BART goes up in smoke

After work today, I headed into San Francisco for dinner. Blasting up the 101, I had a decision to make as I approached Milbrae: to park my car and take BART into the city, or drive all the way and deal with the traffic & parking. Today, I flipped the coin in my mind, and chose BART.

Things were mostly okay on the way into the city -- the train left from Milbrae a little later than the published time, but this isn't Japan, so I can't really complain.

On the way home, I had some time to loiter around the 16th Street Mission bart station, and I took this photo of a "No Smoking" sign:

As it turned out, this proved to be prophetic. I was 2nd to last car of a 9 car train bound for Milbrae. I had spent most of the ride diddling with my cell phone, not really paying attention to the train itself. But after we pulled out of the Colma station, bound for the South San Francisco station, I started to smell something odd. Something burning -- it smelled electrical at first, but as the odor grew stronger, it lost that electrical tint. And the train was struggling a bit. We stopped and started several times, before finally pulling into the South San Francisco station.

As we arrived, the acrid smell in the air certainly wasn't decreasing. I was prepared to put up with it, when a fellow passenger pointed out that there was smoke being pumped into the car through the ventilation system.

That was it for me, and I got out of my seat and made for the exit. When I poked my head out of the train, I saw that there was a lot of smoke, coming up from the bottom of the train. I saw someone running from the last car up to the front, to notify the conductor. So, I braced myself against the door, so that it couldn't close (allowing the train to depart), before the conductor was made aware of the situation.

During this time, the smoke continued to pour out from under the last three cars or so. It became clear to me that this train wasn't going anywhere, so I fully exited and made my way up to the front. As I looked back, I could see that the entire station (which is under ground) was filling up with smoke. The conductor told everyone to exit from the train, and I started trying to put some distance in between myself and the smoke.

After a short delay, an announcement was made over the PA telling everyone to exit the station. And so, my confidence in BART lost for the evening coupled with a strong desire to get home, I paid over $20 for a taxi to take me to Milbrae, so that I could get home, safe and sound.

But upon reflection, what is really striking me about this whole little mis-adventure is how quickly everything happened, from the time that I first smelled a bad smell, until I was out of the station, was probably around five minutes. But what is really freaky is that after I was up in the fresh air, I could still feel the smoke in my lungs (and had a bit of a cough). It is amazing to me how quickly smoke inhalation can become a big problem. Next time this happens, I'll be sure to exit not only the train more quickly, but the entire station as well.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: BART