Radioactive Material” to Areva Federal Services, LLC (renamed Orano Federal Services in 2020). Under this contract, Orano was to design a cask railcar as well as buffer railcars to be placed between the locomotive and the first cask railcar, and between the last cask railcar and the escort railcar (Orano 2018). The Atlas railcar development is being conducted in five phases. Orano has published a publicly available design report at the end of each phase. Phase 1 included the conceptual design of an Atlas railcar and its associated buffer railcar and the cask cradles for securing casks onto the railcar. The preliminary design of the Atlas and buffer railcars and dynamic modelling were completed during Phase 2; that project phase concluded with a “proceed to test phase” notice from the AAR. Phase 3 included the fabrication and delivery of one Atlas and two buffer prototype railcars as well as operation and maintenance manuals for the railcars. Single-car and multi-car testing will be carried out during phases 4 and 5 of the project; production of additional Atlas and buffer railcars will be conducted through a future procurement process (ibid.) The Atlas railcar has 12 axles and will accommodate all the cask types DOE expects to ship from commercial reactors. The Atlas and M-290 railcars have the same wheels, axles, trucks, bolsters, and brakes, but the Atlas has a different deck, with attachment points for a wide variety of casks. It is expected that the Atlas railcar consist will be comprised of two locomotives, a buffer railcar, one or more Atlas railcar(s), a second buffer railcar, and a rail escort vehicle (Schwab 2019). The heaviest load that the Atlas railcar will be required to carry is expected to be the fully loaded HI-STAR 190XL cask with impact limiters. The load from this cask and the end stops on the railcar will be approximately 480,000 lbs. (ibid.). S-2043 requires compliant railcars to include a reliable, robust Safety Monitoring System (SMS) to reduce derailments from equipment failures. Wired and wireless sensors on each railcar will enable monitoring from both the escort vehicle and an offsite monitoring center. DOE is exploring the potential to integrate the SMS sensors with the security features of TRANSCOM to enhance both safety and security (Reich and Schwab 2019). Prototypes of the Atlas railcar and buffer car have been completed and the fabrication of DOE’s Rail Escort Vehicle has been agreed to by DOE and the Navy. 7 DOE and the Navy are collaborating on both the single-car and multi-car testing programs and a contract for the single-car and multiple-car testing program has been awarded. Testing of the Atlas and two buffer railcars is being conducted at TTCI. DOE’s timeline called for Phase 4 (single-car testing) to be completed in 2020 and the fabrication of the rail escort vehicle prototype to take place throughout 2020 and 2021. At that point, Phase 5 (multiple-car testing) would be carried out. DOE expected to receive conditional approval of the cask railcar, buffer railcars, and the full consist from the AAR by 2022 (Schwab 2018). In August 2020, however, DOE reported on a “couple of hurdles with development of the Atlas railcar”— specifically, in testing three S-2043 compliant railcars, only the buffer car had passed all the testing. Both the Atlas railcar and
the rail escort vehicle had not been able to pass all the required tests. DOE-NE remained optimistic that the problems could be fixed. The expected date for receiving AAR approval, however, shifted to late 2022 or early 2023 (DOE-NE 2020b, p. 2). Due to the high cost of producing and maintaining the 12-axle Atlas railcar, DOE is exploring whether it is technically possible to design and construct an S-2043 compliant 8-axle railcar. A contract for the design of an 8-axle railcar was awarded in February 2019 and work has been carried out in three phases: 1) completing a conceptual design that satisfies the requirements of S-2043, 2) modelling and optimization of the initial design, and 3) finalizing the design. Fabrication and AAR approval would be carried out under a subsequent contract (Ross et al. 2019). The next tasks to be completed are prototype fabrication and testing of the 8-axle railcar. In fall 2020, this work is transitioning from a research and development activity to DOE-NE's IWM. DOE will ultimately determine whether there is sufficient value in producing both 8-axle and 12-axle S-2043 compliant railcars (ibid.). RECIPROCAL RAIL INSPECTIONS Currently, rail carriers, states, and the FRA all conduct inspections of rail shipments in the U.S. However, the reports from these inspections are not typically shared with other entities. A reciprocal rail inspection program would serve the purpose of streamlining non-regulatory inspections by avoiding duplication and minimizing stops. DOE is developing a “Draft Railcar Safety Inspection Protocol” in coordination with DOE’s NTSF R/R AHWG. While the inspections carried out under the draft protocol would not replace the regulatory inspections currently carried for rail shipments, they would promote reciprocity along rail transport routes through information sharing for DOE’s SNF shipments. Since DOE issued its programmatic decision to ship SNF and HLW from commercial reactors utilizing “mostly rail” in 2004, there has been significant interest from the states in developing a reciprocal inspection framework for DOE’s rail shipments. While truck shipments transporting highway route-controlled quantities of radioactive material must pass a CVSA Level VI Inspection before travelling in the U.S., the situation with rail shipments is more complicated and less transparent from the states’ perspective. As a result, the Midwestern states have long supported the development of a CVSA-like reciprocal inspection program for rail shipments to facilitate efficient transportation operations and promote public confidence in shipment safety by assuring appropriate state oversight of shipments. FRA has participated in reciprocal rail inspection discussions through the R/R AHWG. FRA has indicated a preference for minimizing the number of times a train carrying SNF or HLW is stopped by performing inspections at times when trains are already stopped for refueling, crew changes, or some other purpose (R/R AHWG 2015b).
7 Because the Navy also needed an escort car to accompany the M-290 shipments, the two entities agreed to cooperate to jointly develop an escort car that could be used by both.
34
Made with FlippingBook Annual report