Anyone know what this would haul?

[Bob Bufkin]

[Philip H]

Looks like one of those cask cars for nuclear materials.

[nkalanaga]

Philip's right.  Here's some loaded pictures:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=78493

[wcfn100]

I think this hauls something diffferent.  Closer to this:




Jason

[Bob Bufkin]

Got to agree with Jason.  Those cast carriers are different.  Wonder what is under those tarps.

[Hornwrecker]

Looks like the right shape and size for an SSTG (ship's service turbo generator), of which you'll find two on every nuke sub, and eight on every CVN (plus CTGs for reactor main coolant pumps).

[nkalanaga]

Jason:  I think you got it.  The pictures I found of the cask cars started at DODX 38870, with nothing listed from 38800 to 38869, and I assumed this was just an earlier style of cask car.  .  That is definitely NOT a nuclear material cask in your picture!

I've never seen a car with two ACI labels on the same side. 

[wcfn100]

This site says the car I previously linked to carries/ed steam generators.  It doesn't list the car Bob asked about.

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/dodx_cars/dodx/dodx.htm

Here's a sister car to Bob's.



Found at this site:

http://southern.railfan.net/flat/cars/dodx/38860/dodx38860.html

Jason

[C855B]

This site says the car I previously linked to carries/ed steam generators. ...

Hmm. And, of course, just what exactly is a nuclear reactor for Navy vessels? A honkin' steam generator.

The off-the-chart weight (400,000# !!!) vs. size says one thing - reactor assembly. No placarding because they're likely new and haven't seen fuel yet. They have to get from the manufacturer to the shipyard somehow, so rail makes sense, and they're sized for rail shipment...

...just like Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters. They were sized specifically for rail shipment. There's even an engineering joke about it.

[Hornwrecker]

Allow me to get pedantic for a bit:  What is labeled on the purpose of the car to carry - steam generator, should be steam turbine generator (SSTG).  A steam generator (S/G) for a reactor is something completely different; it's large upright, cylindrical heat exchanger, used to isolate the reactor/primary from the steam/secondary side in a pressurized light water reactor.  The only time you'd possibly see an S/G on a railcar is in shipment to a shipyard for new construction (Electric Boat in Groton or Newport News in VA), they last the life of the reactor plant, and are disposed with the whole reactor compartment which is cut out of the boat/ship.

Trivia:  of the 32 S/Gs on the USS Enterprise, many of them were made by Alco.

Before the newer cask, four truck cars, spent cores were shipped to Idaho in USN depressed center flatcars, two truck, that had a large cylinder, braced with four angled supports  /||\

ex-Navy nuke

[eric220]

That's clearly a track cleaning car.

[aikorob]

That's clearly a track cleaning car.

nuclear powered!!!
them rails gonna be shiney!!