ATOM BOMB IN LEEDS

Brunel · Post by **Brunel** » Mon 11 Mar, 2013 3:58 pm

Copied this from Graces Guide.Hudswell, Clarke and Co.During WW2 the company diversified into armaments, as did so many other engineering companies. In the post-war period Hudswell, Clarke and Co Ltd (its full title, and note the comma) was closely involved in many secret programmes, including the British nuclear weapon programme. The airframe for the first British nuclear bomb, Blue Danube was manufactured by Hudswell Clarke at its Roundhay Road, Leeds plant.The airframe for Red Beard, the second generation tactical nuclear bomb, followed, with that for Violet Club, the Interim Megaton Weapon; and there were many other projects.All the bombs detonated at the Christmas Island H-bomb tests were contained in airframes designed and built by Hudswell Clarke. The company were also major contributors to other military projects, eg. the Centurion main battle tank conversion into an armoured bridge-layer, that served with the British Army for many years.The contraction of defence manufacturing in the mid-1960s contributed to the sale and demise of the company.

MWD · Post by **MWD** » Mon 11 Mar, 2013 6:41 pm

Very interesting stuff.I have been involved in transporting all sorts of munitions and explosives over the years....the biggest being a decomissioned Grand Slam bomb.One thing puzzles me though.....why did they take the atom bombs to the other side of the world to test when there were / are areas of Leeds that could only ever benefit from a bit of instant sunshine?

Leodian · Post by **Leodian** » Mon 11 Mar, 2013 8:00 pm

MWD wrote: Very interesting stuff.I have been involved in transporting all sorts of munitions and explosives over the years....the biggest being a decomissioned Grand Slam bomb.One thing puzzles me though.....why did they take the atom bombs to the other side of the world to test when there were / are areas of Leeds that could only ever benefit from a bit of instant sunshine? That made me . We would though have had to learn to live with such as cockroaches and fruit flies that can survive several times the level of radiation that we could not. Mind you, in regard to surviving under extreme conditions that we and even those could not survive, the very tiny Tardigrades are an ultimate champion. They are aquatic to semi-acquatic creatures that, among other things, can survive doses of radiation hundreds of times higher than we could and have attracted the attention of investigators into survival in long travels in Space. For anyone that would like to see an image (massively enlarged) of a Tardigrade then see this image of March 6 2013 in the Astronomy Picture of the Day website:- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130306.htmlApologies for having gone well off thread but I thought (hoped!) it would be of interest.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Mon 11 Mar, 2013 8:19 pm

MWD wrote: Very interesting stuff.I have been involved in transporting all sorts of munitions and explosives over the years....the biggest being a decomissioned Grand Slam bomb.One thing puzzles me though.....why did they take the atom bombs to the other side of the world to test when there were / are areas of Leeds that could only ever benefit from a bit of instant sunshine? Leeds is a Nuclear Free Zone*, so no dropping bombs here. Well, the Russians certainly took note... * - apart from those trains we aren't supposed to mention...

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Mon 11 Mar, 2013 9:27 pm

Does anybody remember the case where some anti-nuclear campaigners carried a deactivated bazooka through the station and pointed it at a nuclear flask passing through on the way to Winscale. When asked why they weren't stopped at the barrier the BR spokesman replied that " they had a valid platform ticket".

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Sun 21 Apr, 2013 11:07 pm

Listen to this, back in the 1980s about 4 o'clock in the morning some friends and I were mucking around the old Morley Low train station, there werent that many trains ran at night and the place was pretty quiet. However we heard from the entrance to Morley tunnel the distant rumbling of an approaching train. So we were all looking towards the tunnel entrance for the train to appear when we heard the screeching of brakes and the train stopped. We could see the lights on the front of the train several hundred feet back into the tunnel and after a few minutes we heard the crackle of 2-way radios and noticed a couple of handheld torches glinting in the blackness and moving towards us. So we scurried into the bushes at the sides of the platform to conceal ourselves. A couple of men walked out of the tunnel onto the platform and furtively looked around everywhere, we couldnt believe they didnt see us crouching in the bushes. One of them said something on his radio then they walked back into the tunnel and a few minutes later the trains engines started back up. The train slowly emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and we were stunned to see behind the locomotive these weird shaped freight carriages - with RADIOACTIVE warning stickers on them!We had witnessed a train used to transport nuclear waste or materials on the transpennine railway line that runs between Leeds and Manchester. Of course we were only about 8 - 9 years old so it didnt mean a great deal to us as the time, but we knew what the yellow and black radioactive stickers meant so we knew it was something out of the ordinary. I wonder where it was going and what for? This was around the time of the Greenham Common protests and I guess anything related to the nuclear weapons or power business was being handled secretly. Could this have been weapons grade plutonium being transported from Sellafield to Aldermaston? It still sends a shiver down my spine when I think about it. And next time you hear the distant sound of a train rattling along in the early hours of the morning just think... it could be that train!

simong · Post by **simong** » Mon 22 Apr, 2013 1:36 pm

jonleeds wrote: I wonder where it was going and what for? This was around the time of the Greenham Common protests and I guess anything related to the nuclear weapons or power business was being handled secretly. Could this have been weapons grade plutonium being transported from Sellafield to Aldermaston? It still sends a shiver down my spine when I think about it. And next time you hear the distant sound of a train rattling along in the early hours of the morning just think... it could be that train! In the 80s I believe there were trains that went from Hartlepool to Sellafield that passed through Leeds on the Manchester Victoria route, heading north at a junction west of Bolton. While most of the Labour run cities of the north proclaimed themselves nuclear free in the early 80s, I seem to recall it was only Manchester that successfully managed it and that was only because BR could route trains around the city. Aldermaston and Rutherford Labs at Didcot are on the west coast main line so traffic from Sellafield would have gone straight down country.

String o' beads · Post by **String o' beads** » Mon 22 Apr, 2013 3:15 pm

I remember the furore when this happened:http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/comm ... -transport