There is one word that will send the fear of God into just about anybody who hears it: nuclear. Nuclear energy might provide electricity to millions around the world, but that’s not the first or second thing that most people think of. Mushroom clouds, devastation as far as the eye can see, and the health aspects of just about every living creature that could possibly be impacted by radioactivity are thoughts that rightfully scare the holy hell out of every rationally-minded human being on the planet. Anything nuclear is automatically no joke…radium paint that was used to make watch features glow in the dark wound up putting the term “Radium Girls” into use, after many of the women who were painting the features contracted radiation poisoning from the substance. The damages that could occur if one of the radioactive waste “casks” that would be transported on either the nation’s highways and railways was of great concern. What happens if there’s an accident? What happens if there was a fire? Nobody needs to guess at what happens if the cask fails, so the goal is to make sure the cask doesn’t fail.

In 1977-78, Sandia National Laboratories performed a series of tests to prove just how durable the casks were. A 690-ton concrete barricade butted up to a mound of earth provided the impact surface. Two tests were conducted with a tractor-trailer setup, one with a locomotive, and one with a railcar against the wall, all driven by rocket power. Then, just for good measure, the cask on the railcar was burned for an hour and a half in jet fuel. Short of a truck-into-truck crash to simulate a combined impact speed situation, you don’t get much more thorough than that, do you?