Railroaders' Nostalgia > Adventures with the Three Mile Island "nuke train"

Following the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear-powered generating plant in Pennsylvania a plan was developed to move the nuclear debris by rail from the plant to the Idaho National Engineering Plant near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Shipments were to begin in July 1986.

I went to a planning meeting in Harrisburg, PA where I was joined by people from the originating carrier, Conrail and various government officials and agency representatives. Conrail attempted unsuccessfully to refuse moving the shipments and so were reluctantly at the meeting. The plan was to move casks aboard rail cars in special train service via Conrail to St. Louis where UP would pick them up and take them to Idaho. All was pretty straight forward, but we knew there would be security issues and probably protesters along the route. All of us railroaders urged that the trips and the cask cars be "understated".

After the meeting we drove out to Three Mile Island to look at the cask car. To my horror I saw the cask was a brilliant silver with a big U.S. flag painted on the side. So much for stealth. The owners of the car seemed very proud of it.

The fun began with the first trip. I don't remember if it was the cask car special or another train, but there was a minor grade crossing accident in St. Louis. Officials went ape and decreed that fire trucks be stationed at each crossing to protect the train when it through St. Louis. That underscored my fear that if we ever put so much as a wheel on the grade, the politicians would go nuts and evacuate an area hundreds of miles in every direction.

Nebraska Gov. Bop Kerrey then announced that he would block the train from entering Nebraska. I was imagining a state trooper car, lights flashing, parked across the tracks at the border with a smokey standing out there, one hand on his weapon and the other up in the air signaling the oncoming train to stop.

The governor finally relented and it was agreed that a Nebraska state trooper would "inspect" the train in Marysville, Kansas before it proceeded into Nebraska. Apparently the state trooper found everything satisfactory and the train proceeded.

I was going to say everything went without incident, except for one thing. We found a transient riding the cask car along with a large dog when the train arrived in North Platte.

The shipments were completed in May 1990. JEB

Actually got a picture of one of the loaded moves.They ran across the Conrail St Louis Line in the middle of the night but this one showed in daylight after some wicked thunderstorms knocked out power and the signals overnight.Mike

Were you the on rep from UP at the meeting? I would have thought some traffic managers would be there too.

tomstp Wrote:
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> Were you the on rep from UP at the meeting? I
> would have thought some traffic managers would be
> there too.

I don't recall any traffic people there. We are mostly worried about PR, security.
JEB

Here's an image of the train and the cask car:

http://www.threemileisland.org/virtual_museum/july1986.html

That's classic. High visibility, high profile, high risk shipment arrives, with a bum riding on the car. Classic!
Clarence

Reminds me of the DODX "White Trains" that ran on the BN to Bremerton, WA, back in the day. It reminded me of the Blues brothers image of the unmarked car tagged "unmarked police car". The Department of Defense finally wised up and painted them different colors - bold primary colors, and clean as a whistle. <sigh>

steeplecab Wrote:
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> Reminds me of the DODX "White Trains" that ran on
> the BN to Bremerton, WA, back in the day. It
> reminded me of the Blues brothers image of the
> unmarked car tagged "unmarked police car". The
> Department of Defense finally wised up and painted
> them different colors - bold primary colors, and
> clean as a whistle.


Here's a set of photos I took of the "White Train" equipment at the Amarillo Railroad Museum. These cars hauled "special weapons" (the polite term for thermonuclear weapons) from the Pantex plant east of Amarillo to several military installations. http://www.flickr.com/photos/45944933@N00/sets/72157616762560258/

Bruce In KC

The Dog was fine but the Bum Glowed in the Dark!

Mr. Transient might already have been glowing BEFORE he boarded the cask car. ;-)

Bill G.

Those casks are pretty indestructible. Before one such movement several years ago, they showed us a demo film of one being dropped by a crane, and run into by a speeding locomotive. No damage.