My Personal Journey of Financial Literacy 2 and the X-12 Atomic Train

A summary of the path I took attempting to reach financial literacy and a nuclear train

My Personal Journey of Financial Literacy

The school auction in elementary school was my first step in understanding the power of money as a store of value. For the next step in my journey, there were many events in my past to choose from.

In the 5th grade, along with the auction, I had to also create a fake business and sell a product. I chose cookies and made the second most amount of money in my grade. I would have gotten first place but some girl gave her friend all of her money.

In middle school I also took a field trip to a place called JA Biztown or Exchange City. In this trip, we were taken to a warehouse that was decorated like a town. Someone in our class had been elected mayor in a mock election months ago and would act as the leader. Everyone was assigned a shop to run and conduct business transactions. I was given some sort of nature shop that sold origami figures and small animal trinkets. Considering that I ran for mayor, I was not a happy camper.

In high school I was fond of reading personal finance books, such as How To Get Rich by Donald Trump, Why We Want You To Be Rich by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki or Money Master The Game by Tony Robbins. If that wasn’t enough, I even had a personal finance class where we created a yearly budget and invested fake money into the stock market to see the total profit we made. The goals of this were to teach us personal responsibility and to understand that your 401k is related to stocks and will compound returns.

Yet, not a single one of these events caused me to be even remotely interested in finance or business. I viewed the 5th grade shop as a competition that I lost, I viewed the field trip as a get away from school work, I read those personal finance books to pass the time in study hall without absorbing any of the information and stock investing seemed too risky for me to take it seriously. My tried and true method to financial freedom had always been the same: work a job, live like a pauper and hoard all of my money in a plastic bag in my room. I didn’t even have a bank account. However, my stubbornness was about to change for the better, and it all started after I moved down to Florida for my job at NASA.

To be cont.

To learn more about me, check out my website and Youtube channel:

ReaganClo.com

https://www.youtube.com/@RocketsandRealEstate

The X-12 Atomic Train

In the last edition, we looked at the futuristic maglev trains and the different types. In this edition, we will be looking at a train design that was so extreme, so potentially dangerous, so controversial, that it was never made, but is still an interesting topic to look at. This train was the X-12 Atomic Train.

The X-12 Atomic Train, Credit: Tim Samedov

As you can guess by the name, this train was powered by nuclear fission power. The main train designer was Dr. Lyle Benjamin Borst, who had previous experience as a member under the Atomic Energy Commission. This was a branch of the US government that was designed to facilitate peaceful use of atomic energy. While working as a professor at the University of Utah in the 1950s, he came up with a feasibility study about a train that had an onboard nuclear engine. As excepted, there are a multitude of pros and cons to this design.

Pros:

-The train would be able to drive around the entire planet twice before needing fuel. The fuel requirement is much less than what a diesel train would need. In the Megaprojects video that I posted below, the comparison given is that a full scale nuclear reactor needs 27 tons of fuel a year while a coal power plant needs 2,500,000 tons of fuel a year. The nuclear waste for a full scale reactor produced amounts to around 5 grams a year. So, it could be assumed that the smaller train reactor would create an amount that would would fit inside of a thimble.

-It could be build with technology that existed in the 1950s. Nothing futuristic required.

-The train would be able to reach 100 miles per hour speeds in around 3 minutes. This is comparable to what diesel trains can match.

Cons:

Its a freaking nuclear reactor on wheels! There was no guarantee that the public would be safe from radiation poisoning that the engine would have emitted. There is also the threat of it derailing and causing nuclear material to leak out. Even the steam used in the reactor would be somewhat radioactive. There were safety measures put into place but not enough to warrant any prototypes to be built.

The train would also be incredibly expensive, costing about $13 million, whereas a diesel train might only cost $7.5 million.

The refueling process was also way more complex than just putting diesel fuel or water into a train. It would require taking out the fueling rods which can be dangerous and time consuming.

Ultimately the train was never built, however, that did not stop other countries from looking into it. Most nuclear vehicles today, like aircraft carriers and submarines are surrounded by water. This allows complete access to water for cooling purposes and a safe distance from any public areas if there is an accident. To see more information about the X-12, check out the following images and video that this newsletter edition was based on.

Infographics showing the inside of the X-12 Aromic Train, Credit: Megaprojects

To learn more about me, check out my website and Youtube channel:

ReaganClo.com

https://www.youtube.com/@RocketsandRealEstate