The BART Legacy. The initial set of "A" Cars built for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) were constructed by Rohr Inc. between 1970–1975. The 5'6" gauge is substantially wider than American standard gauge which is 4'8.5", and the cars are 75' long by 10.5' wide. The system opened on September 11, 1972, initially between MacArthur and Fremont during a somewhat slow period of growth for mass transit in the United States as a whole, but has since been expanded to 131 route miles. After subsequent addition of B and C Cars and refurbishment, it was decided to replace the entire fleet at the end of its life cycle in order to upgrade all of its maintenance facilities and procedures. To that end, 775 D/E Cars were built by Bombardier and Alstom, which led to the full retirement of the A/B/C Cars ("legacy fleet") on April 20, 2024. Seen here on September 25, 2015, A class car 1258 leads a Fremont bound train, seen stopped at the Coliseum Station. This station serves the Oakland Coliseum, which saw its first Oakland Athletics game on April 17, 1968, and will see its final A's game on September 26, 2024. The Western Railway Museum (WRM) in Suisun City, California has preserved 3 cars (A Car 1164/B Car 1834/C Car 329) on a dedicated indoor track built to the broad gauge specifications, but plans to built a separate Rapid Transit History Center when sufficient funds are raised.
