Fabrication Starts for High-Tech Fortis Railcar

[Marlin]

Fabrication Starts for High-Tech Fortis Railcar

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/fabrication-starts-high-tech-fortis-railcar

[GLW]

DOE Contract DE-NE0008390 titled “Design and Prototype Fabrication of Railcars for Transport of High-Level Radioactive Material” was awarded August 15 of 2015 ISO developing a fleet of railcars to be used for the transport of SNF, HLW and GTCC,...

from the article:
................The fabrication process is underway for the Fortis railcar project. Fortis is one of two high-tech railcars the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is developing to help transport the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. 

Fortis is expected to be operational before the end of the decade [12/31/30]............

5,617 days to go from "Hey let's build a railcar!!" to "Got one!!!" (maybe),...

January 19, 1942: President Roosevelt approves the creation of an atomic bomb. Arthur Compton creates the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago

July 16, 1945: The Gadget, the world’s first atomic test device, successfully detonates at the Trinity Site in the remote New Mexico desert

1, 174 days to go from "make it so Number 1" to "Big Bada Boom",...

"the greatest generation" is a pretty accurate description,....

it's all been downhill since 1945,....

[Mounder]

Rather than designing a whole new railcar, they could have just upgraded the sensors on all the existing cars.  Maybe they are.

[GLW]

Rather than designing a whole new railcar, they could have just upgraded the sensors on all the existing cars.  Maybe they are.

at the end of the day it would seem there is plenty of existing capability to be built upon,....

it's almost as if these were jobs programs,.....

10 years plus?!?!?!?!

c'mon,.....

[Mounder]

DOE does like their works programs.  I didn't know West Valley DP, south of Buffalo, was a works program.  They'll drag that out forever and find some tiny mission after the soil and water cleanup (not in my lifetime). Cutting out and moving the subfloor grouted high-level waste will take forever.

[Marlin]

DOE does like their works programs.  I didn't know West Valley DP, south of Buffalo, was a works program.  They'll drag that out forever and find some tiny mission after the soil and water cleanup (not in my lifetime). Cutting out and moving the subfloor grouted high-level waste will take forever.

Yes, with DOE as the customer and regulator there is a bit of conflict. I have done a number of DOE jobs. Main contractor on long term contracts seem to revert to a large company status where safety rules accumulate and sometimes are not job specific. At one large remediation project the main contractor was being phased out. On one side of the construction barrier the main contractor to change a light bulb on the side of a building submitted a request that got a full workup that was passed on to Rad Pro and industrial hygiene. After a bit of back and forth it was approved and scheduled for work including a request for scaffolding. On the other side of the barrier, they had a standing work order and RWP. The worker used a ladder and used the permitted three-point stance to reach and change the bulb. A couple of hours vice a couple of weeks. Toolbox knowledge also is vastly different. The main contract seems to want to tell a carpenter how to use a hammer and subcontractor hires competent experienced workers.

Rant over, a pet peeve can you tell.