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BART Crews Testing Tracks Between Closed East Bay Stations, But Delays Expected Through Monday At Least

CONCORD (CBS SF) -- BART officials said on Friday trains will not be running between the Pittsburg/Bay Point and North Concord/Martinez stations through at least Monday.

Instead buses will shuttle commuters and other passengers between the two stations.

The trouble started shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday when cars were hit with a voltage spike as they traveled the route, according to BART officials. The spike damaged a part of each train's propulsion equipment.

The spike has damaged 58 cars and BART officials have not determined the cause.

Chief Mechanical Officer Dave Hardt said on Thursday that the cause may be an oversupply of electricity or the cars are having trouble returning the power their receiving.

Those problems could be caused by infrastructure that's needs to be replaced or too much power coming from PG&E, Hardt said.

BART officials said they are working to identify and resolve the problem as well as repair the damaged cars.

Today, BART crews were testing cars along the tracks between Pittsburg/Bay Point and North Concord/Martinez.

BART officials had to shut down the tracks between the two stations on Wednesday morning to avoid damaging more cars, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said in a statement. BART has a limited number of cars in its fleet, according to Trost.

Weekday mornings, BART usually has 579 cars running, but on Friday it was able to run only 521 cars.

Many cars are crowded even when BART has the usual number of cars in service.

Monday morning riders are encouraged to listen to staff at each station and public service announcements to get the latest information on repairs, according to BART officials. An announcement will be made if service is restored between the Pittsburg/Bay Point and North Concord/Martinez stations.

BART officials are encouraging riders to allow extra time for travel between the two stations as the bus trip takes 10 to 25 minutes.

Riders can sign up for BART service advisories at www.bart.gov/alerts.

© Copyright 2016 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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