Re: NNG- Nevada Bombing Range Train

Dan Markoff Wrote:
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> The only railroad I am aware of on the bombing
> range was from WW2 days. Originally, Nellis AFB
> was known as the Las Vegas Gunnery School. They
> used to have railroad tracks in place for
> transporting targets so the gunners could shoot at
> them with shot guns. I have personally seen
> these, as some are still in place. Also Major
> General Bill McCoy was the former commander of
> Nellis AFB and was a member of Eureka's crew. He
> loved railroads and flying. In all the years I
> knew him, he never said there was a railroad on
> the bombing range and I am sure he would know.
> However, on the Nevada test site which is adjacent
> to the bombing range, there is a railroad that
> was known as the Jackass & Western. The railroad
> is still there as far as I know. Additionally,
> the Nevada State Railroad Museum Boulder City has
> two locomotives from the Jackass & Western. These
> have an interesting history, as they were used to
> haul around the nuclear rocket engine to the test
> stands and back. Also, there used to be a spur
> that ran from the Union Pacific main line to the
> actual base area of Nellis. Much of it is torn up
> now.
>
> Any body else out there ever hauled a nuclear
> rocket engine with a locomotive?
>
> Dan Markoff

Hi Dan,

Almost nothing that I hear about what went on (and in some cases, still goes on) up in the Nellis ranges surprises me. Some of the nuclear stuff they did up there was downright scary. Google "NERVA" sometime and read about the nuclear rocket testing they did. They actually did come up with a functional, usable nuclear-powered rocket, which was intended for a Mars mission that obviously never materialized, when national interest in the space program waned after the moon landings. I think the public would have probably risen up against any effort to actually launch such a thing. There are videos on YouTube of some of that testing. As I understand it, in one of the last tests, they deliberately let the cooling system run out of coolant, so the reactor core would go out of control and self-destruct, as a test of the worst-case disaster.....which it did. Ah, what the heck, when you set off over 1,000 nukes up there, what extra harm could an exploding, run-away reactor do?

/Kevin Madore



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2019 10:00AM by KevinM.