Nuclear train leaves Murmansk

This year’s second train laden with spent nuclear fuel left Murmansk last week.

Spent fuel shipment

The nuclear train arrived to Murmansk around mid May to ship spent fuel to Mayak plant in Siberia for reprocessing. The train was in early April in Severodvinsk, Archangel County, to pick up a load of spent fuel from nuclear submarines.

Four TUK-18 type railway cars were loaded at the Atomflot base for nuclear powered icebreakers in the suburb of Murmansk. This time, however, the train did not take any civilian spent fuel. The fuel loaded comes from the Northern Fleet. A part of the fuel was taken from the storage onboard civilian service vessel, the Lotta, and a part from the naval service vessel, PM-12 (Malina class), which arrived to Murmansk earlier this month for that purpose.

This is the second shipment of spent fuel to Mayak plant so far this year. No further shipment schedules are known. Officials from Murmansk Shipping Company, which operates icebreaker fleet and manages fuel shipment from the Kola Peninsula, says that future plans would depend upon funding from Moscow.

Read More:

• Nuclear train leaves Severodvinsk (1999-04-30)
• International co-operation on radiation safety in the Russian Navy (1999-02-28)
• Murmansk Shipping Company: Lotta
• Project 2020 – Malina class