The Russian industry is ready to build a 100-ton ballistic missile, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said. According to him, the same can be said about the Barguzin railway-based missile system. The projects are “on the level of absolute readiness of the industry for their implementation, should the relevant decision be made to include the projects in the state armament program,” Rogozin said when answering a question about the stage of readiness of the Bargain railway-based missile system and the 100-ton heavy ballistic missile.
During the times of the Soviet Union, Strategic Missile Forces had three divisions of “Molodets” rail-based missile systems (NATO reporting name SS-24 “Scalpel”). The complexes were deployed in the Kostroma region, Perm and Krasnoyarsk regions. There were 12 “nuclear trains” in total, each of them carrying three missiles…
When I was in the Navy and stationed at Norfolk, there was a small train yard near one of the main gates that had a bunch of rusty navy-gray box cars. The rumor was that they were missile launch cars. No one went near them. I don’t recall if they were built by Lionel.
There were quite a few active rail spurs back then going out to the piers. There would be the occasional chump who would assume the tracks were abandoned and park on them. That did not result in happiness. I do recall that the locomotives were GE 44 tonners and a big deal was made in the base newspaper when they bought a Fairbanks-Morse.
Actually I was referencing a story I heard years back, goes like this…
An Air Force general was briefing some professional railroaders on the concept of railroad-based atomic missiles, and one of the railroaders asked “If you launch one of those things what’s it going to do to my roadbed?”
The general replied, “Sir, if we have to launch one of those missles what happens to your roadbed will be the least of your worries!”
But not everyone’s heard the story I suppose. It’s a good one though, ain’t it?
The Milwaukee Road a Proving Ground for “Hide-and-Seek” Missile Train
In an arrangement carried out by the Association of American Railroads and the United States Air Force, The Milwaukee Road served this summer as a proving ground for the Minuteman Intercontinental Missile Test Train program. About 20 American railroads are expected to participate in the maneuvers, which started June 20 and will continue through November.
The use of trains as mobile launching pads for missiles of intercontinental range is a new concept of national defense. The trial runs underway this year will last from 7 to 14 days, three originating from Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah, for movement in the West and Northwest, and three from Des Moines, Ia., to cover the Iowa-Nebraska area. They are under the operational control of a Strategic Air Command Task Force, with the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division serving as test director.
Actually I was there and it was the other way around. The air force folks asked if the track could survive a launch load (1,000,000 lb for 1/2 second IIRC). The railroaders asked why they cared as they had just started WW III. They weren’t going to clear up for the Super Chief, they needed to crawl into a ditch and kiss their butts goodby.
The Air Force replied that they wanted to move the train to launch the second Peacekeeper from a different location. The question was asked, and never answered why not launch both from 1/2 the trains at the same time.
We crouch in the shade of the warehouse wall, forty-two of us—some in uniform, some out—squinting like one man at the train inching toward us down the sun-baked siding. It is nearly noon. The breeze that made the morning bearable has long since died, and the sky above Utah’s Hill Air Force Base is blue, bone-dry, and burning.
Slowly, the train pulls alongside. We stand up. The air-conditioned interiors of the blistered cars look dark and inviting. But the signal to climb aboard does not come.
The man who must give it is standing alone at the edge of the loading platform. He is Lt. Col. Carleton V. Hansen, late of SAC’s Arizona-based 303d Bomb Wing.
My father a radioman in Berlin in the 50’s was chastised by his CO for not carrying his M1 around once. He told him if the war ever went hot in West Germany he goes my job is going to be destroy my equipment take my 45 blow my brains out as I know all the damn radio codes after burning the code book. CO looked him in the eye and said your right.
