NASA and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Railroads
by "Harley Dave" SullivanFlorida - January 2005
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On January 14th - 16th, the Florida East Coast Railway Society held it's annual convention in
Cocoa Beach, Florida. One of the highlights of this event was a behind the scenes tours of both
the NASA Railroad and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Railroad used in the Titan rocket program. The NASA Railroad is a bridge route carring interchange from the Florida East Coast Railway to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA has 2 yards, Jay-Jay where they interchange with FEC and Wilson yard where they store hoppers and cars to be retired. |
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The most interesting function
of the NASA RR these days is moving the Space Shuttle's solid rocket booster segments to their
processing facility after picking them up from the FEC at Jay-Jay. These booster segments arrive
in specially built cars owned by FEC, UP, KCS and CSXT. The NASA Railroad currently operates 3 SW1500's that came from TP&W 303, 305 and 306. These units replaced 3 ex US Army S-2s 7101, 7102 and 7111. They were replaced in 1983 by the SW1500s, the same year Florida East Coast Railway turned over operation of the line to the NASA Railroad. The NASA Railroad operates 38 miles of track and owns about 67 cars. Most of these are open top hoppers, spacer cars, specialty cars, water tank cars, and flat cars. They move about 800 cars per year. |
| The USAF's railroad is a unique 20 mile double track line that utilizes two trains side-by-side to move the Titan rockets to and from their processing facility. A boom is placed between the locos for MU operation. According to our tour guide, these locos have a colorful history of having served overseas in the Korean and Viet Nam war zones before returning to the USA. |
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After
patching a few bullet holes, they were placed into service for the Titan rocket program where
they remain to this day. The NASA Railway rebuilt the USAF Titan SW8s in 1991 and 1992.
This tour gave us what might be the last
opportunity to view these locos in service- They are slated for retirement after the last
Titan rocket is launched and it's sitting on the pad NOW. I had done some searching on the internet in the past looking for examples of NASA RR equipment and found VERY little. I had hoped to correct this by documenting everything out there when on the tour. However, mother nature didn't cooperate and after ten beautiful sunny 80 degree January days, the skies opened up as a cold front moved in on the day of the tour. I did manage to capture all of the locos and some of the rolling stock, but not the "sunny roster views" I had hoped for. Considering the higher security levels restricting access to this equipment and the impending demise of the Titan operation, these photos are truly a rarity. My thanks to fellow Florida East Coast Railway Society member Jeff Hartung for supplying additional details regarding both rail operations that contributed to this article. |
More Photos:
NASA EMD SW1500 #1, 2 & 3
USAF EMD SW8 #2000 & 2007
For information on having photos hosted by the yardlimit see
the Photo Gallery information section in the yard office.
