Welcome, 1253, Our BART Car Star
It’s official—a piece of Bay Area history, retired from riding the rails, is making its new home at Raimondi Park. Train #1253 is here.
Courtesy of BART and SF Chronicle
For its future, this second life among fans and foul balls, the team has said it might be a bar (bar-t, get it?), or otherwise involved in concessions. I can see it now: piped in BART horn honks over the loudspeakers when a homer is hit, selfies in the driver’s seat, a popcorn machine where the bikes were stacked. The slightest whiff of nostalgic funk. (Who knows: BART map temporary tattoo giveaways for 4-year-olds who love trains? I know one.)
But let’s take a quick look at 1253’s past.
Car 1253 is an A2 car, rebuilt from the original A cars that date from the 1970s. (Best guess for ours specifically? 1975 with a refit in 2002.) These A2s were all leading or trailing cars during their service, and 1253 beat the odds to find a new use. “As of December 2024, 6 of the 59 A2 cars found second lives outside of BART.”
Here’s 1253 in action at MacArthur, Milbrae (get back from the track!), and inside, on long trip on a beautiful day, courtesy of Andrew the Muni Rider.
1253 in San Bruno, courtesy munidave
Interested where some of our 1253’s surviving cousin cars are going? BART’s keeping up a list: some are headed to restaurants like Arthur Mac’s, others for praise in museums or parties in short-term rentals; one is going to UC Berkeley for seismic study, and at least one to a fire department for training. None, I think, are going to have as much fun as 1253.
(And for the real transit nerds out there…why can’t BART trains be sunk into the ocean to create artificial reefs, which apparently is a thing that happens? Because of their aluminum composition. Why can’t they be sold to other agencies? Because they have a “nonstandard gauge,” which is about as Bay Area as it gets. Next time someone asks me why I don’t move and live somewhere else, I’m going to tell them I have a nonstandard gauge.)
And speaking of: does anyone have a better name yet? Is it 1253 for life, or does their second act come with a new name? (Bart? Ray, for Raimondi? Twelve, in the George Costanza tradition of Seven? Balley? Ballina? Ok, I’m done.)
Big thanks to of Andy T. Payne of BARTchives and BART’s zippily-updated Legacy Project