Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) transports millions of people daily. These high volume, high traffic trains employ several ways to save on space. One such way is using positive locking seat adjusters that slide out for easy entry and exit. Recently, BART was looking to upgrade their driver’s seat assemblies with new parts to ensure continued operation. They turned to C & C Enterprises, who began updating and upgrading various parts of the seat. C & C then turned to the expert product engineering team at PBC Linear to work backwards and reverse-engineer the custom Redi-Rail® for the seat.
The seat adjustment application was straight-forward. Utilizing a custom Redi-Rail assembly, the driver could manually slide out nine at full extension. The seat would then lock into position until further adjustment was necessary. To achieve this, the previous designer had created a custom dual carriage slider of their own.
While Redi-Rail provided optimal linear guidance and smooth motion for the application, PBC Linear engineers thought the custom slider assembly was too bulky and could be improved without a complete re-design. They immediately set to work creating a new slider. Using a one-piece steel slider component versus the previous dual aluminum sliders, PBC Linear was able to enhance rigidity and performance. The new slider also helped make the entire assembly more cost efficient and easier to install by eliminating a bracket connector, resulting in drastically improved linear guidance adjustment.
After installation, C & C Enterprises indicated that PBC Linear’s new parts were vastly superior to the originals. The new linear guide ensured easier ergonomic adjustment while simplifying assembly delivered with fewer components.