Jul 21, 2008 5:14 pm US/Pacific
BART, Amtrak Services Resume After Package Scare
RICHMOND (CBS 5 / KCBS / BCN) ―
Amtrak's Capitol Corridor service resumed and the Richmond Bay Area Rapid Transit station reopened late Monday afternoon, four hours after a disruption aboard an Amtrak train halted service.
Richmond police received a report just before 11 a.m. that an Amtrak passenger became agitated and left a train car, leaving behind a suspicious package that appeared to have wires sticking out of it, said Sgt. Bisa French.
The man, wearing an Indiana Jones-style hat, then entered another train car and shattered a window, before jumping out onto the platform after he was confronted by a conductor, said French. The suspect then jumped out a window, a 10-foot drop, and took off running toward Macdonald Avenue.
Service on both transit systems was stopped as the Walnut Creek bomb squad used a water canon to detonate the suspicious package, French said.
The Capitol Corridor line and BART resumed service through the area about 3 p.m., but BART said the incident had cut off access to a yard that stored extra trains for the evening commute.
That meant BART passengers on the Richmond-Millbrae, the Richmond-Fremont and the Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO lines saw shorter trains in the early evening.
According to BART spokesman Linton Johnson, about 60 percent of the BART fleet was stored at the Richmond yard, which is north of the Richmond BART station. When the station was closed, trains were not able to reach the yard to have more cars added to them for the evening commute, Johnson said.
Meanwhile, police continued to search for the man responsible for leaving the package behind. He was described as white, in his mid-30s to 40s, about 6 feet tall and weighing about 140 pounds.
He had a goatee and a ponytail and wore a brown coat, blue jeans, a tan shirt and the wide-brim Indiana Jones-style hat, French said.
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