Train shipment makes sense and sounds fine. I had to laugh about the stretches where the tank had to be unloaded and used to pull the transport. Since that tank was set to be scrap, I’d driven it in by itself (as a durability test).
Yes, but if they’d done that, they might not have discovered what they did - that a Centurion tank actually was able to endure a nuclear blast much better than they had expected it to. They were using an almost new, top of the range tank, deliberately to try and find out what it’s limits were in that regard - that meant you wanted it in as good condition as was practical to have it.