Fire at BART’s San Leandro Station Causes Widespread Service Disruptions

Updated 3:45 p.m. Tuesday

A fire at BART‘s San Leandro station early Tuesday triggered the system’s second major service disruption this month, halting trains in much of the East Bay and South Bay.

BART didn’t immediately provide details about the blaze, but video posted on social media showed what appeared to be an electrical fire along the trackway at the station shortly before 5 a.m.

Spokesperson Chris Filippi told reporters at the San Leandro station that the fire had damaged train control equipment and a high-voltage electrical cable that feeds power to the system’s third rail.

The fire shut down all BART service south of Oakland’s Lake Merritt station, stranding passengers on the Green Line between San Jose’s Berryessa station and Daly City, on the Blue Line between Dublin/Pleasanton and Daly City, and on the Orange Line between Richmond and Berryessa.

Into the early afternoon, the smell of burnt plastic hung in the air at the San Leandro station as police cordoned off the area with yellow tape. Crews were working on removing burned insulation and cables from under the track when Jonathan Woods walked up to the station, only for members of BART’s Crisis Intervention Team to turn him away because the power was off.

Woods was there to put money on his Clipper card ahead of a trip to San Francisco on Wednesday.

“I only take Bart when I go to the city, and so I can leave my car parked here,” he said.

The agency said on social media just before 10 a.m. that it could still take six to eight hours to restore normal service. It advised customers to seek alternate transportation.

Hali Shannon of Oakland tugged on the Lake Merritt BART station doors only to discover they were locked. She was running late for a business appointment in San Francisco, so a KQED reporter gave her a ride to West Oakland BART, which was open.

“I’m working on getting a new car,” she said. “So recently, I have been depending on Bart and a few other means of transportation, like Uber and things like that.”

Shannon said she primarily uses BART to avoid traffic when traveling to San Francisco, where she was headed to Powell Station. She’s experienced BART disruptions before.

“In the past when I used to take it all the time, but normally I drive so I haven’t had any major issues since I’ve been taking BART,” she said.

The agency said on social media just before 10 a.m. that it could still take six to eight hours to restore normal service. It advised customers to seek alternate transportation.

AC Transit is offering replacement service between the Lake Merritt and Fremont stations. VTA is running substitute service between the Milpitas and Berryessa stations.

Tuesday’s incident marked the second time in recent weeks that BART has suffered a service meltdown. On May 9, a still-unexplained computer network failure shut down the system for several hours.

KQED’s Brian Krans contributed to this report.