This issue brief discusses that possible forthcoming sale of a large, federally-owned railroad to the holding company of one of the Nation's largest railroads, or sale to a group of investors for later sale to the public through a stock offering.

Plastic scintillators can be coupled to light fibers to make small, simple, and inexpensive x-ray detectors. These detectors have been developed for use at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) for the remote detection of x-rays. Light produced in the scintillator can be transmitted by the fiber for several hundred meters to a photodetector, which is usually a streak camera or a photomultiplier tube. The use of a streak camera allows many channels to be recorded simultaneously. A parameter study has been done to measure the sensitivity of these detectors as a function of scintillator geometry, type of scintillator, coupling geometry, and x-ray energy. The results can be qualitatively explained by simple geometric theory. A recent use of these detectors at NTS was the measurement of an x-ray spectrum. System performance for this measurement will be reviewed. 7 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.