This report titled “Design and Prototype Fabrication of Railcars for Transport of High-Level Radioactive Materials, Phase 2: Preliminary Design” compiles the work that was completed during Phase 2.

This presentation provides an overview of the DOE-NE recent activities and future plans given by Dr. Erica Bickford, Director, Office of Storage & Transportation at the NTSF Annual Meeting May 20-22, 2025. 

In preparation of an integrated nuclear waste management program, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing for future large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), high-level radioactive waste (HLW), and Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) waste. A part of this preparation includes developing a fleet of railcars to be used for the transport of High-Level Radioactive Material (HLRM) and GTCC waste.

Research project started in 2014 as a collaboration between DOE and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to support safe storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF).

Factsheet about DOE High Burnup Research Cask Project (HBURC) dated April 2025.

As part of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Atlas Railcar Project, the Atlas and Buffer railcars were developed to meet the need for future large-scale rail transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. MxV Rail (formerly Transportation Technology Center, Inc.), a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), performed singlecar certification testing and modeling on these railcars.

This interface control document (ICD) identifies, manages and controls the transportation system interactions between the Atlas railcar transportation equipment and external activities including vendor-supplied high-level radioactive material (HLRM) transportation casks and cradles. The term HLRM was established by Association of American Railroads (AAR). HLRM includes both spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.

This report titled “Design and Prototype Fabrication of Railcars for Transport of High-Level Radioactive Material, Phase 3: Prototype Fabrication and Delivery” compiles the work that was completed during Phase 3. This report includes a summary of the results in meeting Phase 3 contract objectives including fabrication of the prototype railcars, an as-built data package for the fabricated railcars, test load and ballast load fabrication designs, and copies of Phase 3 deliverables in the appendices.

This report was developed as part of a knowledge management effort to document past U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) activities related to spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) transportation, storage, and disposal, including policy considerations, and to serve as an information resource in the ongoing planning for an integrated waste management program.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has established a Tribal Collaboration Initiative (TCI) that will ensure federally recognized Tribes have direct and meaningful input into DOE’s consent-based siting (CBS) process for one or more federal consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs). Establishing a TCI ensures federally recognized Tribal interests and concerns are directly communicated and accurately represented to DOE, as the agency continues developing the siting process.