> statements blaming Bechtel are more ignorant railfan babble.

I most certainly will blame Bechtel - and of course the politically appointed nitwits at the top deserve some heat too.

First off, At that time, BART had no significant engineering expertise of its own. A very few here and there, who were always swamped and overwhelmed; and none at all in many engineering disciplines. I could give a three hour dissertation on how much stuff fell through the cracks, and barely scratch the surface. They certainly had too few engineers of their own to protect their own interests; relying too much on their prime contractor, PBTB, of which Bechtel was the major player. The result of this was that Bechtel did whatever they liked. And BART's small engineering staff wasn't even aware of most of it, until months or even a year or so later in some cases that I was privy to.

Secondly, I was there at the time, I experienced a lot of both. I heard the cars get noisy immediately after having had their wheels get ground cylindrical. I was at the time, very disappointed at the new found noise, and went to find out what had changed. It was the wheels.

Thirdly - years later when another assignment brought me back to BART for another proposed project, I had occasion to very carefully study PBTB's original specification, and had the opportunity to help reshape those "Standard Specifications" under very experienced engineering leadership from the "real railroads", as was the phrase at BART.

The deeper I studied those Bechtel specifications, the more it dawned on me what was the real source of BART's original problems. And since neither Bechtel, nor Westinghouse, nor BART, had had any significant railroading experience at that time, why should I have been so surprised. But I was!

Forthly, Being a retired signal engineer (all of my life) and the progeny of generations of railroaders before me; I am no mere railfan. I am here on this forum, only because I still love railroading - it too is a blood relative.

So you may wish to ignore the rantings of an old but very well qualified eye witness, in order to believe whatever you like - that is your privilege; but the facts will remain unchanged!