Fun at Bradwell tomorrow

[tillergirl]

Copy of a letter sent to one of our councillors


Re: Forthcoming safety exercise
Dear Cllr xxxx
You may notice some increased activity at the Football Playing Fields near the former Power Station on Thursday 15 October 2009.
A RADSAFE exercise will be held at the Playing Fields (on the concrete airstrip) starting at around 9.30am and ending approximately three hours later. RADSAFE is a scheme covering all the nuclear industry to provide a fast response, expert advice and support to the emergency services in the event of an incident involving the transport of radioactive materials. More information about RADSAFE can be found on their website www.radsafe.org.uk
Similar exercises are held regularly throughout England, Scotland and Wales to test the effectiveness of the scheme and that is what will be happening at Bradwell. Staff from the site, members of the emergency services and other organisations such as local authorities will be taking part or observing the exercise.
For the purpose of the exercise, we will pretend that a car and a transit van carrying radiological items have collided at a mock up of the Latchingdon roundabout. For the exercise, empty dummy containers will be used. There will not be any disruption to traffic and the exercise will take place entirely within the playing field area and the adjoining airfield.
As responsible operators we must never become complacent and so continue to participate in multi-agency exercises that prepare us for even the most unlikely events. Our industry has an excellent safety record and some facts of interest are listed overleaf.



Why would you want to test personnel at a decommissioned site that's never going to be used again. Or am I just a suspicious old git?

 

[MoodySabre]

Or am I just a suspicious old git?

Don't know about you being suspicious

I presume that there is still radioactive material on site that they will be asking white van man to move (Renault van as it is EDF country).

They used to trundle wagons on the Fenchurch Street line back and forth to Foulness that had well protected cylinders of something on them. I assumed these were transporting such material. Transporting it by road would be madness. So why are they simulating a road accident? Suspicious indeed.

 

[tillergirl]

These are the 'Interesting facts' referred to in the letter

• Used nuclear fuel has been safely transported by rail since the 1960s, travelling more than 7 million miles without any incident involving the release of radioactivity

• All used nuclear fuel is transported in heavily shielded purpose built flasks. Constructed from forged steel more than 30cm thick, each flask typically weighs more than 50 tonnes

• The design for a flask must be capable of withstanding a series of demanding tests that simulate the damage that would result from a very severe transport accident

• In a spectacular test in 1984 a 140 tonne train, travelling at 100mph was driven into a used fuel flask placed on the track. There was only superficial damage to the flask.

I didn't think there was rail link between Bradwell and Southminster so it must go by road for a bit of the journey. Not that Latchington's on the way to Southminster is it?

 

[MoodySabre]

Latchingdon is not on the way to Southminster. The railway definitley ends at Southminster although the info about a possible new reactor at Bradwell did refer to the extension of the railway to Bradwell in the future.

So much hooha about the safety of transportation by rail and then they simulate a road crash. The roads couldn't take a vehicle with a 50 ton flask on it could they? I shall go slower round the bends from now on

 

[tillergirl]

I seem to recall there was a hubbub when they discovered years back that the nucleur trains ran through Cricklewood, North London until some one pointed out that if a nucleur accident happened in Cricklewood, who would notice! Bit like when that earthquake hit Dudley a few years back, the local newspaper ran a headline "Earthquake hits Dudley: £3 million worth of impovements made!"

But presumably they took all the spend rods away by road? That couldn't have been in 50 ton flasks could it?

 

[AliM]

"• In a spectacular test in 1984 a 140 tonne train, travelling at 100mph was driven into a used fuel flask placed on the track. There was only superficial damage to the flask."

I saw a film of that - the flask was herdly dented - a lot of research went into transport of nuclear material.

As I understood it, similar containers were (and probably are) used to transport the fuel rods to the reactor and the spent fuel rods to be processed.

Obviously, the sites of past and present numclear reactors are prime candidates for the siting of new ones. I thought that Bradwell was on the list issued a few months ago - certainly Sizewell is.

I also thought that the fuel for Bradwell was transported by train, at least as far as Southminster - There is still a gap in the passenger timetable mid-morning (possibly only on Thursdays, or something bizarre) when it ran.

 

[FullCircle]

We used to build 2 Nuclear flask wagons each year in our 'spare' time at British Rail Engineering.
These were done mainly by he Jig & Tool gang in a static production location.

They were built massively strongly compared to the 'flimsy' Crown Agents exports to Bangladesh, Kenya etc.

If I recall, they weighed in at 102 tons each with lots of reinforcing webs.
I had a hand in the last 2 to leave Ashford Works.

 

[ianc1200]

removed as on wrong thread - sorry!

 

[toad]

They used to transport something by road between Latchingdon and Bradwell, about ten/fifteen years ago I often came across a large low loader with a flask type thing on the back escorted by two or three transit mini buses full of uniformed bods. I only ever saw it on that stretch of road and it was a pain to get past as it only did about 25mph.

 

[tillergirl]

That seems a bit too long ago for decommisioning but it must have been some 'hot' stuff. I followed one up the M6 at 70mph once immediately behind them, three lanes held back by the MODPLODS. After about 20 miles we rather oddly and suddenly got waved past (still at 70). Never did understand why we had to remain behind for 20 miles and then it was ok to pass. I thought I got well clear and pulled off at a Service Station and 10 minutes later they were in the Service Area, flask in the car park as though it was carrying margarine and cops in the canteen complete with enough weapons to fight off the Taliban. All seemed a bit casual. Quaint thing was all the cops knew all the lorry drivers and vice versa.