The White Train - Pantex Plant

[@coloradostrong]

At 01:00 they show a JC Penney Travel Data System. I had one very similar, but not the exact one shown. I still have 2 new ones in the box now. They worked by placing magnets on your vehicles drive shaft and mounting a pickup sensor in proximity to the magnets to get your speed readings and then calibrating a known distance and setting the info in the computer, along with tire size. They also used a fuel meter that was placed in the fuel line to give you the miles per gallon. It had an incandescent bulb in it, and as the fuel flowed through the sensor it rotated a mini blade that blocked the light and it then counted the pulses. It was only for carburetor type engines, not fuel injected. It worked with rear wheel drive or front wheel drive.

[@professorshermanpeabody1237]

Came right thru downtown Ft. Collins, CO back in the 70's. Probably materials to and from Rocky Flats and Hanford WA. Nobody gave it much thought until the city grew from nice small college town to the northern city of the front range megalopolis.

[@MeMe-pt7ys]

it was called the ghost train at our facility in sc I remember when they painted it ,you knew something was "special" about it you never saw a train that clean and shiny and just "not" quite normal shades of paint and to this day most people still dont know our facility ever existed there you would say pomflant no idea finally just say weapons station which was a completely separate facility

[@SynchroScore]

Reminds me of when I saw a train run through my hometown about fifteen years ago. Single locomotive, several boxcars with caboose, lettered with DODX reporting marks. Clearly something military in those boxcars, and a caboose full of people with guns to keep the cargo safe.

[@TruckingToPlease]

DoD for sure. The X suffix is just a place holder for the 4 numeric coding for north American rail cars. Most cars end in X. Depending on the company owner or leasee. The US Army maintains switch engines on various Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine installations. Equipment transport trains are on generic flatbeds with secured yards within base installation property. Other deeply isolated facilities. ex: Sierra Depot, Red River, Hawthorne, Tooele, etc.

[@SynchroScore]

@@TruckingToPlease Reporting marks don't need to have four letters, there are plenty with two or three. X at the end means that the car has a non-railroad owner, usually a shipper or leasing company, and often an acronym for the owner. WEPX: Wisconsin Electric Power. UTLX: Union Tank Lines, and so on.

[@TruckingToPlease]

@SynchroScore Pretty much what I stated. "owner or leasee".

[@PnwOnTour]

It ran over a protester once, dude lost his legs, he even had dinner here in Bangor with another protester who lived in a house just to watch the train go on, they still have an organization nearby and own property adjacent to the base lol

[@johnstudd4245]

What a dumba##. Was it worth being a "martyr" for the cause? so to speak.

[@belogio]

Shoutout to my Kitsap pals! The tracks are still there and appear to be maintained

[@seismicrock6849]

An interesting snippet of national security history, as well as an obscure part of railroading.

[@vondumozze738]

Very interesting indeed to this rail fan and former aviation ordinanceman.

[@tomp8871]

Yes, new to me. Interesting

[@Backroad_Junkie]

My company had an installation in the Monsanto Mound facility. We were told of a Nun, that knew of *every* train that was leaving the facility, and would protest, even though the schedule was supposed to be confidential. Don't think it was God that gave her the schedule, lol...

[@yrunaked4]

it wouldnt be allowed on carriers today because of the friction bearing trucks, very neat piece of railroad history.

[@ucnhtmenow1]

He forgot to mention the safest way to transport nuclear weapons. I think it's funny there's not a single dislike on this video. There's so many videos like this with tons of dislikes for some unknown reason. What's not to like about it if you're clicking on it?

[@tedsmart5539]

Can't mention what cannot be proven...

[@cup_and_cone]

Safest way is actually airplane from base to base, but I see you're point...

[@dennispersson9466]

@@cup_and_cone with the 'safety records' of airplanes, one crash could have splattered radioactive particles over miles, even if they didn't detonate. And there are now known, 'incidents',where B47s, and B52s have crashed, and some bombs are STILL Missing!

[@cup_and_cone]

@@dennispersson9466 Airplanes are exactly how the USAF moves around it's arsenal of nuclear weapons to this very day... so your inquisitions are based on outdated phobias.

[@dennispersson9466]

@@cup_and_cone Guess what, my reply to you was erased, because Boob toob, decided the truth was too SCARY, for your psyche, to handle.

[@robertstarkey1634]

I would love to live on the train

[@videosuperhighway7655]

Imagine a Hobo trying to jump on one of these trains LOL. NNSA Couriers handle transport of these products.

[@dennispersson9466]

There were armed guards, in the trains crew cars, armed with 45 cal. semiautomatic pistols, and Thompson Submachine Guns. That could handle Anything less than an airplane attack. And you could probably NEVER know, if they had helicopter support, when traveling.

[@dennispersson9466]

Back in the days, when a 'Laptop' took up the size of half a Walmart store, or a high school building, and people read something called a 'Magazine', one called "Popular Science", printed an article about "America's Atomic Train", which went around the country, hauling up to 5 Minuteman I.C.B.M.s, in mobile boxcar launchers and power, tool, communications and crew support cars. In heightened danger times, they could hide in mountain tunnels, and come out to launch retaliatory strikes, at ANY possible enemy city. Unfortunately, the anti-war movement protesters threatened to sabotage the trains, if they got the chance, and cities protested their passing through them, so the government gave up on the idea, before the full number was built. I don't know how many units were made, but Lionel, Tyco, and AHM, made toy sets, from the 50's to the early 90's.

[@patrickshaw8595]

My brother had one of the models.

[@Guitarman7133]

ANOTHER SPACE NERD. ICBMS DONT EXIST. YOU IDIOT.

[@dennispersson9466]

@@Guitarman7133 OH, I'm sorry, my dear, FLAT EARTHER. I didn't mean to shake up your "Safe Room"! I know your padded world has A DIFFERENT meaning for the letters, I.C.,&B.M. That's what YOU say when you scrape it off the bottom of your shoe. (Ask your Mommy or Daddy what it means).

[@SynchroScore]

It's not that anybody threatened to sabotage the trains, just that the military considered hardened silos to be more cost-effective and, spread out over wide missile fields, similarly resistant to a first strike.

[@kishascape]

Nice. There was a similar government train that acted as a discrete ICBM launch platform.

[@LGTheOneFreeMan]

Yeah, discreet until you realized that the suspiciously oversized fruit reefer needed those kind of special trucks on it to redistribute weight, like on nuclear cask wagons. They wanted to hide them in regular freight manifests but decided that that was a bad idea so they got their own service with a pair of (government owned) locomotives and guards. Like the white train. They built some of the equipment but unless it's like the stuff the Russians built it's very difficult to move ICBMs by rail in a launchable state. Very fragile, and they had to be fueled when being prepared. As a joke they were nicknamed "portable switch heaters." As far as I know the program never got very much further than prototype, but I could be wrong. The launch car had "feet" on it that would extend down and level the launch platform on the ROW, kind of like the levelers on a backhoe except vertical.

[@dennispersson9466]

@@LGTheOneFreeMan I'm pretty sure they used the Minuteman missiles for their system. It had a solid fuel, multi-stage motor system , and the launcher was contained in a modified enclosed auto parts boxcar, which was about 90 feet long, and could possibly be built longer, or the erector crane, and launch pad, & flame deflector could have been on the next car behind.

[@felixbaxter352]

Great job for a railfan. Funny how they only used one loco and didn't devote a second in case the first broke down.

[@stewartdeerfield]

They didn't. I worked the AT&SF Plains division in the early 80's. I'd see it often, always had big Jacks on it. SD-45-2's, F-45's etc. Lots power.

[@bBersZ]

That's why there were so many people working on the train. Part of their job was to push it to the next town where a new locomotive would've been choppered in to be swapped out.

[@dennispersson9466]

@@bBersZ interesting equipment breakdown solution! I would have thought, they used the tried and true system of the Egyptian pyramid builders. #1, get looong ropes. #2, tie them to the train. #3, get the onboard train crew, and military technicians, to DRAG the train to the nearest siding, then get another engine to come to replace the dead engine. The TYPICAL GOVERNMENT cure, "Don't raise a bridge, Lower the river, under it !"

[@samsmith5556]

@@bBersZ yep ur right

[@sargentrowell81]

I would trust moving those things LESS by road than rail.

[@DougGrinbergs]

1:57 last Pantex train 1987

[@robertbud8084]

Out of my hometown....underground

[@Mike-fx1eu]

Hydrogen bombs are a really scary cargo.

[@ericeder1693]

I thought this was gonna be about transporting tampons 😆 (Pantax/Tampax)

[@chrishaas2740]

just the tampon in you

[@jed-henrywitkowski6470]

"track" record". Yes, I snickered at that.

[@robertbud8084]

The big white Train

[@ocsrc]

What is Pantex ?

[@robertbud8084]

Cold war glory😤

[@PortlandsTransport]

Who knew? 🤷🏻

[@jasonrodgers9063]

The most amazing thing is that the cars aren't coated with stupid gang graffiti.

[@americancitizen748]

1:00 - Made by J.C. Penney?

[@videosuperhighway7655]

JC Penney also made the Transport cases for Nuclear physics packages as well, they had a Nuclear weapons transport division and they had a yearly catalog for ordering required items.

[@1978garfield]

That was a trip computer for your car. The repurposed it for the train.

[@josephastier7421]

@@1978garfield An E6B Flight Computer (aluminum slide rule just for pilots) would make the same computations.

[@rearspeaker6364]

@@videosuperhighway7655 so did sears.

[@robertbud8084]

Carrying nuclear weapons

[@robertbud8084]

Shipping nuclear weapons

[@loganbaileysfunwithtrains606]

I find it funny people trying to protest a train full of armed guards hauling warheads. Just don’t stop.

[@KerbalRocketry]

curious why they didn't just go faster? could american locomotives of the time only go 35mph safely?

[@blackbird_actual]

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that they were hauling nuclear weapons around.

[@johnstudd4245]

They were just not taking any chances. At that speed even if there was a derailment there probably would have not been any serious consequences.

[@teerthrajtirpude1950]

The only train that can offend tik rok and twitter users