From the UTU website:
| Pantex railcars make last ride into history |
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| Once they served as Cold War sentinels, protecting heavily armed crews who crisscrossed the country with nuclear warheads in tow, according to the Amarillo Globe-News. But several Pantex railcars recently made their final trek into history as a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad crew hauled them to a new home at the Amarillo Railroad Museum. The train, operated by the Energy Department’s Office of Secure Transportation, shipped nuclear warheads assembled at Pantex to military weapons depots across the country. From 1951 to 1987, the government shipped Navy nuclear weapons by rail to protect the deadly cargo inside and because it was easier than trucking them. Originally, the cars were painted white to protect weapons against the sun’s heat. Later, the DOE painted the train in different color schemes to thwart possible attacks and unwanted protests. Eventually, the government began using armored tractor-trailer rigs, or safe-secure transports, to ship weapons and weapons components from weapons plants to U.S. military bases. The train, dubbed the “White Train” or the “Death Train” by some, drew the notice of peace activists who monitored its progress. In the mid-'80s, Oregon protesters once briefly blocked the train with their bodies as it headed to a Trident nuclear submarine base in Bangor, Wash. Bob Roth, president of the Amarillo Railroad Museum, said Pantex planned to rip up some railroad tracks and museum officials inquired about several cars that stood idle on the southwest corner of the 16,000-acre plant site. Museum officials then hammered out a partnership with the Pantex Site Office, BWXT Pantex and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, which moved the train from Pantex and opened up a closed rail |