Nuclear Train

I pick up all sorts of rubbish sometimes. Last weekend, among the goodies for sale was the booklet "Facts and Figures about British Railways  1957 edition"

It's a bit of a dry read, what with being all facts'n'figures and all, but there is a little gem on page 31 where they talk about the (then) new-fangled diesel traction:

The possibilities of the use of atomic power have not been overlooked. The expert, however, advise that the supply of electricity from atomic power station is the likeliest development and not engines carrying their own power units.

At this point I'm thinking "Wow, someone thought it would be a good idea to have trains with nuclear power plants running around ? I wonder what such a loco would look like.

Anyway, that was where this post was going to end. Perhaps a little speculation or comment on the lack of futurist model railways, but that was it. I've been spending all hours at work this week and any time normally devoted to model making has been used instead to show "Happy Feet 2", a film whose only plus point is that it isn't "War Horse" which I've seen three times and will probably be watching again while you read these words.

Google changed all that. Searching for "Nuclear powered train" out of curiosity, I find this article on BarentsObserver.com entitled Russia designs nuclear train. Fascinating.

Better still, they link within it to another piece which has pictures. The text is Cyrillic and thus a bit impenetrable (I know, Google translate but it's not great with technical stuff). Who cares. I want to build me one of these - what a locomotive !