SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS FOR RAIL MOVEMENTS OF SNM

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Russian Special Scientific and Production State Enterprise Eleron have teamed to lead a project to enhance the overall security of Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM) transportation of Special Nuclear Material (SNM) shipments. The effort is called the Railcar Transportation Security Project and is part of the overall DOE Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program addressing the enhancement of nuclear material control, accounting, and physical protection for Russian SNM. The goal of this MPC&A project is to significantly increase the security of Russian MINATOM highly enriched SNM rail shipments. To accomplish this, the MPC&A Railcar Transportation Security program will provide an enhanced, yet cost effective, railcar transportation security system. The system incorporates a balance between the traditional detection, communications, delay, and response security elements to significantly improve the security of MINATOM SNM shipments. The strategy of this program is to use rapid upgrades to implement mature security technologies as quickly as possible. The rapid upgrades emphasize rapidly deployable delay elements, enhanced radio communications, and intrusion detection and surveillance. Upgraded railcars have begun operation during FY98. Subsequent upgrades will build upon the rapid upgrades and eventually be integrated into a final deployed system configuration. This paper provides an overview of the program, with a summary of performance of the deployed railcars.