WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Energy Department hopes to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev., in rail cars that would be about 40 percent heavier than today’s largest rail cars, which could put more strain on the nation’s aging railroad infrastructure, Gannett News Service reports.
Coal cars weighing 143 tons are about the heaviest cargo that moves in nonspecialized trains over mainline track, which carries the bulk of the country’s railroad traffic. The industry is moving to make that size the standard for all railroad cars.
Short line and small regional railroads, which operate the lines that connect far-flung customers to the mainlines, say that will require billions of dollars in track upgrades.
The Energy Department’s preliminary plans for hauling nuclear waste to a proposed central repository at Yucca Mountain envision using rail cars weighing more than 200 tons.
So far, neither the Energy Department nor the rail industry is considering whether the nation’s railroad infrastructure will need to be further overhauled to handle these extra-heavy nuclear waste cars, which are still in the design stage.
If the Senate and Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve the plans, about 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would be transported to Nevada starting as soon as 2010.
Nearly a quarter of the nation’s track is owned and maintained by about 550 short line and regional railroads. A study two years ago by the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association and the Federal Railroad Administration found these small railroads will need $6.9 billion to rehabilitate their equipment to handle the new 143-ton cars.
A bill that would give the railroads $350 million a year for three years to help upgrade tracks and bridges is awaiting action in Congress.
The big railroads and most of the mainlines can probably handle the Energy Department’s nuclear waste shipping campaign without spending a lot of money, said Allan Zarembski, an engineering consultant to the railroads.
“Where the concern would be is the branch lines where the track is not in tip-top shape,” he said.
Frank Turner, president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, said his group has not looked at whether small railroads will have to do more upgrades later if they’ll have to handle nuclear waste shipments. The Federal Railroad Association is now evaluating bridges owned by the short line and regional railroads to see whether they can handle the new 143-tons cars, Turner said.
“I don’t know how many nuclear waste sites are located on or near short lines,” Turner said. “That would be a completely separate issue from our (new 143-ton car) issue.”
Some examples of nuclear power plants that would likely ship their radioactive waste over short lines are the Duane Arnold power plant in Iowa and the Dresden & Morris and Clinton plants in Illinois.
Power plants already ship some nuclear waste across the country on trains — about eight shipments a year between 1979 and 1997, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But current-day nuclear waste railcars weigh about 113 tons.
Tom White, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, said the heavier cars should not strain the track because only a few hundred will be shipped annually.
The heavy weight of the nuclear rail casks could be offset if the load is spread over extra axles, Zarembski said.
“The critical issue is axle load, not car weight, with the exception of bridges,” he said. “There may be issues with total car weights on some of the bridges.”