy it as long as we can.

eaglestar wrote:Hmmmmm. After the deliverance of the God-Awful Hyundai Rotems down here for Metrolink, I cringe to think that others will be subjected to the same stiff seated, poorly designed rolling stock that so many in LA are condemned to.

Although I'll miss that signature whine the Rohr cars make, it may very well be time for an upgrade.

Other than the seating, what was wrong with the Rotem cars? When you say "stiff seated" do you mean the lack of a fabric covering/upholstery? Because you know there was a very good reason for doing away with them...

Here are some details on the Warsaw Metro cars:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/bm ... saw-metro/
They look just like what BART says they want to build- 3 doors per side, less seating, more room for standees. Since a significant minority of public transit riders don't seem to know how to behave I think the days of upholstered seats are gone. Non stick plastic surfaces and a drain in the middle of the car is a lot more likely...

pebbleworm wrote:Here are some details on the Warsaw Metro cars:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/bm ... saw-metro/
They look just like what BART says they want to build- 3 doors per side, less seating, more room for standees. Since a significant minority of public transit riders don't seem to know how to behave I think the days of upholstered seats are gone. Non stick plastic surfaces and a drain in the middle of the car is a lot more likely...

Just eyeballing it, it seems like it's meant for a smaller scale application. Maybe they could repurpose it by making the cars longer and wider (to fit the broad gauge). I'm glad BMW will be designing the aesthetics. The Warsaw Metro looks nice and frankly the current BART trains just don't.

Here is a BART link to the early BMW designed trains: http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2011/ ... 10805.aspx
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzjKwU8b ... r_embedded

Overall, I think it is a good start for them. My favorite was Concept C for the seating arrangement. That window to view the track was not necessary though. The major thing I did not like on the interior is that all 3 concepts place poles for standing riders in the middle of the doorway. Having ridden trains in Washington that have poles in the middle of the doorways (all 1000-5000 series trains), those actually helped encourage people to stand near the doors and block them in many cases. That is why the 6000 and soon to be 7000 series trains removed those, in favor of additional ceiling mounted bars. That with handholds would probably be the best option.

The last thing was the nose of the cars, which looks super ugly. They could do a better job by at least doing something more similar to the C/C2 cars. Or if they can do this, something that resembles the new Toronto Rocket cars (either slant or straight) would look much better.

I liked Concept-B the best, with the New York style mixed longitudinal/transverse seating.

Also, why did I not see Kawasaki's name among the bidders for new cars. Aren't they about the best of all the current car builders?

pebbleworm wrote:Here are some details on the Warsaw Metro cars:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/bm ... saw-metro/
They look just like what BART says they want to build- 3 doors per side, less seating, more room for standees. Since a significant minority of public transit riders don't seem to know how to behave I think the days of upholstered seats are gone. Non stick plastic surfaces and a drain in the middle of the car is a lot more likely...

My favorite quote from that article:

Just because BMW DesignworksUSA is a subsidiary of the BMW Group doesn’t mean Metro riders should expect the acceleration of an M3 in-between stops.

I would love to experience that in a railcar =p

Head-end View wrote:I liked Concept-B the best, with the New York style mixed longitudinal/transverse seating.

Also, why did I not see Kawasaki's name among the bidders for new cars. Aren't they about the best of all the current car builders?

I think Kawasaki did not bid on this project because both of their plants are at capacity for the next several years between the massive NYC and Washington contracts. In New York, the Yonkers plant is building the new R188 cars and converting R143A cars to have CBTC signalling control. From what I remember, that project calls for 146 new R188 cars while converting 360 out of the 600 R143A cars between now and 2015. That puts the Yonkers plant at capacity. Some of the conversions will be done at NYCT's Coney Island Yard to help with that plant's capacity issue, since they can only do about 300 cars at a time. Also, the shells and some cars will be built in Hyogo, Japan to help as well. Plus, Kawasaki is doing a renovation of that plant, so that results some loss of capacity.
Link: http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonke ... nkers.html

However, the good news is that Kawasaki now owns the Yonkers plant outright after they had been leasing it since 1985. So they are here to stay in Yonkers.

Then with the much larger and newer Lincoln, NE plant (which relieves the Yonkers capacity issue), Washington has them building their new 648 car 7000 series fleet and rebuilding the entire 100 car 4000 series fleet. Since Lincoln is working on a combined order of 748 cars until 2017, that plant is maxed to capacity. The thing that is different with the Lincoln plant is that it is the only US railcar plant capable of building entire cars (from entire frames and body shells to integration). Washington's cars will be built from the ground up at that plant, whereas NYCT's cars will be assembled in Yonkers or converted at Coney Island, with the pilot cars and shells being built in Japan.

I think purely because of capacity and wanting to maintain quality, Kawasaki chose not to bid. Even if Bombardier or Alstom gets the contract, it would still be very good for BART as both companies are very capable of producing excellent rail cars. Just hope that Hyundai Rotem or CSR does not get the bid. Rotem's cars are either hit or miss, and CSR has never built a single subway car in US.

Thanks Tommy; very interesting summary. I have the idea that Bombardier has a better reputation than Alstom. It seems to me that Alstom's products have been more trouble prone. And Kawasaki is wise not to over-extend themselves to the point where quality would suffer. And SEPTA's experience with Hyundai-Rotem does not seem to be going very well at all.

That is a tough one with Bombardier vs Alstom in who is better. Both companies are very good at what they do. However, I think you may be right in Bombardier being a little better than Alstom in that I have not heard about a ton of delays with their projects. In Washington, the cars that Alstom rebuilt were pushed back about 2-3 years due to production shutdowns from quality issues. However, things did work out and the Alstom built cars and rebuilt cars are the #1 and #2 most reliable in their system. In contrast, their CAF 5000 series are the most unreliable car there currently (and they use Bombardier propulsion which is blamed for some of the issues.)

However, the CAF quality issues came up because the DC Metro rushed their completion and it was CAF's 1st ever US contract. Cars from them since built here have been much better.

As for Hyundai-Rotem, their cars were so bad in Taiwan that they were banned from ever bidding on any contracts again in that country. Hong Kong had to pull their K-cars because of significant door problems. The CAF/AdTranz counterparts have been running excellent since their introduction. As for Philly, all of their Silverliner V cars were supposed to be running by now and that obviously has not even come close to happening yet. In that case, they got what they paid for by screwing Kawasaki out of that contract.

pebbleworm wrote:Here are some details on the Warsaw Metro cars:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/bm ... saw-metro/
They look just like what BART says they want to build- 3 doors per side, less seating, more room for standees. Since a significant minority of public transit riders don't seem to know how to behave I think the days of upholstered seats are gone. Non stick plastic surfaces and a drain in the middle of the car is a lot more likely...

Yes, but I sure hope they don't copy the front end of the Warsaw trains. They look like they got hit with ugly stick one too many times. Those slanted front windows just don't look right. And I really hope BART doesn't go with hard-surfaced seats. If fabric is too much of a problem to keep clean, then why not go with padded vinyl seats, like those on Metro-North, the LIRR and NJ Transit. I mean, BART is a hybrid subway/commuter rail system that travels significant distances from San Francisco and Oakland and reaches significantly higher speeds than an ordinary subway system. Why treat it like one? I traveled on BART for the first time this past January. Part of why I enjoyed riding BART is because it's not the NYC subway. It's faster, cleaner and much more comfortable. I really would hate to see that change.

Hey, that front end on the Warsaw cars is sharp looking in its way. Kind of like the NYCTA R-40's and the PATH PA-1's were in the late 1960's ya' know. BTW I've come to dislike riding BART. Their cars are dull, you can't see out the front and they are excessively noisy in the tunnels. I much prefer NYC's new R-160's and WMATA's cars in Washington DC.

If fabric is too much of a problem to keep clean, then why not go with padded vinyl seats, like those on Metro-North, the LIRR and NJ Transit. I mean, BART is a hybrid subway/commuter rail system that travels significant distances from San Francisco and Oakland and reaches significantly higher speeds than an ordinary subway system. Why treat it like one? I traveled on BART for the first time this past January. Part of why I enjoyed riding BART is because it's not the NYC subway. It's faster, cleaner and much more comfortable. I really would hate to see that change.

I think part of the reason is that some of the riding population has to do some things that we would never do. It's not uncommon for people to expell bodily fluids on the seats over there. One study recently actually found characteristics of MRSA on the train seats.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06 ... wanted=all

Even with that, there may be a potential solution. Now that there are antimicrobial materials on the market (one example is Microban), that could be looked at as an alternative regardless if they go with fabric or plastic. I know that Washington is now using or is actively looking at antimicrobial materials for the inside of the railcars.