The Navy's New Train Car Has All the Firepower and Tech You Need for Nuclear Security
Major train heists aren't as common now as they were in the Wild West, but railways still carry some highly sensitive cargo that demands heavy-duty, specialized protection. That's why the U.S. Navy, better known for aircraft carriers, submarines and fighter jets, is adding a sleek new armored train caboose to its arsenal, designed to protect shipments of radioactive waste and house mission-relevant security personnel.
The slate-blue Rail Escort Vehicle, or REV, a collaboration between the Navy and the U.S. Department of Energy, departed its assembly site at Vigor Industrial in Portland, Oregon this month for a testing location at the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. in Pueblo, Colorado, where it will undergo a final slate of tests. When it enters service as soon as 2024, REV will get hooked up to DoE's new Atlas railcar, built to hold hundreds of tons of spent nuclear fuel. For the Navy, the trains will carry spent fuel rods from shipyards and propulsion facilities on the East and West Coasts to the Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho Falls, Idaho, for inspection and temporary storage before final disposal in dry casks underground.
Many details about the new caboose are classified, but DoE says it will provide "enhanced security, communication and surveillance capabilities," compared with the smaller yellow escort cabooses currently used for the mission.
A spokesman for the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP), Lee Smith, said the final two-year phase of testing will involve multiple train cars and demonstrate compliance with the Association of American Railroads' S-2043 regulation governing the transport of radioactive material.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/27/navys-new-train-car-has-all-firepower-and-tech-you-need-nuclear-security.html
