Nuclear Cargo?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I notice many of the containers and/or trailers on Intermodal Trains are unmarked, which makes me wonder?

I know that plain, unmarked tractor-trailers are used on the highways to transport nuclear material, and the only way you’d know it was if you saw the cab’s occupants with their M-16 rifles.

There was a time when nuclear missiles with launchers, using plain, unmarked tractor-trailers, were secretly transported on the highways.

Are any of those unmarked containers on the Intermodal Trains hauling nuclear material?

If so, would heavily armed escorts be hiding in a locomotive cab?

Are any of the unmarked containers hauling nuclear missiles with their launchers?

It doesn’t bother me if they do, but I’m just curious.

I’m old and totally disabled, but when I was younger, I used to work with that sort of stuff, so I know it’s a possibility, however fanciful or remote.

Of course, when you think about it, there is also a nightmarish scenario where a terrorist organization or a hostile foreign power could realistically use Intermodal containers to conceal a nuclear explosive set to detonate at a specified time and place.

That’s a recognized possibility, as there are too many containers to be adequately screened by a limited supply of Customs Enforcement agents.

So, we just hope, pray, cross our fingers, hold our breaths, and take our chances.

2

I believe you have too much tin foil in your possession.

3

The short answers to all of your questions is NO!

4

Any shipping container - truck, boxcar, container, tank car, etc, only needs to be placarded when it contains hazardous materials above a certain quantity. Thus there are thousands of the above mentioned containers/vehicles out and about every day with no placard.

Try sitting roadside with an Emergency Response Guide (ERG, or “Orange Book”) sometime. That’ll scare the daylights out of you.

Even worse - the package carriers (FedEx, UPS, etc) aren’t required to display placards because they don’t carry sufficient amounts of any one item to warrant it. But they do often have a chemical cocktail contained therein.

As for stuff like radioactive waste - that stuff is packaged pretty well - I’ve seen video of tests on the big containers. Locomotives don’t fare well against them.

5

He never saw an AECX Pantex move. That stuff was guarded and protected like nothing else I ever saw. (nothing incognito about it)…

If he wants to get rid of the tin-foil, our IT people will take it off his hands. (They’re looking at me funny again and the server is not normal.)

6

Psckaging, Transportation and Storage of Radioactive Materials “Placards are required on vehicles transporting one or more packages bearing Radioactive Yellow III labels, even if the cargo is in Type A packages. High level radioactive materials, such as spent nuclear fuel, require a diamond shaped placard with a larger white square with a black border.”

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/rmem2_0.pdf

7
8

Here’s American testing from the late '70s - don’t wince too much at the choice of locomotive…