Hi folks, Does anyone have any idea of what railroad owned the deep well flatcar in the photo attached that the first A-bomb was being unloaded from in the desert? This is from recently released

Claus, Thanks in particular for the photo of the string of 28' UP Boxcars. This is very helpful to me! Craig Bisgeier

Whatever it is, it’s NOT “the gadget”, the first A-bomb. It’s too large, and altogether the wrong shape. It looks like a pressure vessel, possibly a reactor containment vessel. "The Gadget”

Actually, Dan, there WAS a vessel designed and built to contain a nuclear bomb... strange as it may seem. Frankly, when I first read about it, I didn’t think it would work, and apparently it was

Bill, Actually the container was designed to retain the nuclear material if the regular explosive went off but the bomb did not detonate. My father was a military officer assigned to the

That's Jumbo, a large metal casing (214 tons) that was designed to hold the Gadget. The idea was that if the TNT exploded but the plutonium didn't, it would contain the explosion and no plutonium

Thanks, Don for that clarification. It makes more sense than a containment vessel for the explosion. Bill

Such vessels, including the shell for the “gadget”, were to contain the explosive force of the conventional explosives (TNT, whatever, used to compress the nuclear core material) … should the

Makes sense. It’s not the gadget, and there’s no containing the actual nuclear explosion IF it occurs]. Dan Mitchell ==========

I think this is a photo from Hannaford, Washington, and not from Los Alamos. It's probably a reactor vessel of some kind. -- Tim O'Connor Sterling, Massachusetts

Tony responded to Tim: and so does the _AAR Accounting Rules_ book. Here’s a sample CT100 from the Suncook Valley

First A bomb Paul Doggett England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

 Hi Craig and List Members, Craig, you are refering to this image I believe... https://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu/luna/servlet/s/1xy326 I like the fact that one can zoom in a whole lot for

The photo was taken at Pope, New Mexico, during the unloading of Jumbo. Pope is on the Santa Fe line from Albuquerque to El Paso. okladivjohn@...

Some more information and pictures (including a steam era freight car). : ) https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/jumbo Best, Stic Harris-- - Stic

IIRC Newport News. Thanks! Brian Ehni (Sent from my iPhone)

They were going to explode the gadget inside that so if it were a dud, they could recover the hideously valuable plutonium. Thanks! Brian Ehni (Sent from my iPhone)

While going thru some NKP docs I found the attached NKP consist from 1957. A lot of meat as expected. Routings are shown too. All sort of neat stuff, including dog food in reefers. May the discussion

CISX 500, a 250 ton car owned by Carnegie-Illinois Steel Co. And yes, that's Jumbo. We discussed this a few years back. Check the archives. Jack Mullen

No, Tim. It’s not a reactor vessel. I’ve seen a lot of RV’s over the years and this is not one. Bill Daniels