Railways & Britain's Nuclear Industry

This book is about the important role played by the nation's railways in Britain's nuclear industry. It sets the scene with a brief history of nuclear power in Britain and the technology behind it, not just the reactors but the plants that processed the uranium, built the fuel elements and reprocessed the spent fuel. It goes on to illustrate the transport of the spent nuclear fuel from across Britain to the Sellafield Reprocessing plant in West Cumbria and indeed from across the world. In the 21st century the decommissioning of the first generation of reactors and a swathe of Ministry of Defence establishments across the south of England added to the waste already travelling by rail to the national Low Level Waste Repository, also in West Cumbria. The railways also transported chemicals for the nuclear industry and construction materials. The book not only illustrates this transformation but explains why it happened.