The strange second lives of BART train cars
Soon you'll be able to sleep in an old BART car in the Sierra foothills.
Spending the night in a train car – it might not just be for hobos anymore. Under a unique BART program, used cars are gaining new life as a futuristic rental unit, a video-game arcade, a museum for the Oakland A’s and other fascinating things.
BART announced last year that it wanted ideas for creative reuse of some of its old train cars, which the transit agency is replacing with the “Fleet of the Future.” It received 20 viable proposals. Sadly, none of them “sought to use the legacy cars for affordable-housing projects or homes for the unhoused – two of the major problems facing the San Francisco Bay Area,” writes the agency. Rather, the “use with the largest number of proposals is restaurant/bar/beer garden-type establishments.” (Go figure.)
Eight winners have now emerged victorious, each with an old car in hand that will cost between $8,000 to $15,000 to remove at their own cost from BART’s lot. What will they be doing with them? Here are some highlights:
An as-yet-unspecified Gold Rush town near the Sierra is set to get a lot less Gold Rushy with a mass-transit car functioning as a home and short-term rental unit. New York’s Hernandez-Eli Architecture says their privately owned Commuter House “reclaims and transforms transportation infrastructure for domestic use.” The domicile will reportedly have passive cooling, a gray-water system and should last a hundred more years – that is, if someone remembers to remove the wheels, and it doesn’t roll out of the Sierra foothills.
Baseball fans will soon be able to ride BART to the Oakland Coliseum and then step into a different BART car, thanks to a mini-museum the Oakland A’s are planning. The organization will outfit its train car into an exhibit of transit and East Bay sports and, because this is baseball, serve beer inside. According to the A’s proposal: “The interior would commemorate A’s history and BART as an extension of it, through memorabilia, historical photographs, old jerseys (and) autographed bats and balls.”
Arthur Mac’s Tap & Snack is expanding to Hayward in 2023 with a BART car in tow. The pizza-and-wings joint says it’s retrofitting the car into outdoors seating to “create a time capsule that transports our customers and community members beyond the confines of time and space.” Part of that plan involves putting in a retro video-game arcade (no word yet if it’ll have Railroad Tycoon).
The Original Scraper Bike Team is an Oakland organization that teaches youth how to fabricate their own rides from various bike parts, aluminum foil, spray paint and even duct tape. The results are impressive – the bikes have inspired hip-hop jams and been featured at the Oakland Museum of California. The Scraper folks are getting an old BART car to serve as a shop for free repairs, as well as teaching bike-building and holding community events. Expect it to be decorated with vibrant local murals.
The Hayward Fire Department and the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District are each getting BART cars. They intend to use them for “car-familiarization training” and “vehicle-rescue simulations and safety of the track and third-rail system” scenarios. While regular Joes won’t be able to play Galaga or drink brews in these cars, they’ll no doubt be grateful if, heaven forbid, their train suffers a mishap in the Transbay Tube, and first responders have to make entry.