Thoughts about uranium cars

[Gumboots]

Been idling thinking about these as part of the whole cargo revamp thing, with a view to how they should ultimately be skinned up. There's two ways of looking at them.

First way is that since they cart uranium (presumably ore) straight from the mine, they should really just be standard shipping containers. That's how yellow cake is shipped in practice. They just load it into 44 gallon drums and stash all the drums in a standard container.

Second way is that since they apparently cart uranium fuel direct to the reactors they should be skinned as fuel rod carriers, or perhaps as waste carriers. This would probably be more distinctive during play, which is not a bad thing.

Another idle thought. Bauxite goes to aluminum mills. Aluminium comes out. Iron ore goes to steel mills. Steel comes out. Really, the industry chain for uranium should include a uranium refinery as an intermediate step. Not sure why this wasn't done.

[Hawk]

I think they mine uranium as an ore, then send it to processing plants, as you commented on.
That said, shouldn't the cars be more like a coal car, but maybe covered, with hazardous placards on it?

Uranium is one of the heaviest elements, second only to plutonium, so that should be considered in the settings of the car. maybe a smaller car so it isn't too heavy.
It's also 70 times denser than lead, for whatever that's worth.

Here's a link to a pdf about shipping uranium ore.

https://www.blm.gov/ut/enbb/files/Appen ... Policy.pdf

[Gumboots]

Well the ore isn't actually hazardous. Even fuel pellets aren't really hazardous, unless you pile up a critical mass of them. The reactor waste is the only bit that is hazardous.

Could do them like a coal hopper, but that's not usually how it's shipped. Given that refining the stuff into usable reactor fuel is a very high tech process, it's usually done in a few centralised locations a long way from the mines. For instance, we mine uranium ore in Australia, but all the refining into reactor fuel is done overseas. Same goes for mines in Africa, etc. So like I said, they just stuff the yellow cake (ore concentrate) into 44 gallon drums, then stuff all the drums into a standard shipping container, then ship that.

And it's 70% denser than lead, not 70 times. But that's for the pure metal. The ore is not nearly that dense. It's only about the same density as concrete (IOW, roughly twice as dense as water).

[Hawk]

And it's 70% denser than lead, not 70 times. .

Uhm - that's what I meant. I was in a bit of a hurry.

[Cash on Wheels]

These cars were designed to impress the masses. That being said most of the cars are rather modest. They only ones worth zooming in on are the older ones.