Peacekeeper Rail Garrison
The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison (German about Peacekeeper train garrison ) was a mobile system for the transport and use of ICBMs of the type MGM-118A Peacekeeper from the railway network. The corresponding plans from the 1980s provided for 50 rockets that were to be transported on railroad cars almost ready to fire.
A similar system existed in the Soviet Union from 1987 to 2005 under the name RT-23 Molodez . The advantage of launching ramps disguised as freight wagons is that the enemy never knows where the missiles are. So a first strike to destroy these nuclear weapons would come to nothing.
However, this idea could not prevail, so it stayed with a prototype. The maintenance of the rocket in a rail car is more difficult.
Each of the trains was supposed to carry two Peacekeeper missiles and be pulled by two EMD-GP40-2 locomotives. In addition, each train would have carried security personnel in two carriages, one car would have housed the control center, another the fuel, and ultimately a car for maintenance tools. A crew of 42 were responsible for each train: a commander, four officers responsible for the rocket launches, four engine drivers, a medic, six maintenance specialists and 26 soldiers necessary for the safety of the train.
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The plans provided for the trains to be kept in readiness in underground storage facilities. If the security situation is tense , the trains should be on the civil route network and hide under the usual freight traffic. Each of the trains would have been able to operate autonomously for a month.
After initial testing at Vandenberg Air Force Base , the launch pad prototype was moved to Pueblo, Colorado for further testing on the Association of American Railroads test track .
With the end of the Cold War , the project was discontinued in 1991. All MGM-118 missiles manufactured for the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison were used as LGM-118 in modernized LGM-30 Minuteman silos.
Launch Pad Cart Specifications
- Weight: 249 tons
- Length: 26.52 m
- Width: 3.15 m
- Height: 4.80 m
- Bogies: two with four axles each
- Coupling: Janney , type AAR / APTA H tightlock
See also
- Klub-K , a Russian guided missile that can be hidden in a normal shipping container
