In May, Muni/Caltrain Diaries posted an interesting entry about the location of the "pimp seat" on Caltrain vehicles. For the original gallery cars, it's the seats facing each other and gives people extra legroom and space to place their bags and such on the other chair.
So it made me wonder, where's the best seats for BART?
We all know about BART's well... seating reputation. People have put their feet on the seats, done some really gross stuff (in which I won't describe) that would get someone arrested, and some bicyclists thinks its cool to use the senior/disabled seats.
In my search for the perfect seat, there are lots of decent seats with comfortable legroom, but in most of the train car, the sound of the track noise can be unbearable.
During a trip to downtown, I found some decent areas to sit that are both comfortable for my long legs, and has a lower track noise.
Here's the two places:
- Almost any seat on the first car. When the car is in motion, the sound travels towards the rest of the cars, so if the track noise squeaks in the first car, it's much louder in the second car and beyond.
- Any car, as long as you sit within the front quarter of the car. The seats I'm talking about are the infamous quad seats (the ones that faces each other), the disabled seats near the door, and the four seats facing towards the opposite direction the car is moving. The reason is the sound pours through the thin doors and moves through the middle and rear end of every car. The front quarter of each car is well protected from sound due to the sliding doors separating each car, plus the wheels and motor of the train car is directly below the quad seats.
