Nuclear waste train timetables for UK published for first time, by Greenpeace

Timetables for nuclear waste transports across the UK, have been published, by Greenpeace today (Friday 21st July 2006) (1). This is the first time ever this information has been made publicly available. There are over 1,000 nuclear transports through the UK every year, and the trains travel with minimal protection through commuter train centres and past hospitals, schools and back gardens. A terrorist attack or accident on a routine transport of nuclear waste in the UK could spread radiation over 100 kilometres, and cause over 8,000 deaths (2).

Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Sarah North said:

"Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are unwittingly exposed to the dangers of nuclear waste every week. Trains carrying radioactive waste trundle through the UK's villages, towns and cities every week - and we think the public has a right to know. So we've published a timetable of nuclear transports in the UK. The timetable is frighteningly easy to work out - just ask any train-spotter - and anyone could do it. So we're doing it first, to make sure the government acts before terrorists do."

- Sizewell to Willesden Junction - including through Ipswich, Chelmsford Romford
- Dungeness to Willesden Junction - including through Ashford, Peckham Rye
- Torness to Carlisle - including through Lockerbie
- Hinckley Point to Crewe - including through Bridgwater, Bristol Parkway, Worcester, Kidderminster, Stoke on Trent
- Wylfa to Crewe - including through Bangor, Rhyl, Llandudno Junction and Chester
- Hartlepool to Sellafield - including through Newcastle, Workington - Crewe to Sellafield - including through Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster
- Heysham to Carlisle - including through Morecombe, Oxenholme Lake District, Penrith
- Carlisle to Sellafield - including through Workington
- Hunterston to Carlisle - including through West Kilbride

Trains on the Dungeness to Willesden Junction route have twice been involved in collision with vehicles on an unmanned level crossing. In Bridgwater, a cargo of unprotected nuclear waste sat unprotected for several hours, less than 100 metres from a school in October 2005. Greenpeace recently filmed a train at Worcester Shrub Hill stopping and waiting at a passenger platform.

Sarah North continued: "Allowing nuclear trains is already grossly irresponsible, yet Blair wants to build even more nuclear power stations, creating even more perilous radioactive waste, which could mean another 100 years of these trains coming through."

For more information please call the Greenpeace UK press office 020 7865 8255

IMAGES AND FOOTAGE AVAILABLE
Footage includes shots of a nuclear train stopping and waiting on a passenger platform at Worcester Shrub Hill, and of trains trundling through Kensington Olympia and Bridgwater and surrounding areas. Images include pictures of trains at Bridgwater, Kensington Olympia, Carlisle and Hackney Wick

Notes
1. The timetables are available for download.
2. The findings are from a survey carried out by independent nuclear expert John Large: Risks and Hazards Arising in the Transportation of Irradiated Fuel and Nuclear Fuel Materials in the United Kingdom.