Researchers once broadcast a train crash live across the UK, but this wasn’t a high speed chase involving a runaway train. Instead, it was a scientific experiment carried out in the 1980s that saw a 100 mph train smash into a nuclear waste canister to show just how strong the container was.
The year was 1984 and the place was a little village called Edwalton on the outskirts of Nottingham in the UK. At a British Rail test track, engineers were carrying out the latest test in a long line of experiments designed to find out just how secure nuclear fuel canisters from the power industry were.
The canisters comprised a 15-inch thick steel casing that was covered in cooling fins and contained a lead shield to better contain the radioactive substances inside. These kinds of flasks are still used today to transport spent fuel from nuclear power stations around the world.
In order to test the cans to the extreme, researchers in the UK carried out experiments including dropping one from 30 feet in the air and another that set out to find out what would happen to one of the tanks if it was hit by a train. Naturally.
To carry out the test, researchers filled a flask with three tons of steel bars and water to replicate the spent fuel that would normally be inside, reports Railway Magazine. The tank was then mounted to a flatbed rail carriage that was derailed and placed across a stretch of test track.
Eight miles away from the flask, a 140-ton train was hooked up to three regular passenger coaches. It was set up to run without a driver and was launched down the tracks at 100 mph, as Railway Magazine explains:
The test train started from Edwalton, some eight miles (13km) from the crash point, and was shadowed by a helicopter taking news pictures. A second helicopter, carrying television cameramen, hovered above the crash site, and a third patrolled the area, accompanied by a fixed-wing aircraft. The CEGB had taken out a Statutory Instrument to exclude any other aircraft from the zone.
Provision was made to halt the test before impact, should the train not be up to speed, catch fire, or be affected in any way which would cast doubt on the test results. This was by two a.w.s. magnets in the track which could be energised if needed, to apply the train brakes. In the event, there was no fire, and 46 009 ran well up to the test speed, so they were not needed.
At the impact, little more than a dull thud could be heard above the noise of the helicopters. There was a brief flash of fire, believed to be the locomotive’s fuel tank being crushed between its two bogies, and clouds of dust and smoke obscured detail. Through it, the locomotive could be seen to rear into the air and fall on its side before coming to rest. The three coaches remained more or less in line and upright, though the first one was slightly canted over to one side, and had its lavatory vestibule smashed into the rear cab.
Footage of the crash makes for quite the watch as smoke and flames erupt from the crashed engine almost as soon as it connects with the derailed fuel container. The three carriages career off the tracks too, and the very wheels carrying them along the rails break off in the impact. The fuel container, meanwhile, is shunted to one side and rolled onto its right hand side.
While the train was destroyed in the impact, the container did its job and came out of the ordeal almost unscathed. In fact, the UK Railway Museum reports that the canister took on very little damage and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.
The test did its job, showcasing to the British public that they didn’t have much to worry about when it came to transporting nuclear waste by rail. They did, however, have to worry about the way that waste was handled once it reached the Sellafield processing plant that deals with the UK’s nuclear waste, but that’s a story for another website.
Here in America, train derailments like this don’t often come with the same kind of positive spin. Instead, they’re usually met with the feeling that something awful has just happened and we’re about to watch the U.S. government do nothing to prevent the same thing from happening over, and over, and over again.