My Mommy said I'm Special

The Union Pacific Super Scog, SSCOG or Special Salt Lake City to Ogden. This is the train that hauls the Rocket Booster from the Space Shuttle from the Thiokol Load out building in Corinne Utah to NASA.

Doing the air test at the Thiokol Load out Building.


After leaving Thiokol the train passes by the Corinne City Park.


Crossing the Bear River Bridge.

 

:tb-cool: :tb-cool: :tb-cool: :tb-cool:​

 

And now, Some Video of the UP Rocket Train coming into Ogden Utah.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjHc7huOg_w"]YouTube - Union Pacific Rocket Train[/ame]

I;m not sure what this train is called once it leaves Ogden, Here it is just leaving the Riverdale yards.



And headed up Weber Canyon.



Enjoy.

 

These are some of my older photos, the video is newer. The trains rrun out of Thiokol quite often, as they try to keep spares on hand and now when ever a Shuttle flys, another one is ready to go just in case they mite need to be recued, so they have been shipping a lot of these rocket bossters east. Each train hauls all the section of one booster. the first Rocket car is an empty car used to check clearances, in the video you will see the new car used for that, a box car with three ares around it making it look like it got some kind of roll cage that will keep it up right if it did roll, now I'm going to have to add one of those to my Rocket train project.

 

Jolly,
Great pictures and video, the train consist in your first group of pictures had the ex-Southern Railway passenger car "Warrior River" as the crew quarters, (crews were ATK & NASA engineers who rode and monitored the booster segments while in transit, by FRA and Government regulations). In May 2007 this car was demolished in a wreck outside of Alabama,
Spaceflight Now Space shuttle booster segments in train derailment
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/may/HQ_07097_Train_Derailment.html

The boxcar behind the Warrior River carried provisions for the engineers during the trip, (food and other consumables for 6-8 people on the 2-3 week trip).

After the wreck the FRA and NASA determined that having the engineers on the train was too much of a liability and that their only real purpose was to make sure the segments cleared tunnels and bridges. ATK converted the storage boxcar to a "clearance guage" which is the first car in the consist in the video with the roll cage, (it wouldn't survive if the car turned over, it's too flimsy). One other interesting note, there was much concearn during the wreck clean up in 2007 that a spark produced by the heavy machinary used in the recovery might ignite the rocket propellant so it was determined that using a boxcar between segments lessened this concearn.

This is information I was able to find out from a friend who used to be the car attendant on the Warrior River, he fortunately retired a year or so before the accident.

2slim

 

If you set the way back machine for about mids 80s, you would see this train running with a box car between every rocket car, and one on the rear too. as time passes they used less box cars on the trains, tell it got the the point that there was one or twon of them.

The "Warrior River" was the crew car I always seen on this train. I noticed that after that derailment there were some changes, like going back to all the extra box cars and the lack of a crew car.







All os these photos show the train Backing from Brigham City 8 miles to the Thiokol Load out to pick up the train.

 

I Gues no one else has any Special Trains to post? Ok I'll post another one, Southern Paicific Owner's Special taking a tour just beofre the UP Buy out. EMD GP60 pulling a big train of one car.

 

Special train on BNSF



I never found out what they were hauling but it must have been important

 

I am not sure that I have ever seen something quite like this around here.

I would certainly rahter be in that passenger car if it were behind at least one boxcar, not right behind the loco. I wouldn't want to get gassed out.

 

Is there a Nuclear power plant in the area? Looks like it could be something along those lines, spent nuclear fuel rods....or is it rads...

 

There is one east of here but I'm not sure if another company's RR tracks go near the plant.

 

The Union Pacific Rocket Train blasted off from Corinne today, I got some pics and video. There was about 5 other people chasing the train taking photos, and another 4 SUVs leap frogging the crossing to protact the train, I guess those gys that use to ride in the passenger car now ride shotgun from the road, at one crossing were three of us were taking photos one of the guys got out and stood on the other side of the crossing stopping traffic, while his buddy waited in the SUV watching us take photos.





See the cloud of smoke in the backgroud to the left? That's Thiokol Burning off old rocket fuel. Same thing happen when the test rocket motors, but it a lot louder and the ground shakes.





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Videos!

Videos From Yesterdays Rocket Train, look how the sun light on the side of the cars washed out the video in this one.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9LCggPkq9w"]YouTube - Union Pacific Rocket Train 2[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoOjtuv1kEA"]YouTube - Union Pacific Rocket Train 3[/ame]

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The Train will head east by way of Weber Canyon out of Ogden/Riverdale yards. Not sure of the routing after that but I'm sure the UP does not publish that info.

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Here's a special I caught in Fort Worth TX on 1-31-09

Two UP locos in the lead


and this neat load.