[elbucko]

I don't know, this sounds like a bonehead move to me.

It is. Apparently the Chinese have forgotten the MX-Missile (Mobile-Experimental) of the Carter Administration. It was a bad idea from the beginning. Any railcar capable of carrying a missile that was capable of transcontinental range would be to huge and heavy for existing rail beds and rails. Even Carter could see it was dumb.

[Filibuster_60]

The DF-31 is a lot smaller than MX Peacekeeper. The rail-mobile version is more like the SS-24 "Scalpel" of the late USSR. They're not going to put 10-15 MIRVs on a single missile, which I believe is the payload range of the MX. For those super-massive ICBMs (i.e. SS-18), hardened silos remain the only realistic deployment option.