Home > CA > Ludlow >

Atomic Highway Concept Marker

Route 66, Ludlow, CA
Phone:

East < GO > West

There's another, wildly mind blowing, display in front of the Ludlow Route 66 Cafe. It commemorates something called Project Carryall of Operation Plowshare.

That was a plan to study the use of nuclear explosions to excavate a cut through the mountains for I-40 and the AT&SF Railroad. Fortunately the plan was abandoned. I guess the basic idea was to use buried atomic bombs to blast a cut through the mountains for the convenience of the railroad and to make building I-40 a little easier. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

Let's take it from the top, how about a cute little atomic mushroom cloud to brighten your day? Note the not so subtle symbolic ruble below it.

Adding a little credibility to the story, or to make sure we knew who to blame for this crazy idea, they put a nice little United States of America Atomic Energy Commission seal on the monument.

On to the good stuff ... (I added some paragraph breaks to make this easier to read), that said the plaque reads as follows:

"...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Micah 4:3

With the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War, America embarked on an ambitious program to ensure the nation's preeminence in the nuclear arms race. To this end Edward Teller and the Atomic Energy Commission detonated hundreds of nuclear devices underwater, underground, and in the atmosphere. Weapons development remained paramount, but the AEC also held a mandate to develop peaceful uses for atomic power.

In 1957 California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory launched an experimental program called Operation Plowshare to use nuclear energy for such applications as power plants, medicine, mining, the extraction of oil and natural gas, and for the excavation of canals, harbors and roadways.

Under Plowshare, a 1963 feasibility study was conducted for Project Carryall, a plan to realign the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and provide a route for Interstate 40.

23 nuclear explosions totaling 1.8 Megatons were to be used to excavate a 2-mile cut up to 350 feet deep through the Bristol Mountains east of Ludlow and remove 60 million cubic yards of rock.

Despite many assurances of safety from the AEC, obvious environmental and health concerns over this and other Plowshare projects caused several postponements, and in 1968 the project was dropped completely. 28 nuclear tests were conducted under operation Plowshare before its termination in 1975."

The monument was installed in 2010 by the Billy Holcomb Chapter of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management and the Knoll Family.

Photo(s): 2009, 2013