I ran accross something I hadn’t read about in a long time. These were part of th elate cold war idea that we could have missles on railcars to launch at the Soviets. In a nutshell, the trains, made up of a couple engines and half a dozen cars, would be garrisoned in secure bunkers somewhare, waiting for the Bat Signal. If things heated up, the signal would go out, and these trains would roam the railroad network. The idea being, that it’s harder to hit a moving target.
The fall of the Soviet Union put an end to the idea.
Did this go so far as to involve a lot of planning and input from the host(?) railroads, or was it just something on the drawing board?
How in the world would you dispatch missle trains trying to sneak around the country carrying nuclear missles? Would they have “DO NOT HUMP !!!” stenciled in 6 foot high letters on the sides of the cars? [:-^]
They were tested, at least the train and the guidance system were. (My Division Engineer boss at the time referred to it as a portable switch heater and hoped they didn’t try to test it in the tunnel) - I also assisted as a guide during the 6 months that DMA had a gaggle of surveyors on the property performing the zero-order survey checks. Interesting technology that only now is showing up in the private sector. (PDN: Ever touched or used a Wild T-4?)
They WERE put into service, for a short period of time, My job at the time was the supervisor of the group that kept NCA (National Command Authority) network up at all times. We were and they still are based at the Mega Center in Mechanicsbur, PA. If a command from the President went out it went through us as the primary site. I know that they were active because we had to connect them to the network when they were activated and then deactivate them when they were no longer in service.
(Edit to add content) searching for Peacekeeper Missile Garrison Train and as an aside Russian Missile Tran drew some pretty interesting results.
The most frequently pictured car is a ‘Missile Car’ (87’ long and painted Tuscan Red and wearing Westinghouse Corp identification codes. It is astatic display at the US Air Force Museum ( at Wright-Patterson AFB) at Fairborne, Oh. There was an AFD official web site that noted (alluded to(?) there were some more of these cars scattered around at other (official) Air Force Museums( ?) I could not confirm that.
The original Missile Train was to have two diesel power units,( two LG-118A missiles) in missile cars, a fuel car, two crec comand and control cars and a security car. This complement is noted on several websites. As previously stated they were domociled at the Air Base in F.E. Warren Ab the Cheyenne, Wy. area. There was also a facility built at the Missile Test Facility at Vandenberg AB in California. There were fifty missiles deployed to be indstalled on twenty-five trains.
Here is one link that is a fairly thorough history: I have yet to find any photos of the entire train, I am beginning to suspect that the only cars that wetre ever photographed were the 87’ missile cars(?)
The Russian Missile Train is a different situation, they have placed an entire train at a Railroad Museum in St. petersburg.
I don’t remember seeing the RG car at the museum when last I visited in about 1995, though they say that it was delivered in 1994.
I notice looking on Google Earth, though, that it’s out at the north end of the external displays, north of the prototype Hard Mobile Launcher (HML or hummel) which was the trucked version using, as I recall, the Midgetman missle.
I did some IV&V work on HML communications systems towards the end of the eighties, but I couldn’t get out of my head the image of Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase in their winter gear dancing to the Bar-Kays.
There was a 3-page or so article on this in Trains in the mid-1980’s written by an Air Force officer as I recall. There was also some speculation and concern there and elsewhere about the railfan commuinity being able to identify, monitor, and report on the travels and locations of these trains, and either being infiltrated by Soviet agents or that information falling into their hands, but nothing much ever came of that. (I can’t believe I’m writing that with the way “Homeland Security” attitudes are these days. Can you imagine if the Internet and message boards had been as prevalent then ? Between webcams, cell phones and their cameras, text messages and GPS, etc., we can now see daily how the locations of certain special locomotives or trains - the NS Office Car Specials come to mind - are tracked almost minute-by - minute.) Then again, even with the attempted camouflage of the red oxide paint scheme as shown on the website that ericsp linked above, the short trains with 2 locomotives and the 3-axle trucks under a largish boxcar are all pretty much ‘dead giveaways’ that it’s not your normal run-of-the-mill boxcar or train here . . . [:-^]
These cars were also a sub-plot item in Tom Clancy’s 1990 or so “Jack Ryan series” novel, Debt of Honor - see: http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Honor-Jack-Ryan-Clancy/dp/0425147584 A fictional ex-GN then Amtrak official with experience with them was recruited to review and advise on the search for ICBM missiles that had been transported by railcar on the Japanese rail network, and during that had some comments about their sensitivity to the bumps and bangs that are inherent in railroad equipment.
Super high accuracy survey location that makes the local GIS (and GPS navigation system in your car) look like the piece of crap that it really is. An error of one part per million. Your local surveyor is trying to strive to keep his measurements somewhere between second (1: 20000) and third order(1:10000)…GIS and the GPS system in your car navigation system is not worthy of 3rd Order precision.
An awful lot of engineers don’t even understand what the difference is between accuracy and precision is. It’s just a certain number of digits to get manipulated to them. (Accuracy is how close to the truth you are. Precision is how many times you can repeat the same measurement. Measurement is an inexact science.[8-|])
Well put, but for some reason, a brutally difficult concept to get across.
Lawyers seem to be the worst candidates for ever figuring out the difference. Engineering students are next in line.
I keep going back to “City Slickers” when Billy Crystal is trying to explain to Daniel Stern about recording on the VCR and hearing Bruno Kirby’s line, “Give it up. He doesn’t get it. He’s never going to get it.”
Accuracy in the launching position would be needed for accurate targeting. Also, while nuclear devices do make a big bang, accuracy would be needed to take out hardened targets such as missile silos.
Here is how accurate the US Military measures the Launch Points for the Missles got this from a Retired Boomer crewman so I think it is pretty accurate. The Boomers have a system that can tell the Missles were tehy are within 1 Millionth of a Millemeter WTH they are in the world at all times.
Hmmmm… Once the missle is launched, the onboard guidance system needs to lead it to a target with pinpoint accuray. OK, sounds right. But why would you need pinpoint accuracy locating where you are firing it from? Especially, if the missle would be moving from time to time?