Does anyone know if American railroads transported uranium ore in quantities during the cold war (or later)? If so, what kind of equipment was used? Were cars open or closed, stock or specially designed? Was raw uranium ore transported to milling or refining facilities?
If anyone has any information, please let me know at:
…and thank you for your help.
I don’t think so. As I recall the chief uranium processing site was in Nevada and used off road dump trucks. The weapons grade stuff is Plutonium and is a byproduct of nuclear reactions. That is why Iran and North Korea are starting “power plants”. All of ours was processed at Oak RIdge Tenesee I think. There was also a site in Hanford, Washington but I wouldn’t ask too many questions or you might have a department of Homeland security representative visit you as our enemies are very actively pursuing these products as we know.
Yes, ore was certainly shipped via rail cars. See the duplicate thread in the TRAINS magazine forum.
Wayne