>I seem to recall someone in the shops explaining to me at the time, that Bechtel had decided that the gentle pitching and nosing of the cars was unpleasant. Someone else (at PBTB) explained that the rather rigid "inside frame" trucks could not be tuned and dampened effectively, due to the narrowness of the frame. So they instead chose to tighten the gauge tolerances on the flanges and run with cylindrical wheels.

I once took a close look at an Amfleet truck. It was a Clark [PCC] B-3 truck on steroids.

>BART is also working on ways to make the tracks quieter. BART recently bought new track maintenance equipment to improve the condition of the track and reduce the screeching noise heard by riders and neighbors.

BARTD has had a grinder train for a long time. Perhaps it's a question of finally getting around to using it for its intended purpose-- the trains on the elevated where I live have been somewhat quieter recently.

>Actually, it sounds like (as with RT) they found that actually maintaining the line helps.

You got that right.

>And did I mention the NTSB's findings on a series of BART derailments caused by worn out razor sharp flanges; picking points and climbing over rails worn to a bevel, at what should have been the gauge corner.

When I read the news article about this, I was astounded, however before it happened, I recall going around the wye, listening to the wheel noise, and wondering when . . .

>And I have not yet even talked about the very negative effects on the reliability of BART's track circuits.

Even the BNSF has been prone to track circuit shunting problems -- about 10 years ago they kept losing early morning Amtrak trains on their then-new CTC near Merced. "It's Amtrak's GE engines [the Dash-8s]; they're so light they don't shunt the track properly", ya riiiight. The quacking stopped one day when they lost one of their own trains . . . a local with about three cars. Turned out that night time helicopter-based crop pesticide spraying was getting on the railhead and introducing just enough corrosion to stop track circuit shunting.

CalTrans found that 1:40 taper wheels ("cylindrical tread") wore to the point of increased hunting faster than 1:20 taper wheels ("conical tread"). Both types have a conical relief along the outer 1 to 1 1/2 inch of the tread surface so the wheel will always climb over special work (like frog wing rails and stock rails at switch points).