Passenger Trains > Building BART

Nice collection of photos during the construction of BART. Is that the Dumbarton Bridge in picture #7 of one of the Transbay Tube sections being pulled by boat - if so where were those sections built?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2011/05/19/BART-build.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2011%2F05%2F19%2Fba-bartpillarcon_0503476754.jpg



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/11 10:59 by chrisbutts.

Bart transbay sections were built in sunnyvale and floated up the bay and sunk I believe

r

Great photo series! Liked the Ford Hi-Railer! (Also, the walking tour thru the unfinished tunnel).

Tom Y

I seem to remember the tube sections being built at the Bethelem Stell shipyard in South SF, near Bayshore freeway and now some sort of office park complex. Where could they have been built in Sunnyvale? No good access to the bay.

Bethelem Steel in SSF makes more sense however maybe some machine work was done at Westinghouse in Sunnyvale? They had some of the largest machine tools west of the Mississippi.
What RR bridge are they floating through? Definitely not the Dumbarton.

sphogger

> What RR bridge are they floating through?
> Definitely not the Dumbarton.

Why not?

There's also a follow up posts with renderings of the never built BART-to-Palo-Alto and BART-to-Marin branches at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?entry_id=89388&tsp=1

> What RR bridge are they floating through?
> Definitely not the Dumbarton.

"Why not?"

Too close to shore, no bridge tender house on top, not enough water in the south end of the Bay for starters.

Pretty interesting all of the Bay Area's industrial capacity that has disappeared. Anything to do with steel comes from
China now.

http://sonic.net/~mly/www.geolith.com/bart/#placement

sphogger

Those were fun pictures, it's interesting what the original plans had in mind versus what was actually built. Glad somebody has the old photos and info still around.

Nathan

peh934 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's also a follow up posts with renderings of
> the never built BART-to-Palo-Alto and
> BART-to-Marin branches at
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/deta
> il?entry_id=89388&tsp=1

Are they still talking about a line into Oakland airport.I love riding BART when I am in the Bay area.
Regards,DK

Any remaining skepticism about the usefulness of BART disappeared when the Bay Bridge span fell in during the Oct. 1989 earthquake. I still remember turning on the TV to watch the World Series; the first thing that came on was a view of the dislocated section of the bridge. My first thought was "Oh, some new disaster movie", then came "BREAKING NEWS" and I realized this was not Hollywood special effects, it was the "real thing" and real people perished.

Right, it's doesn't look like the dumbunny bridge, the major reason being that it's not double track wide, but the only other bridge around would be the NWP bridge near Novato. Also curious what the photographer is using for a platform, road bridge or helicopter?

BART was an interesting project, lots of old ideas accomplished in that 60's way. But it was accomplished and it does run.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/11 22:05 by TCnR.

Some of the magazine ads from the 1960's show BART trains with every passenger dressed for a night on the town (and most of the men wearing coats and hats) -- and all WASPs.

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any remaining skepticism about the usefulness of
> BART disappeared when the Bay Bridge span fell in
> during the Oct. 1989 earthquake. I still remember
> turning on the TV to watch the World Series; the
> first thing that came on was a view of the
> dislocated section of the bridge. My first
> thought was "Oh, some new disaster movie", then
> came "BREAKING NEWS" and I realized this was not
> Hollywood special effects, it was the "real thing"
> and real people perished.

I lived in East Bay at the time, and the first image on TV that I saw was the "pancaked" Cypress Structure right near West Oakland Yard, which I drove through only 5 hours before the earthquake. I knew right away we were in bad shape.

It's interesting that BART cars were originally made by Rohr Industries, a defense contractor based in San Diego area. Also, SF Muni's replacement for the venerable PCC's were made by Boeing. Times sure have changed.

I did read the article and photos on SFGATE before I saw Chris post this thread, but thanks for starting this thread to get the railbuffs to participate in the discussion!

I remember reading some sections were built at KAISER STEEL in Napa and floated downriver. That may explain the bridge photo.

KAISER and BETHLEHEM STEEL were big time in the Bay Area back then. Now, we have nothing...

Boy, the guy writing the commentary for that picture series is an interesting nebbish. Do you suppose he is typical of the education and interests of people in the SF area?

Glad I'm here and not ' there '.

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember reading some sections were built at
> KAISER STEEL in Napa and floated downriver. That
> may explain the bridge photo.
>
> KAISER and BETHLEHEM STEEL were big time in the
> Bay Area back then. Now, we have nothing...


I thought it was Napa, were the Pipe plant later came and gone. But that's a lift bridge, the one that was part of the SP locomotives into the water episodes. There may have been rebuilds to either the Dumbarton or the Napa river bridge that I don't know about.

Looking at Google, the Black Point bridge looks very similar to the bridge in the BART photo. The equipment houses would have to be moved around though, I don't know the extent of any rebuild.

Historic aerials dot com has some really interesting photos of the SSF Steel facility. In the WWII era photo it shows a couple of ships lined up apparently being built. In the 1955 photo there's the makings of the mothball fleet sitting off of Hunter's Point shipyard, just off of Candlestick Point. Very interesting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/11 09:23 by TCnR.

Based on my many trips along the Petaluma River, the bridge appears to be Black Point to me. Photo taken from the Hwy. 37 span.

However, I had no idea anything constructed for BART transited the Petaluma River.

stash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Based on my many trips along the Petaluma River,
> the bridge appears to be Black Point to me. Photo
> taken from the Hwy. 37 span.
>
> However, I had no idea anything constructed for
> BART transited the Petaluma River.


I would guess they would store these assemblies until the construction site was ready for them. Which, if so, would suggest they needed to keep the Mare Island area clear, so the next open area would be along the north Bay inlets. Perhaps they needed a particular location due to storms, or security.