From Space-Age to Dinosaur

In 1975 Daly City was at the end of the line.

BART celebrates its 50th anniversary with cars that are 50 years old: [bold added]

But half a century later, as the agency celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, many of those same silver-and-blue trains are still chugging through the Bay Area. And keeping them running — even in the country’s technology capital — requires a special breed of ingenuity.

BART mechanics rely on Frankensteined laptops operating with Windows 98, train yard scraps and vintage microchips to keep Bay Area commuters on the rails...

When a BART car runs into trouble, Shawn Stange steps back in time. He pops open a circa-2000 IBM Thinkpad running Windows 98 and opens a portal into the train’s brain — the Automated Train Control system — through the DOS computer language.

Much as if he were conducting a vehicle diagnostic test, Stange uses the software as a mechanic’s roadmap. “This stuff was written so long ago. So you have to take Windows 10 and open up a virtual Windows 98 box and then run the (DOS) program to download the log files,” he said. “It’s primitive.”

From the vantage of 2022, BART runs on obsolete software. However, those "primitive" DOS programs must have been an upgrade to the original control system. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system began service in 1972, and the first IBM-PC with PC-DOS didn't arrive until 1981, nine years later.

The repair men who can fix the cars and the electronics all have gray hair, and their specialized skills are applicable to no other transportation systems. It's a safe bet that that knowledge will be gone in the next 50 years, and it's an open question, given the many changes to come in work, commuting, urban development, AI, and alternative energy, whether BART will be around to celebrate its next 50th anniversary.