BART in O Gauge

Nice set Paul!   My guess would be not enough interest to warrant new tooling.  Probably the same reason we haven't seen any Boston subway sets made.

Hey Chris,

with all the history of the Boston area subways it is too bad we have not seen one produced. I remember visiting my newly married brother and his wife along one of the lines in Boston back in 1974. I was mesmerized by the trolleys and subways. It was very different from the NYC metro area subways. 

Paul

Aren't they the Consoli Family / US Toy Trains models?

I have always been surprised that MTH and Lionel have kind of limited most of their transit offerings to be New York related outside of a few cases.  In Japan Kato and Tomix make models of a variety of commuter rail and subway equipment people use daily there.    I think it could be a good market especially since that would connect the trains that people see daily. 

Who was the manufacturer?  I've seen the Consoli streamliners based on the 1930's prototypes.  They are very nicely done.

Cool!!!!!

Note to max the tooling, the consoli family used the same carbody and blont ends to make the Washington D.C. Metro and I believe Atlanta's MARTA "Subway"  If MTH or Lionel was to tool a Subway, I would be using this generic template for BART, MARTA, Miami Tri rail "Subway", and the lonely Baltimore Subway. I believe they all have a similar body style but the car lengths could be different. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

I think there used to be a set of these on display at the TCA museum, but that was before they reorganized some of the displays for the 60th anniversary. 

It used to be in the case on the wall to the left of the Std Gauge layout, before you got to the video screen.  The same case that had a lot of early (mid to late90's) MTH.

-Dave

There is the Cal Train/SanFran Peninsula that K-Line did (as well as MetroLink from SoCal) ... but, alas, no BART.  Hard to understand.  And, while not quite as extensive (yet), there is the Red Line subway in Los Angeles that has the coolest underground stations just about anywhere.  No model there either.

Havent ever seen this set before but not long after Bart started operations a small company made a set using new/old Marx power. It sold well for a time but the cars were very short and toy like. The real sad story here is the Key system ran trains across the Bay Bridge and were only a couple minutes slower than Bart. They ran from San Francisco all the way to Sacramento. Spending hundreds of millions for a few minutes shorter ride across the bay was crazy. We had it and got rid of it only to redo it. Don

My life... Okay work life is run by BART. That's 90%  of what I work on, so this is pretty cool to see

there is a bart set on bay,,,it was made by u s t t c .......ttp://www.ebay.com/itm/332185671575?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I have it on good authority from my wife that if MTH or Lionel did a Boston subway she'd buy every one.

The acronym stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit.

 

Good thing you don't live in Frankfurt!

Well, well, these are the Marx drive Bart trains. A lot of money and I hate to tell you the price of them new. A little history about Bart. They were designed to be driverless. That didn't work out at all. The front and end units had angled noses so it was expensive to make the trains longer or shorter as needed. They ran on none standard track so everything had to be custom made. I think at the time no one used the width of track Bart chose to use. Bart ran close to Oakland and San Francisco Airports but not to them. Now it runs to SFO at a huge cost and Oakland has a different rail line that connects to the airport. When it was time to replace this first model with new equipment, no company in the US wanted to bid. Everything Bart touched cost way to much. Thank goodness Bart was built but the cost was crazy. I grew up in the Bay Area and saw with many others, the many mistakes Bart made.  Don

Walthers made these in HO in the 1980's.  They made both BART and Washington Metro.  I owned a Metro set and really enjoyed them.  

GG1 4877 posted:

Who was the manufacturer?  I've seen the Consoli streamliners based on the 1930's prototypes.  They are very nicely done.

They were made by United States Toy Train Co (USTTC) in So Cal. They also made a brown and aluminum Metro set. Both of these as well as the boxcab electrics they made were powered by Marx double reduction motors. USTTC bought cases of the motors from the Marx closeout auctions.

Steve

Paul, I had that set in my original collection.  Very good looking but ran like crap.  That would be a good one for Mike Wolf to do.  With the right drive and electronics it would be a winner.  

Paul and Chris, I have had Mike in the car and shown him the Orange line cars and we will see them at some point.   I am not a subway guy and should be as the Orange line played a big part in my life.   As a youth my family always took the line to go shopping in Boston.  After the Navy, I had to use the line every day while attending the Boston Police Academy.

The models apparently came out in 1978, and were made for only one year.

BART uses a totally unique 5'6" track gauge.  So, I can see why no US rail car builder would ever want to tackle a contract.

The only other broad gauges in use today are Philadelphia's Septa Market-Frankford EL and Trolley lines, Pittsburgh light rail, and New Orleans street cars.  These use 5'2"+.

Fred

Marty, as you remember those Marx driven cars were way to short. The Bart cars are long. I wouldn't call them subway cars as most of the line is above ground. Don

Here's a video of a 5-car O-gauge BART set running under my tree last Christmas.

I just purchased a 4-car consist of the USTTC #514 BART set with the original boxes! Great set! Check out the BART videos I made back in 2008 on a Motorola Razor phone back in the day! Not the best video quality, but you get the point. (Notice a custom made C-car?!?) Born and raised in the Bay Area and was even a BART train operator for 13 years!

Nice to revisit this thread. Bart  would be a winning set. Why was the unique gauge chosen?