So here's a way to "launch" into the New Year: Russia's Soyuz rocket train.
Called the Baikonur Railway, it is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Khazakstan (founded in 1955).
The train is used to transport the rocket--the only vehicle today capable of reaching the space station--from the assembly facility to the launch pad.
Click here to watch a video of the train in operation.
The Cosmodrome is the launch site for Soviet
and Russian human spaceflight programs, geostationary satellites launches and
scientific missions to the moon and planets.
It was the launch site for some of the world’s major
space-related advances, such as Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit
the Earth (1957) and the first human in space (Yuri Gagarin, 1961).
The railway also connects the Cosmodrome to the city of
Baikonur.
And on another space-related note, maybe what we need is a train that can boldly go where no train has ever gone before, as in the photo below. The maker of this unique creation is unknown (to me, at least).
Beam me up, Scotty!
This is could make for an interesting little layout or diorama. I was doing some thinning in my library a little while ago and came across this old ‘70s era photo(?) of the launch complex where that train goes to: http://www.30squaresofontario.blogspot.ca/2014/12/launch-pad-layouts-of-mind.html That ‘Enterprise-diesel’ reminded me of this concept for the Riverside shipyard for the 2009 Star Trek movie that was based on a railroad roundhouse concept: http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/star-trek-riverside-shipyard-concept-art/ Given that the original series enterprise was around 289m long, that would be one big roundhouse facility :-) Thanks for the interesting post!
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