Trouble When BART Goes Offline

I take BART to and from work. In the last 7 years that I have taken BART, I've had my share of delays and super cramped trains. Sometimes such delays occur when you are in a rush to get something done, like picking up my son at his after-care facility before it closed, or getting to a school event before it started. But nothing compared to what I, and probably most of the passengers, experienced this afternoon during the rush hour commute.

At around 4:15pm, I got a text alert on my cellphone informing me that there was a train delay on the Fremont line because of a medical emergency at the Hayward station. After about 10 minutes, another alert came and, this time, the delay had escalated to a major one of 20-30 minutes. I just wished that by 5, the status would have changed and that everything would be back to normal for the ride back home. Of course, it wasn't so.

I was at the 19th Street station minutes before the 5:15pm train arrived. It appeared business as usual, but I didn't hear any confirmation. Then, an announcement about further delays was made over the public address system. The train rolled in, as scheduled, and we were on our way.

When we got to the San Leandro station, we were told that we had to off-board at the next station, Bay Fair, to get another train that would eventually take us to Fremont. Why our train couldn't go all the way to Fremont still remains a mystery to me. It is a train, on the same track, so why the difference? Go figure.

As we left San Leandro, we were told that the train we were on can no longer proceed to Bay Fair, and that it was heading back to San Leandro. We should then off-board, and take another train that would take us to Bay Fair, and, hopefully, Fremont, too. Of course, this situation didn't just apply to our train, but to all the other trains headed to Fremont. So you can imagine the mass of people getting on and off San Leandro, trying to get to Fremont. It was a scary, to say the least.

Trying to get on the already crowded platform didn't look like the right thing to do. And it would be impossible to even get on a train. So I headed outside the station and waited for a bus to take me to Bay Fair. From there, hopefully, I can catch a train to Fremont. There were a number of BART passengers who had the same idea so we were all bunched at the bus stop.

The bus took a little tour of inside San Leandro so it took a little while. Given the situation we were in, I think no one minded. Once we got to the Bay Fair station, there was a sea of humanity. I could not imagine where all these people came from. And I guess everyone was trying to get back towards Fremont.

With this chaos, there was not a single BART official who told the passengers what to do or expect. I heard other passengers saying that there were buses that were shuttling riders to the Hayward and South Hayward stations. And you'd see masses of people lining up along parked buses, but no one really knew if they were the right shuttles. I fell in line, too, as I tried to sort things out. Then, an announcement was made at the platform saying that trains were back on track and would be running as scheduled.

The few that heard this, me included, dashed back inside the station and headed for the platform. In about 3 minutes, a Fremont train arrived and I got seated. Initially, they announced that the train wouldn't stop at Hayward, but later changed. It was the first train that did stop, and we had a brief look at what the commotion was all about. From what I saw, it appeared that the "medical emergency" was an apparent suicide. But it was never confirmed. I tried listening for it on the evening news, but I didn't hear anything, or I must have missed it.

Generally, riding BART has been good. But if there is a problem, expect the worse. What else can I expect next?