A "nuclear train" with typical yellow signs warning about radioactive danger, has just completed its journey from the European part of Russia to East Siberia. It has brought nuclear fuel, a waste from the nuclear reactor of the Balakovo nuclear power plant in the Volga Area, to the city of Zheleznogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The workers of the mining-and-chemical integrated works specializing in processing and storing of radioactive materials are to unload 72 fuel elements, their total weight being 30 tons, from railway containers.
Every day at least two trains with dangerous radioactive cargo set out on a long journey about vast Russia and sometimes beyond its boundaries. They are accompanied by experts and military guards. They deliver fresh nuclear fuel for the reactors of nuclear power plants, carry away nuclear waste - radioactive material from naval bases and from the reactors of utilized nuclear submarines - make home and export deliveries of radioisotopes, and so on.
Each such train consists of 7 or 8 cars. According to the information provided by the Railway Ministry, during a year over 700 "nuclear trains" carry more than 5,000 containers, each weighing 40 to 80 tons. According to Nikolai Shingaryov, chief of the public relations department of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, "these trains are watched closely not only by railway traffic controllers giving the green light to the trains all along their way but also experts from the Agency's Crisis Management Center monitoring every second of a train's movement."
Nuclear experts assure that such trains are safe, saying that there has been not a single accident in transporting radioactive materials in Russia during the entire nuclear era. "The safety of containers carrying radioactive material meet high requirements. In some cases Russian standards are higher that those of the IAEA. For instance, it is evidenced during the strength test in case a possible drop of a heavy aircraft on a container," Shingaryov said.
The containers are manufactured at the Izhora Works near St. Petersburg. During safety testing liquid fuel is poured on them and they set on fire - it is a test for durability at a high temperature. A container is to remain intact after it is dropped from an altitude of 9 meters on a hard vertical rod. At a next stage of testing a container is subjected to a powerful strike equal to one made by a diving Boeing. A reliability certificate is issued only for a container which has passed all tests without a hitch.
