7 Cars on Train Headed for Sub Base Derail

Seven cars of a freight train believed to be carrying rocket engines for Trident missiles derailed Monday as the train headed for the Trident Nuclear Submarine Base at Bangor, Wash.

Mike Wenninger, a spokesman for Burlington Northern Railroad, said three flatbed cars in the 19-car train were carrying containers bound for the Trident base, but they did not leave the tracks. He said he did not know what was inside the containers.

Members of Ground Zero and AGAPE, groups that regularly protest shipments to the Trident base, claimed the containers held rocket engines loaded with solid rocket fuel for Trident nuclear missiles.

“We consider the engines to have more explosive potential than the warheads. They establish a mile-wide buffer zone if they think one of them is in danger of exploding,” George Greenwald of Ground Zero said.