Armored Caboose Designed To Protect Navy Nuclear Waste Trains Begins Final Testing
A new armored caboose is part of the Navy and the Department of Energy's plan to make moving nuclear cargoes by rail safer from attacks and accidents.
By Joseph Trevithick January 28, 2022
The War Zone
A prototype of an armored railcar that the U.S. Navy, in cooperation with the Department of Energy, developed to help protect trainloads of sensitive nuclear material is headed to Colorado to begin a final round of testing next month. The War Zone was first to report last year on this new Rail Escort Vehicle, or REV, which is set to start replacing older escort cabooses in 2024.
Earlier this month, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it had sent its first prototype REV, seen in a picture at the top of this story, off to the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado. This particular rail car is scheduled to begin a final two-year testing phase there in February.
A DOE fact sheet says that it expects to formally take delivery of this caboose from the manufacturer, Vigor Works, a company best known for building stealthy special operations boats for the Navy, in January 2022. In addition, it says that the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP), a joint Navy-DOE organization more commonly known simply as Naval Reactors, is scheduled to officially receive its first REV later this year. NNPP previously told The War Zone that it was hoping to take delivery of its initial REV before the end of 2021 and have it in service soon thereafter. It is not clear what the cause or causes of this delay might be.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44062/armored-caboose-designed-to-protect-navy-nuclear-trains-is-about-to-start-its-final-testing
