I read with interest the recent article on the DOE proposed line to Yucca Mountain. Why is the DOE going to build a 330 mile railroad to reach Yucca Mountain by a very circuitous route when they could follow the abandoned Las Vegas and Tonapah ROW which is less than half the distance and lots of the grading is done, although eroded over time? What am I missing?
Dick Watkins
The line is being built to move radioactive waste from nuclear power plants to their final resting place inside Yucca Mountain. The site has been prepared as a repository for all of the spent fuel rods that are lying in pools of water at the power plants. These are getting full. The site is on the old nuclar test site in Nevada and very secure and in the middle of the dessert 75 miles north of Las Vegas. They could be building their own railroad to keep traffic out of Las Vegas. They could enter the test site east of town off of the UP mainline.
There are no railorads to get the spent fuel from where it is to yucca mountain currently. The reason for the odd route is to keep the line away from towns, and to keep it away from the air force bomb range (for obvious reasons). It is an answer to the outcry from certain public people as to the transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
The line cuts off at caliente, either going into the town or bypassing the town, and skirting along the northern edge of the Air Force test range and then heading south to yucca mountain. Follow below link and click on the link inside to go to a video showing the route and the thinking behind the route.
My thoughts were the same as Mr. Watkins when I first saw the plan. The Tidewater and Tonopah connected to what is now the BNSF Transcon at Ludlow and crossed the LA & SL, now UP, near Baker so a much shorter NEW RR could connect to the Yucca site. However, and I have no specific info about the origin of the materials to be shipped, if they are coming from eastern locations they would have to go west on the Transcon to Ludlow and then northeast on a new RR. Of course if the routing was on the UP from the east they would have to come on the Sunset Route into the LA Basin and then back to Ludlow or Baker.
So after thinking about the complete routing the 350 mile line from Caliente makes sense.
If any of the logic pertains to keeping the trains out of Las Vegas, because its a big city, isn’t that logic flawed to the extent that, in order to get say from an eastern power plant to Las Vegas, they’d have to pass through places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago (fairly good sized town there), Omaha, Cheyenne, Salt Lake, etc…
Seems to be a flaw in the logic in terms of it being part of the criteria for the routing of the line.
At the risk of getting chased out of town with pitchforks[}:)]…I wondered why they couldn’t build a road, on a more direct routing from the end of the rail line to the drop off zone? It appears to be quite an undertaking, to build a rail line that doesn’t seem like it will be all that busy(?). For $3.3 Billion, (or probably a lot more), couldn’t a 120 mile road be built through the desert just for this purpose?
I had the same thought as ccltrains about following the old LV&T route too. U.S. 95 does occupy a lot of the actual old right-of-way, but it must be a pretty good path for a rail line, and obviously would be shorter, simpler, and cheaper.
It might have to do with local politics and Las Vegas. The city, which originally owed its existence to UP, has had a contentious relationship with that carrier for a long time and is also, by far, the biggest population center in the state. Since this whole project is controversial and seems to be a bitter pill for a lot of Nevadans, it is probably wise policy to route the whole thing through the hinterlands and away from the view of 98% or 99% of the populace. That’s the best reason I can imagine.
Why is a railroad better than a highway for nuclear waste shipments? First of all, a road would probably be more expensive to build and maintain than a railroad considering the weight of the cargo involved. Heavy loads will require heavy duty road surfaces. Second, you dont want these shipments exposed to the danger of idiot automobile drivers crashing into them. Remember, Nevada is the home of roads with no speed limits, do you really think it would be a good idea to expose these shipments to fools driving 120 mph?
Doublestack:
I do like your point of view and agree with it on a practical and logical plane, however when politics, emotions, local politics, and the strange bedfellows that they attract to their causes; logic and much of the truth are the first casualties
PL
You obviously have not been in Nevada for some years. They have had speed limits on all highways since the 55mph limit was rescinded. On the Interstates the speed limit is 70 mph. On all two lane highways the speed limit is 65 and 70 mph with speed restrictions through all small towns.
Al - in - Stockton
That was only true up to early 1974, when the national 55MPH speed limit went into effect.
I tend to agree with the other posters with respect to a RR costing less to build than an appropriately heavy duty road - which would require transferring the cask somewhere in Nevada or California.
Back in the late 1970’s, some spent fuel was being shipped from San Onofre to a point back east via CA 78 and US 395 - the secition of 395 between Escondido and CA 76 had 7% grades. IMHO, it would have been safer shipping it direct via I-5, but that would have involved going through the densely populated sections of Orange County…
Oops. I forgot that much of the T&T ROW was used for US 395. However, a rail line could follow the road at a distance (2-3 miles) for safety and security reasons. As to Las Vegas the line could veer to the west or east to bypass the town. I have not checked topo maps to see if this is feasable. The bypass could be extended and built in conjunction with UP to fully bypass the town and keep the locals (or locos) happy.
Dick Watkins
There’s no doubt, that a rail line could be built to haul a heavier weight than a highway. I’m asking if it would be more practical and cost effective to run the shipments on a highway, either a brand new, purpose built one, or a rebuild of an existing one?
Here’s my thought process: The article says that a 330 or so mile railroad will be built to haul 9500 casks over a 50 year span. That works out to about one cask every other day. If a train was put together with several casks, we’re talking about a once a week train.
Is it possible, to build a shorter highway, capable of the same thing, without all the expense and upkkep? Is there such a thing as a highway Schnable type car, to spread the weight out? Could the far right lane of an existing muli-lane highway be rebuilt to higher standards? Could the casks be moved at night, in a military type convoy?
As far as safety goes, those casks already face the peril of somebody in a car hitting them at crossing now. I seem to recall reading that the casks are built to be nearly indestructable.
I think they want to keep it off of the highways for security reasons. Terrorists would like to use that material for “dirty” bombs. On a line running through the middle of nowhere, ANYONE near the tracks would stick out like a sore thumb.
Just my own theory.
The only “new build” in question is a connection between the national rail system and the Yucca Mountain Depository. The technical question is whether
Well…I’m not ranting and raving …yet. I attribute that, to the fact that I don’t watch television.[:D].
I was curious how a rail line and a highway stacked up in this situation, knowing full well, that people a lot smarter than me had checked over the situation before making their conclussions that a railroad was the way to go. Thanks for the overview.
Is there a nuclear storage facility already in place somewhere? Is the cask the final home for the waste, or just a conatainer to haul it in?
The casks would be shipped one at a time in individual trains with escort and spacer cars.
The material (spent nuclear fuel) could be used for a dirty bomb, but whether a dirty bomb is actually technically feasible is a matter of considerable debate - what isn’t a matter of debate is that spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and if reprocessed you will get weapons grade Plutonium. Hence, the material in the wrong hands could potentially be turned into a geniune nuclear device. In fact, most people with knowledge in the field think that the risk that the spent nuclear fuel will be reprocessed to be much greater than the risk of a dirty bomb.
Part of the problem with the Department of Energy and Nevada of course, is that Nevada and Utah just do not trust the Department of Energy’s assurances of safety due to the record of its predecessor organization the Atomic Energy Commission’s record in Nevada . The Prelinger Archives provide lots of evidence why people there don’t trust the DOE’s promises that storing nuclear waste there is safe - after all, these are the same people (well, as I said, it was the AEC) that told them that they had nothing to fear from open air tests of nuclear warheads. I think the record of the downwinders and the government’s lies and denial for years of the downwind problem is going to make it unlikely that Nevada will ever accept the Yucca Mountain site.
The transit issue could turn into a moot point - it is far from assured that the Yucca Mountain site will ever open.
Back again. If Las Vegas does not want the DOE containers on trains through their city and demand that the interchange be at Caliente how does the DOE plan to get waste containers from the west coast to Caliente? Are they suggesting using the Donner pass line to Salt Lake City then down the UP to Caliente? Now that one really makes a lot of sense.
I have a small bone to pick regarding the forums. At one time I had over 200 posts and for some unknown reason I went back to zero and now have 9 or 10. Does anyone know how to restore my count?
Cheers,
Dick Watkins
Moving the stuff from California via Donner Pass is as nonsensical as failing to build on the short ex-LV&T route from the existing UP main line into the storage area, but this may well be what happens.
All of this is probably the political price of getting Nevada to go along with the whole storage project.
By the way, I don’t know why Las Vegas has such a generally bad relationship with Union Pacific. An “anything goes, wink wink” place like Sin City shouldn’t have a lot of trouble with a company that just runs freight trains, should it? Oh, well.
Maybe someone complained that the vibration from a passing train made the roulette ball jump on a million dollar bet.[:O]