‘I hate to see these things go’: BART’s fond farewell to its legacy train cars

BART’s slant-nosed legacy fleet of trains said their final farewell to the Bay Area on Saturday as thousands of people — from folks who rode the first train in 1972 to BART officials and self-described transit nerds from across the country — gathered in Oakland to celebrate the trains.

Three of the trains made their final journeys, heading to Fremont before returning to the Hayward yard en route to a wrecking yard, where most of the original cars will be ground up and recycled.

Saturday was a happy day for BART, which has seen more than its share of gloomy ones over the years including train breakdowns, strikes, a deadly fire in the Transbay Tube that killed a firefighter in 1979 and a pandemic-induced ridership plunge.

But through it all, BART’s legacy fleet of cars persevered, giving millions of rides.

Before the retiring trains took their final rides, thousands attended a ceremony that was a miniature BART festival of sorts in the plaza at the MacArthur Station in Oakland.

They lined up to buy BART merchandise — stickers, stuffed BART trains, T-shirts and number plates removed from already retired trains. They collected stamps on BART passports, posed for pictures inside the slanted-front of an old lead car and ate from food trucks. Many sported BART sweaters and T-shirts, while some wore BART earrings and buttons.

“Everyone’s so happy,” said Alicia Trost, BART’s chief communications officer, enjoying the admittedly unusual experience.

The good spirits even continued as several people gave speeches. The crowd cheered when BART General Manager Bob Powers praised not only the legacy cars, but the BART Board of Directors, the maintenance crews and BART’s unions and police chief, all occasional subjects of animosity from critical riders and observers over the years.

The only time the crowd booed was when BART Board President Bevan Dufty said the majority of the 669 legacy cars would face a dire future — being stripped then hauled to a scrap yard, where they’ll be pulverized and turned into piles of aluminum and steel that will be recycled.

Several will be saved, however,  and used for a variety of purposes including a vacation rental in the Gold Country foothills and a community bicycle workshop in deep East Oakland. A train consisting of three of the railcars will be taken to the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista Junction near Suisun City where they’ll be preserved and restored.

“After today, you’re not going to see another one of our legacy cars on the tracks,” said Dufty.

BART started running its new cars — which it labeled the Fleet of the Future — in 2018. As more and more new cars arrived, they were pressed into service and the oldest cars retired.

Then in September, BART announced that all of its regularly scheduled trains would consist of new cars. The legacy trains made only sporadic appearances to provide extra service.

Powers said the large crowd that showed up to say goodbye to the old trains “is a testament to what BART means to the Bay Area.” BART’s computer-controlled trains with the space-age look — the slanted nose and sleek silver aluminum exterior — were state of the art in 1972 and attracted worldwide attention. President Richard Nixon even rode BART when the system opened.

Since then, the interiors have been replaced a couple of times and the entire fleet overhauled and rebuilt and changed slightly as it expanded. But the trains have persevered, Powers said, no more so than after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake when they ran around the clock when the Bay Bridge was closed.

“It was BART that kept the Bay Area running,” Powers said.

After the speeches were done, the crowd lined up — circling the plaza — to ride one of three final legacy fleet trains. The first, carrying elected officials and other dignitaries, went only as far as Bay Fair Station, while the other two traveled the entirety of the original BART route — from MacArthur to Fremont.

Thomas Cruz, 61, a test engineer for Lockheed-Martin, lives across from the Milpitas Station, which didn’t exist when BART started. As a child he longed to ride BART and got his first chance in 1979, he said.

“I fell in love with the trains since then,” he said as the final train passed through Hayward. 

“It spoke of modernity, of the future,” at a time when America had largely turned from public transportation.

John Lyon, 31, who was born in San Jose but now lives in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, was one of several people who came from out of state to ride the last of the old trains. He was born in San Jose before moving out of state at 3 but made frequent visits. He first rode BART from Fremont to San Francisco on one of those visits in his childhood.

“I was enchanted from the moment I stepped onto the train,” he said. “Since then I’ve turned into a general transit nerd, but BART has maintained a special place in my heart.”

Another self-proclaimed transit nerd, Omriqui Thomas, 16, flew into the Bay Area from Cambridge, Mass., to say farewell to the legacy cars. She’s an intern for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, BART’s Boston-area transit equivalent.

She said she had ridden BART often while visiting family in the Bay Area “and fell in love with these cars.”

At the controls of one of the final legacy trains was Keith Dixon, a train operator for 29 years. It was just another day at work, he said, though he  acknowledged that while he appreciates the new trains, he’ll miss the old ones.

“I hate to see these things go away,” he said. “They are like a beast.”

Reach Michael Cabanatuan: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @ctuan