powderburner
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- Jan 17, 2009
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Am I remembering correctly or not...wasn't someone here on TRF asking just a week or two ago about info on the old proposal to base Minuteman missiles on rail cars?
Just in case, the attached page is something I just came across. This looks a little improbable (inaccurate?) to me for a number of reasons. Heck, it looks like a joke. (Some general went nuts with his train set?) What is going to erect that missile ?(nothing shown in the picture) Notice that the base of the missile (in the first pic) is against the end of the car, but in the last pic (where the missile is in launch position) the base of the missile has slid down the length of the rail car toward the middle. Hmmm. Where is all the support equipment installed to get that missile running? (if it's in the next car, they should have shown the "mother of all umbilicals" stretching between cars) And are those guys really going to stand 50 feet away with nothing between them and the missile but a couple rail car walls? I don't know much about railroad cars, but how many sets of bogies would it take to carry a load like a Minuteman (plus gear)?
Maybe this is why they didn't go through with the idea--
Just in case, the attached page is something I just came across. This looks a little improbable (inaccurate?) to me for a number of reasons. Heck, it looks like a joke. (Some general went nuts with his train set?) What is going to erect that missile ?(nothing shown in the picture) Notice that the base of the missile (in the first pic) is against the end of the car, but in the last pic (where the missile is in launch position) the base of the missile has slid down the length of the rail car toward the middle. Hmmm. Where is all the support equipment installed to get that missile running? (if it's in the next car, they should have shown the "mother of all umbilicals" stretching between cars) And are those guys really going to stand 50 feet away with nothing between them and the missile but a couple rail car walls? I don't know much about railroad cars, but how many sets of bogies would it take to carry a load like a Minuteman (plus gear)?
Maybe this is why they didn't go through with the idea--