[dominic housatonic62]

On December 19, 1986, the White House announced President Reagan's approval to develop a rail garrison system for basing part of the Peacekeeper Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) force. To increase survivability of this force, 50 Peacekeepers would be deployed in existing Minuteman silos and 50 more would be mounted on 25 USAF trains, two per train. Each train would consist of two locomotives, two security cars, two missile launch cars housing the missiles, one launch control car, one fuel car, and one maintenance car. Each launch car carried one Peacekeeper ICBM, in a launch tube which could be elevated to fire the missile from the bed of the car. The trains would be parked in shelters located on USAF Strategic Air Command bases throughout the continental U.S., with the missiles on continuous alert. When necessary, the trains could be dispersed onto the nation's rail network, making it extremely difficult for an enemy to target and destroy them. Development of the rail garrison deployment system was terminated in 1991 as Cold War tensions eased.


Copied this from USAF museum website. We would have had them, but I guess they figured it was not that important since the cold war was over and all. Ya right. Search 'peacekeeper railroad garrison car'. It has a nice picture of one

[GOP_1900AD]

Another shameful one is the whole Midgetman fiasco. In fairness, the whole scheme was a joke - we'd have done better with a really kick butt TEL design, but conceptually, it boggles my mind that we could not muster the will to do at least something in that regard. At the first opportunity to use yet another pie crust treaty as an excuse to decommit, the usual suspects did exactly that!