Nuclear powered locomotives?

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see Nuclear Powered Locomotives and I belive the ARMY is testing one

[Anonymous]

vsmith:

I know. The last paragraph was meant to be facetious. Couldn't resist the wisecracks--I've had to handle a lot of serious people with major misconceptions over the years, particularly at the University level. Besides, think about how many headlight and ditch light bulbs you'd save with the glow-in-the-dark concept.. Probably a RR acct somewhere that might go nuts over the idea (save a nickel, spend a million- hey, it works for the hwy people). But I really do think you provided some more very good info for all the folks, particularly the younger ones. I think you did a great service posting the article. Remember when nukie electricity was going to be so cheap they were going to give it away?

And, by the way, isn't it amazing that almost every artist's conception of a sexy new RR technology looked like an E? What are we missing?

[vsmith]

Found this on the web while looking for a photo of the atom-loco..

Fallout from the `peaceful atom'

By Peter Montague

In 1953 US President Dwight Eisenhower announced plans for the "peaceful
atom". The shining star of this program was to be thousands of nuclear-powered electricity-generating plants, worldwide, making electricity "too cheap to meter".

Electricity was not the only promised benefit. According to author Catherine Caufield, news articles soon began appearing with headlines such as, "Forestry Expert Predicts Atomic Rays Will Cut Lumber Instead of Saws", and "Atomic Locomotive Designed".

Between 1946 and 1961, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) spent $1.5 billion to develop an atomic airplane. (The entire Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb had cost $2.2 billion.) Problems with the atomic airplane were obvious from the beginning. The nuclear reactor powering the plane had to be shielded, but shielding is heavy, so an atomic-powered airplane could never get off the ground. According to New York Times science-columnist Peter Metzger, for a time the AEC considered reducing the shielding and employing only older pilots who wouldn't be planning to have any more children.

Another problem was that radioactivity would build up inside the nuclear engine: after running for a year, the engine would contain 20 times as much radioactivity as was released by the Hiroshima bomb. A plane crash would leave a major legacy of radioactive waste spread across the countryside. The project was abandoned.

Staged accident
Atoms for Peace spawned other expensive schemes. NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) was developed at a cost of $1.4 billion. On January 16, 1965, the AEC staged a nuclear accident in the Nevada desert; a NERVA rocket was launched and a portion of its engine was purposefully burned up so that AEC scientists could study environmental effects of radiation. Six million residents of southern California were showered with radioactive debris by this event. Glenn Seaborg, head of the AEC, concluded that NERVA would be too dangerous to launch from earth because of radioactive releases. The project died a public death in 1972, but in 1994 it was revealed that the Department of Defense had gone ahead and developed a nuclear-powered rocket using its "black budget" (secret funds), as part of Star Wars program.

The keel of a nuclear merchant ship, the Savannah, was laid in 1958. The ship toured the world, aiming to improve the USA's image abroad. The Savannah was deactivated in 1971, and the project was abandoned.

In the mid-1960s, the whiz kids at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico began promoting nuclear-powered pacemakers to be implanted in the chests of patients with heart problems. The nuclear-powered pacemaker took advantage of a natural characteristic of plutonium-238, which is so radioactive that it gives off heat, which can be used to make a "nuclear battery" producing electricity. Los Alamos scientists spent several million dollars and several years on the nuclear pacemaker before they realised there was no way to keep track of such pacemakers and that plutonium-238 would soon be wafting out of the smokestacks of crematoria.

The military developed a "man-pack" plutonium-powered battery for use by troops. The device never went into service because, if one were blown up, a large area would have been permanently contaminated by plutonium dust. Nevertheless, in 1970, newspaper writers optimistically predicted that within three to five years campers would be carrying their own plutonium-powered man-packs into the woods. The project was abandoned.

The Bulova watch company in 1969 announced it was developing a plutonium-powered wrist watch, but the project was abandoned.

Plutonium underwear
The US Navy developed plutonium-impregnated "long johns" to keep divers warm in cold waters. One set of nuclear long johns contained enough plutonium to provide 1 trillion "maximum permissible lung burdens" of plutonium (333 maximum permissible lung burdens for every human on earth in 1970). The project was abandoned.

The Monsanto Research Corporation, which operated the lab where the diving suit was developed, promoted a nuclear-powered coffee pot. Such a pot would perk for 100 years relying only on its self-contained plutonium-238 heat source. Each pot would contain enough plutonium (5.67 grams) to provide 10 million lethal doses. The project was abandoned.

Even the crown jewel of the program -- nuclear-generated electric power -- fell upon hard times. Despite billions of dollars of subsidies, a multitude of problems beset the industry from the start. Since 1975, no new nuclear power plants have begun construction in the US.

Food
Despite these many failures, one part of the peaceful atom program has been kept alive. In the late 1950s, the AEC began promoting a new way to preserve food -- zap it with large doses of radiation. By zapping food with 100,000 to 3 million rad of energy, insects and bacteria could be killed, reducing food spoilage. (This is a large dose; 600 rad is sufficient to kill half of the humans thus exposed.)

Unfortunately, it became clear from the earliest days that a dose of radiation sufficient to achieve complete sterilisation would also cause profound changes in the food: unpleasant, unfamiliar and dangerous degradation products formed. Therefore, the program used less radiation than could achieve complete sterilisation, thus scaling back the benefits from "long-term preservation" to "possibly extending the shelf-life of some foods". To this day, no study has ever added up and described the benefits to be derived from irradiated food.

Lack of quantified benefits has not slowed the program, however. In 1967, a truck-mounted food irradiator built by the AEC criss-crossed the US promoting the benefits of irradiated food. In the late 1960s, the army produced irradiated ham, to provide ham sandwiches for front-line troops. However, in 1968, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared that the irradiated ham could not be considered safe. Despite this setback, in 1986, the FDA issued a mystifying and scientifically controversial decision, approving the irradiation of spices, pork, fruits and vegetables. The data that the FDA relied upon have been challenged.

Despite immense effort by government to create this new industry, no market for irradiated food has developed. The public just doesn't seem interested. Therefore, food irradiation is legal in the US but largely unused, except in the case of a few spices. Still the government keeps pressing on.


Caesium
Originally, food irradiators used cobalt-60 as the source of radiation. But in recent years the US government has been urging a shift to caesium-137.
Some critics suspect that food irradiation proposals are a way to use up the nation's limited supply of caesium-137 and thus create a need to produce more of it. Evidence for this is the fact that the government is willing to lease caesium-137 at bargain prices (0.83 cents per curie per year), compared to cobalt-60, which sells for $1 per curie on the open market.

If a food irradiation industry can be created, it will soon sop up all available caesium-137, and thus create a demand for more. This would require the government to start reprocessing nuclear waste. If wastes were reprocessed to extract the caesium, two things would follow automatically: the caesium would become the responsibility of states, thus relieving the federal government of an
enormous waste problem. Secondly, plutonium could be extracted from the wastes simultaneously -- a dream that the atomic establishment has savoured since 1950.

In sum, the government wants to create a food irradiation industry, thus requiring waste reprocessing to extract caesium-137, in order to revitalise a dormant plutonium-extraction program, critics argue.

We see the pressure to create a food irradiation industry in a somewhat different light. Now that the world's scientific community has reached consensus that global warming is upon us, and that humans are causing the problem (at least in part) by burning oil, gas and coal, pressure will mount steadily to shift to new energy sources. There are only two alternative sources of energy: nuclear and solar. The public's distaste for radiation has been, and still is, the ultimate barrier to nuclear power.

What better way to undercut distaste for radiation than by putting irradiated food on our plates? If we can all be convinced to irradiate our food, then our great respect for, and fear of, radiation will dissipate and ultimately vanish. By this means -- and probably only by this means -- can the way be cleared for deployment of the global nuclear power industry envisioned in Eisenhower's day.

Trillions of dollars -- and major issues of global political control and environmental contamination -- are at stake.

[From Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly.]

[adrianspeeder]

I say build nuke locos.[}:)][}:)][}:)] I live right down the road from TMI and if i have a nuke in my backyard, everybody should.[:D][:D][:D]

Glowin' green on my speeder,
Adrianspeeder

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by drephpe

To correct a possible misconception--those big cooling lakes and/or cooling towers you see at a nuke (or for that matter, any other power plant) are there to provide a source of cool condenser water for the steam cycle to run the turbine. All of these plants, regardless of whether they are coal, oil, gas or nuke use a recirculating closed loop for the steam, where it is preheated, heated and superheated in the boiler, piped to and then expanded in a multistage turbine, exhausted at low pressure and condensed in a shell-and-tube heat exchanger which is cooled by the outside water, and then piped as liquid water back up to the boiler. This minimizes the makeup water requirement. A modern power plant of any type must have some source of cooling water for the condenser--a river, cooling lake, cooling tower, etc.--or it will not operate.

All but a very few steam locomotives did not use this type of closed system, instead employing an open system where the spent steam was exhausted up the stack and you had to refill the tender every 30 miles or so in some cases.

While a cooling lake is a great potential source for reactor emergency flood water, that's not what it's there for. And despite the images on The Simpsons, those big cooling towers don't necessarily mean there's a nuke around, nor are they radioactive or contain the reactor.

But I do enjoy the image of a nukey loco dragging a lake around, or maybe a hundred or so tank cars full of cooling and make-up water, in addition to all that shielding. Where's the freight?? Definitely impractical. And imagine the havoc wreaked if they'd had them on the old L&N Gulf Coast line, for example, where trains routinely ran aground and dumped hazmat all over the place. Glow-in-the-dark train, anyone?

The proposed Nuke-loco back in the 50's had a condensor system that was ment to recover all the steam from the boiler system. If my memoery serves me right it was never designed as a true "steam locomotive" like a Hudson or a Mikado. It looked for like the experimental coal fired steam turbine units that the Chessapeak & Ohio (?) tested about the same time. The Atomic-train had a streamlined shell like an E unit, it was in an A-B combo with the reactor and the generator system in the front unitt and the steam condensor in the B unit. They discovered as they were designing it that a diesel loco wieghed less and could generate more HP than the proposed Atomic-train could produce. Add the extreme weight of the engine and the fact that alot of HP it would have generated would have gone simply to moving its behemoth self. The issue of reactor fluid spreading after a crash wasnt a big issue in cancelling it. The weight, cost, limited hauling and huge lack of interest by th RR companies did it in before it ever got to the engineering dept.

[Anonymous]

To correct a possible misconception--those big cooling lakes and/or cooling towers you see at a nuke (or for that matter, any other power plant) are there to provide a source of cool condenser water for the steam cycle to run the turbine. All of these plants, regardless of whether they are coal, oil, gas or nuke use a recirculating closed loop for the steam, where it is preheated, heated and superheated in the boiler, piped to and then expanded in a multistage turbine, exhausted at low pressure and condensed in a shell-and-tube heat exchanger which is cooled by the outside water, and then piped as liquid water back up to the boiler. This minimizes the makeup water requirement. A modern power plant of any type must have some source of cooling water for the condenser--a river, cooling lake, cooling tower, etc.--or it will not operate.

All but a very few steam locomotives did not use this type of closed system, instead employing an open system where the spent steam was exhausted up the stack and you had to refill the tender every 30 miles or so in some cases.

While a cooling lake is a great potential source for reactor emergency flood water, that's not what it's there for. And despite the images on The Simpsons, those big cooling towers don't necessarily mean there's a nuke around, nor are they radioactive or contain the reactor.

But I do enjoy the image of a nukey loco dragging a lake around, or maybe a hundred or so tank cars full of cooling and make-up water, in addition to all that shielding. Where's the freight?? Definitely impractical. And imagine the havoc wreaked if they'd had them on the old L&N Gulf Coast line, for example, where trains routinely ran aground and dumped hazmat all over the place. Glow-in-the-dark train, anyone?

[espeefoamer]

Steam triumphs over diesel.[:)]Modern submarines are nuclear powered.That means they are steamships.Take that,Rudolph![:D]

[domefoamer]

Some railroad history magazine -- was it Railroad History Quarterly? -- did an article on this not long ago. Nuke-driven hogs were an idea so utterly stupid that someone just had to assemble a task force and spend scads of money imagining it. That not even one prototype was ever built shows the poor potential of the scheme. Simply shielding the crew from radiation added too much dead weight. The environmental consequences of railroad accidents were horrible to contemplate. Most importantly, there was no reason to think an atomic locomotive would perform any better than a common diesel. Trains don't need to operate for extended periods far from resupply points like ships and subs do. They can stop frequently for fuel. Without stops for loading and unloading, a train has no usefulness. It wasn't like they were out on patrol duty! The whole concept seems more valuable today, just as something to laugh at.

[UPTRAIN]

I have just heard of the turbo train, like the one that looks like the acela but is jet powered.

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard




It can and has melted through the bottom of reactor vessels.
Ask the Russians about the China Syndrome, they have first hand experience.

Stay frosty,
Ed

As far as I know a true "China Syndrome" has not happened yet, even is Russia, Thank God. Though they have had some terribly close calls. Chernobyl has a graphite reactor which did not melt but suffered a catastrophic internal pressure explosion which destroyed the reactor.

Be afraid, very afraid....

A true "China Syndrome" is far worse.

The cooliing system has failed and the control rods have failed to slow the reaction. the core heats and heats and heats until it melts into a molten mass of radioactive metal at about a million degrees, this mass acts like a solid, melting and evaporating everything it touches giving off a massivley radioactive steam. Once the core melts, nothing can be done. This molten mass is pulled by the earths gravity downward melting a hole in the Earth theoriticly until it reaches the center of the Earth. In reality it most likely sinks until it hits the ground water table which instantly vaporizes giving off a geyser of deadly radiation that get blasted into the atmosphere. The water table, supplying water and cooling ever so slowely the core mass but even if there is a lot of ground water it would take a long time to cool down, all the while a deadly radioactive steam pipe is spewing gasses into the atmosphere shrouding the planet and there aint squat they can do to stop it...[xx(]


Mull on that, Kiddies..

[vsmith]

The primary goal of the Atomic Powered Bomber was ultimatly to produce a plane that could remain aloft for days at a time.

One of the primary reasons the Nuclear bomber failed was that they couldn't provide enough radiation sheilding for the crews. As they were built the X-39's could only be flown for I believe two hours maximum before the crews began to be exposed to dangerous (at that time) levels of radiation, and seeing that the round trip time from the US to Russia and back was a bit longer than two hours they idea was scrapped. In order to provide safe radiation sheilding the plane would be too heavy to get off the ground.

The same weight problems with sheilding and safeguarding the reactor core also doomed the Atomic Locomotive, the engine would have been so heavy that alot of the engines power would have gone to moving itself, let alone any cars. There were also concerns by the rail companies about having to reinforce existing right of ways and trackage to support the porky engines.

Nuclear ships and submarines never had to deal with this problem because of the ships and subs were already very huge to start with and the steam boilers and diesel plants they replaced were of a similar weight to start with. The weight of the cores was simply absorbed into the overall displacement of the vessel.

The radiation concerns we mention today simply were not of concern when these were being planned. Dont forget, this was in the 1950's when A-bomb's were being tested in the Nevada desert with US troops in trenchs right next to the blasts, and all this a mere 60 miles from Las Vegas. When there were serious plans to use A-bombs to blast a pathway for I-40 thru the mountains along the Arizona/California border. Not a speck of concern by our Government for the troops exposed to sometimes lethal doses of radiation or for all the people down wind of all that fallout.

[jchnhtfd]

It is highly unlikely that a nuclear reactor powered locomotive would be practical -- there is, if nothing else, a weight problem from the structure and shielding required.

However, I should point out, if only for the sake of completeness, that it is possible to build a reactor in which a loss of coolant accident results in a complete shutdown of the reactor, rather than a runaway as alluded to above: it is called the CANDU design, and there are a number of them in use in the sunny northland (Canada). If those of you in New England have the lights on tonight and are reasonably warm, you can thank the CANDUs of HydroQuebec.

[Anonymous]

mmmmmm I don't like nuclear power locomotive very high risk if get radiation from leak anywhere or big accient
What if don't use this nuclear locomotive where will go ? under ground or other way

[mudchicken]

Aw shucks - though bio-gas locomotives were the coming thing. Just feed the crews their daily ration of pork&beans before work & plug-em in......[:-^]

[edblysard]

Hi Guys,

Ever hear the term LOCA?

The bubleheads and Dan understand already.

Loss Of Coolant Accident.

Besides the control rods that prevent the reaction from becoming a runaway, the water in the reactor also absorbs a tremendous amount of heat, and helps control the reaction.

This water becomes super heated, along with becoming radioactive, and turns to steam in the upper part of the reactor, then, through a heat exchanger, passes its heat to "clean" water, which in turn becomes steam, drives a turbine, which drives a generator/alternator, which drives your motor or charges your battery.

The dirty,and radioactive water/steam in the reactor vessel is cooled, and condensed and returned to the main reactor vessel for reuse.
The "clean" water is cooled and released, or in closed systems, like a submarine, it is also condensed, and reused.

The huge cooling towers you see at land based reactors are not releasing steam from either side of the heat exchange loop, they are cooling the clean water prior to releasing it into a stream or body of water.

The steam you see is the excess heat from the clean water.

Ever note that most land based reactors are located next to, or have on hand a tremendous amount of water?

Because, if things go wrong, (read Three Mile Island) and you lose the coolant water in the reactor, the fuel rods melt, along with everything else, like the control rods, and it all puddles on the bottom of the reactor vessel.

The heat generated makes the surface of the sun seem like a nice place to vacation.

It can and has melted through the bottom of reactor vessels.
Ask the Russians about the China Syndrome, they have first hand experience.

To prevent this from happening, if, by some chance, you do have a coolant loss, the fastest way to stop the reaction before you get a runaway is to flood the reactor vessel with a continous flow of cool, "clean" water.

Locating your reactor next to a lake, the ocean, or a man made water supply makes sense.

In marine applications, like subs and surface ships, you have a on hand unlimited supply of "clean"(non radioactive) water.

If you dont have the supply on hand, and lose your ability to cool the reactor, thereby slowing the exchange of neutrons and absorbing the heat, you got big problems, real fast.

And once it gets away from you, there isnt much you can do.

Adding water after a meltdown of the control rods and fuel rods will just cause a exploision, as the super high heat generated seperates the oxygen and hydrogen on contact, creating exploisive gases, or it most often flashes over to steam, radioactive steam at that..

Ask any firefighter, like Joe and the others, here what happens when they spray water on a super hot fire.
The blow back steam cloud can cause as much damage as the fire!

Although flooding the reactor with sea water will destroy the reactor, the alternative is much worse.

On land, mobile reactors on a scale needed to move the tonnage of a train would require a fairly large crew , ask one of the bubbleheads here about the size of the reactor room crew on their boat.

And you would have to have a large supply of coolant water on hand, in tankcars, just in case.

And, as noted here already, all it would take is for the general public to find out, and John Q would meet the train at the county line, with a rope!

There is a large amount of truth in what one poster stated, if most folks knew about half the chemicals we haul through their town, they would have a stroke.

Ever see a solid white, large tankcar, with a red stripe lengthwise down the side, and big red signs on the sides and ends?
Does Hydrocyanatic acid sound like something you want get up close and personal with?

How about a tankcar full of MEK?
All you model railroaders out there who use it as a plastic glue/solvent already know what that stuff can do if you breathe it, or it gets on you.

And those two are some of the tamer stuff.

But the fact is, we have been hauling this stuff, day after day, for years.
And for the most part, far more safely that any other type of transportation system.

But, and this is a big but,
stuff happens!
And with a reactor vessel, I personally would perfer it happen anywhere I am not!

Stay frosty,
Ed

[Anonymous]

NOBODY has developed a nuclear fission reactor that will produce more power than it uses to intitiate the fusion reaction. Doing this is one of the Holy Grails of 21st Century power generation technology. That's why NASA and many other public and private organizations have spent so much money on research over the last four decades.
I agree that we won't see Nuclear powered locomotives(other than straight electrics getting catenary power from nuke plants). But,for those interested, the Modern Steam Page has some interesting engineering concepts for such units. The Modular pebble bed reactors discussed are a revolutionary new design that offer many safety advantages over the current contol rod systems.

http://www.messiaen.demon.co.uk/trains/newsteam/modern16.htm

[rrnut282]

NASA has been working on them for a while and if their light enough to launch they would be light enough to put in a locomotive. Read the paragraph at this website:
http://www.singtech.com/features.html#anchor656032
for more light and interesting reading read their development page.

[AltonFan]

QUOTE: But if you consider a fusion reactor, they can be made small, robust, and light enough that a rail application would be possible, though not practical for many of the same reasons (ignorance, initial cost, political correctness, oops I said that already).

Has anyone developed a practical fusion reactor?

[rrnut282]

As long as you keep talking fission reactors, you all are correct. But if you consider a fusion reactor, they can be made small, robust, and light enough that a rail application would be possible, though not practical for many of the same reasons (ignorance, initial cost, political correctness, oops I said that already).

[Anonymous]

Many wrote about the USAF nuklear powered bombers. At this site you will find a short overview why this had not worked. The two built test engines X-39 are still on display today!
But not in Nevada, they are beside the EXPERIMENTAL BREEDER REACTOR - I near Arco in Idaho.

http://www.atomictourist.com/ebr.htm

If you are an US citizen you can visit the two reactors. (I read at an other site that everyone can visit the side).

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 440cuin

How were they thinking of applying nuclear power to a bomber?

There was a novel serialized in Analog Science Fiction Magazine many years ago (maybe 20) written by a gentleman involved in the Nuclear bomber program.
Separate from the story he gave some background info. I saw the novel in book form published within the last two years.

All the good guys (base commander, air crew, and ground crew) were steam rail fans and model railroaders (steam only). The layout used a computer to help simulate operation. For instance if the load was too heavy the loco wheels would slip or if the crew didn't top off the tender before staring up the big hill they risked running low on water and possably blowing up the loco.

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevinstheRRman



Thats besides, if the train derails and that gets into the eco system, your going to wind up with 5 foot 6 inch tall squirels and chimpmunks with 8 ears and bears with two noses, so it's not likely to happen.

Sounds like the group I spent New Years Eve with![;)]

You too?


The USAF did do some experimentation with nuclear propulsion for aircraft. The History Channel or Discovery Wings had a program on it not too long ago. From what I gather, they didn't have the engineering worked out, but were flying aircraft with a reactor onboard to test the feasablilty of that alone. I believe that the risks of crash plus weight involved were just too much..

Crash risk and spent fuel disposal aside, a nuke loco though would probably never be able to recoup production costs in fuel savings and efficiency. I think that an estimate of 20 times the cost is little low..probably be in the neighborhood of 100 times by the time it was all said and done. A nuke ship or sub is a little different with issues other than just fuel efficiency involved. Plus the weight alone would restrict it to low speeds and only really heavy rail, another "production cost".

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevinstheRRman



Thats besides, if the train derails and that gets into the eco system, your going to wind up with 5 foot 6 inch tall squirels and chimpmunks with 8 ears and bears with two noses, so it's not likely to happen.

Sounds like the group I spent New Years Eve with![;)]

[Supermicha]

The german company Krauss Maffei (which also built SP´s ML-4000) had planned a nuclear driven engine in the 1960´s. The locomotive should consist of two parts which have both a truck in the front and are connected by a third truck in the middle of both engines. Above the truck, a small nuclear reactor should be installed which should power a steam turbine which was connected with a generator to deliver power for the motors. Although the engine does not need any fuel for years, the project was fallen down beacuse of safety reasons. Another point was the price, the engine would have the cost of 20 normal locomotives.

[daveklepper]

Don't we have the capability of competing with the airlines with good old electrics or diesels on two rails without going nuclear or maglev? Just apply the right amount of money with intelligence? If the French and Japanese go 250mph on two rails, why cannot the good old USA? It does take money. But so did the Interstate Highway System and all the airports. And who needs fuel-cell Hydrogen research when the Japanese hybrid cars get twice the mileage of a USA-built car with similar weight? Imagine if that money were spent on upgrading the railroads' tracks? Dave Klepper

[Anonymous]

In 1954 there were plans to build an atomic locomotive, but it never got beyond the drawing board. The proposed locomotive would look something like an A and B unit permantley coupled together with the "A unit" riding on three 3-axle trucks and the "B unit" riding on one 3-axle and one 2-axle truck. The whole thing would have been 160 feet long and weighed 396 tons with a maximum power of 12 000hp. There were great precautions taken against radioactive emissions and there were some sort of safety devices that stopped the reaction process in case of a derailment. The project was abandoned, though, for obvious reasons, plus you could have bought 4 diesel locomotives of equal power for half the price it would have cost to build the thing.

[Anonymous]

Nuclear powered locomotives are very unpractical, and would sell as fast as pre-chewed bubble gum sells.
I suppose if they ever made them, they would probobly sell even less then the alco PA's sold.. and how many was that.. around 250? Hardly worth the effort

Thats besides, if the train derails and that gets into the eco system, your going to wind up with 5 foot 6 inch tall squirels and chimpmunks with 8 ears and bears with two noses, so it's not likely to happen.

[tree68]

It's not nuclear, but maybe the next best thing - the fuel cell locos that are under test as we speak. No diesel emissions, just water. The technology is in its infancy for railroads, but the "reaction" that's needed - fuel to electricity - is there, and no radiation. If it proves to be economical and politically friendly, you can bet it will be adopted sooner rather than later.

Size and weight considerations aside, the biggest problem with a nuclear loco is that you can pick it out - railroad locomotives are pretty distinctive. If people sat by the roadside and looked up the UN code for every placarded truck that passed them (or railcar, for that matter), they would probably be shocked at how much methyl ethyl awful was moving around the country. But they don't, so they don't know. Tell them that the locos hauling that train through town might be nukes, though, and they'd probably meet the trains at the city limits, with local politicos, etc, etc, to stop it.

[JoeKoh]

Man
the fuss people put up when a reactor was shipped by rail here in ohio.i dont see a nuclear powered locomotive.
stay safe
Joe