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Eric
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12 hours ago, GT4494 said:

It used to visit us regularily.  Then they painted the cars different colors to make it seem more "normal".  How many trains have you seen that have never been tagged.  :)

My dad worked for years with the bombs but they moved everything here by air.  It was just  few miles to the local airfield and they transported everything there with armed escorts.  Military cargo planes came in and taxied to a corner of the airport and then the bomb was transferred to the plane.  He said he never saw so many machine guns and he was in the Pacific during WWII.  Interesting point is the armed security were never told exactly what they were protecting, but I would guess they had a pretty good idea.

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RE: the "White Train".

It was honestly the worst kept secret in the US nuclear enterprise. Called "SSR"s [Safe, Secure Railcars], the heavily armored box cars were interspersed between the "guard cars" and were operated by commercial engines and train crews. The HQ was in Amarillo, Texas and it was there that components rolled into the complex and were assembled into working nuclear weapons. They would be loaded into the White Trains and shipped to Bangor, WA or to Charleston, SC for Polaris, Poseidon, or Trident armed boats. They also stopped at or near USAF facilities to off load new weapons or pick up weapons in need of depot-level maintenance or that were obsolete. Some bombs/warheads had operational lives of <4 years before being replaced by new versions.

The top speed of the trains were 35 MPH and were rigidly enforced. Stories from locomotive engineers tell of pushing their engines to 36 MPH and then seeing a powerful flashing light from the guard car warning them to slow. The train crews never knew how the guards monitored the speed. 

Due to nuclear protestors throughout the 1980s, in 1984 the cars were indeed painted various colors to fool the casual onlookers, but the turreted guard cars couldn't be hidden and the protestors had a "network" of monitors that relayed the departures.  In 1985, tractor-trailers began to be used in large numbers and by 1987, the trains were retired. Some of the train rolling stock sits rotting away in the Amarillo train museum. 

 

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A much more recent Norfolk and Western Locomotive - a 4-8-0 which was a somewhat uncommon wheel arrangement in the States. Currently operating at tge Strasbourg Railway in Pennsylvania - just across the road from the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum and in an area with a number of railroad themed attractions. 
 

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