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15-575: RFAAP was established April 5, 1941 as Radford Ordnance Works and New River Plant. In 1945, the works was renamed Radford Arsenal and the New River Ordnance Works was assumed as a subpost until 1950, when it became an integral part of the Radford Arsenal. In 1961 the arsenal was renamed Radford Ordnance Plant and RFAAP in 1963. The facility used an ALCO MRS-1 military diesel locomotive, road number B2072, for switching, which

30-592: A future, large-scale land war no longer included the capture and use of the enemy's railway system. Thus the 96 locomotives were redundant for their original purpose. Many of the units were taken out of storage and assigned to various military installations around the country, where locomotives of that size and power were required. The Army eventually decided to transfer the units to the United States Navy . Five units stationed in Concord, California were

45-478: A half-acre crater. In 1995, Alliant Techsystems , parent company ATK Armament Systems, obtained a "facilities use" contract. In 1999, RFAAP gained the load, assembly and pack mission with the closure of Joliet Army Ammunition Plant in Illinois. "Radford is capable of producing mass quantities of solvent and solventless propellants to support direct fire, indirect fire, and rocket applications." On May 12, 2011,

60-584: A new land war in Europe. They came up with a requirement for a locomotive capable of running on the existing tracks of a wide variety of railway systems. Key parts of the specification included adjustable- gauge trucks , compact bodywork to fit restrictive loading gauges , and replaceable couplers to fit a variety of systems. The trucks accepted wheelsets between standard gauge 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) and 5 ft 6 in ( 1,676 mm ), which encompasses

75-564: Is "located on the north bank of the New River in the Horseshoe Area, a section of the plant surrounded on three sides by the river". Rapid modernization is addressing this concern. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Army 37°11′02″N 80°32′41″W  /  37.18389°N 80.54472°W  / 37.18389; -80.54472 ALCO MRS-1 The ALCO MRS-1

90-738: Is a type of diesel-electric locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company for the United States Army Transportation Corps . They were built with multigauge trucks and to a reduced loading gauge for service anywhere in the world in the event of war. The Korean War and the intensification of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1950s caused the Army Transportation Corps to consider what it might need for

105-1034: The Bluegrass Railroad and Museum , the Western Railway Museum , the Texas State Railroad , the National Museum of Transportation , the Northern Pacific Railway Museum , the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum , the Western Pacific Railroad Museum (one MRS-1 from the Western Pacific Railroad Museum was transferred to Yreka Western Railroad where it operated as YWRR #244, and later was scrapped in 2011),

120-828: The California State Railroad Museum , and Railtown 1897 . In addition, the Eastern Shore Railroad (now Bay Coast Railroad ) had stored two for possible future use, but they are now reported as scrapped in 2011. Cass Scenic Railroad also stored 2 examples, which were sold as surplus and later scrapped in 2010. Being produced to the same specification, both GE/ALCO and EMD MRS-1s are very similar in appearance and can easily be mistaken; they are both C-C road switcher locomotives that are very low in profile in order to fit within European loading gauges. The major exterior differences are

135-558: The Army announced that BAE Systems had won the "facilities use" contract to become the plant operator. RFAAP is housed on 4,600 acres (19 km) with 1,038 buildings, 214 igloos and storage capacity of 657,003 square feet where the New River divides Pulaski from Montgomery County. RFAAP is home to several tenants of similar industry, including: In June 2015 the plant requested a renewal of its permit of an open burning ground which it has used for decades to dispose of its waste. The ground

150-543: The Army from 2041 to 2123. The initial fate of most of the MRS-1 locomotives was to be placed in storage at the Army's Transportation Materiel Command facility at Marietta, Pennsylvania awaiting a war to use them in; they had not been purchased for peacetime use. These brand-new locomotives, with at most a couple of weeks' actual use, sat preserved until approximately 1970, when the Pentagon concluded that their plans for

165-580: The Army; the vendor providing the better locomotive would then produce the rest of the required locomotives. Both manufacturers delivered their sample batch in 1952, and after testing the GE locomotives, which were actually produced by ALCO as a subcontractor, were declared the winner, and a further batch of 70 ALCO MRS-1 locomotives were ordered. As delivered, they were painted in gloss black with white numbering and lettering. Fifty had steam generators for use in passenger service. The locomotives were numbered by

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180-648: The last to be used by the armed forces. Thirteen of the locomotives were sold to the Alaska Railroad —six in 1974, and seven in 1975. Alaska retired its last ALCO MRS-1s in 1984. Two locomotives were sold to the Uruguayan Administración de Ferrocarriles del Estado , numbered 1611, 1612. One suffered a fire in 1994 and was scrapped while the other is stored inoperable. While many locomotives were ultimately scrapped, several still exist, in various states of preservation. Examples exist at

195-524: The peaked cab roof and long hood roof on the EMD locomotives, and the radiator intakes on the sides of the long hood end, which have outside shutters on the ALCO locomotives. In addition, the short hood is visibly lower than the long hood, thanks to the long hood's peaked roof; on the ALCO units, the two are the same height. The frame side sills are also different; the ALCO's are straight from front to rear, while

210-510: The vast majority of the broad gauges in use worldwide, including those of the then Soviet Union ( 1,520 mm ( 4 ft  11 + 27 ⁄ 32  in )) and the Iberian peninsula ( 1,668 mm ( 5 ft  5 + 21 ⁄ 32  in )). The specification was put out to tender, and two companies responded; GM and GE . Both companies were contracted produced a batch of thirteen locomotives which would be evaluated by

225-478: Was retired by the 1980s and scrapped at Cycle Systems in Roanoke, Virginia around 1993. From 1970 to 1985, there were nine major explosions at RFAAP that caused multiple deaths and millions in damage. Notably, an explosion equivalent to 8,600 pounds of TNT destroyed the plant's TNT manufacturing facility and injured 100 workers in 1974, and a 5,000-pound nitroglycerine explosion in 1985 killed two employees and left

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