Massive Rio Tinto Iron Ore Trains tackle the Chichester Range 

My brother was a driver for Rio Tinto on these ore trains, a 40yr vet locomotive engineer from New Zealand. I miss him a lot, RIP Lee Grace.

As a kid who used to collect train numbers on the GWR at Reading General in the fifties, it is still a huge thrill to see/hear the GE diesels (200 per day) pulling WA ore down to the coast, knowing that I had a hand in creating this 'my railway' in the late 1960s. I was a Field Engineer for Central Engineering Services (part then of Rio Tinto Zinc) inspecting the work of MKMM contractors as we worked our way along the 180 mile route from King Bay to Mt Tom Price, surveying, earthmoving and rail-laying (the latter at a 'world record' of one-mile per day.). The official opening of the mainly single track (at that time) was July 1st, 1966. There are photos of this spike -driving occasion digitized in the archives of the State Library of Western Australia. The initial runs were two trainloads per day with three Alco diesels (I believe at least one is still on display at the museum/graveyard outside Dampier). We were the second railroad in the Pilbara shortly after the BHP/Mt Newman road opened to Cape Lambert. For many years, before You Tube/internet, this little corner of the world was unknown, so I am happy that sites like M&S have helped bring recognition to this spectacular mix of man and environment. From Philadelphia, Peter George.

Rio Tinto are a Portuguese name. Here in Brazil we have a little town callled this way. Again, I love the trains and these Australian landscapes, remember me my region. Thanks you for the videos.

Terrific vid and happy memories of the 1980s up there. Thanks for posting.

All very interesting and interesting comments, a fascinating subject thanks for the videos.

Good stuff! I wish I could've smelled the hot brakes as the train descended the grade there and it would be fascinating to see thermal camera images to see all the hot spots of the train as it came down hill. Impressive operations there.

My uncle died on the job driving one of these trains. It was over a decade ago, he had a heart attack in the cabin and they found him at the end of the line. I know nothing about the trains but as far as I know they were largely driving themselves by then but there was a human bod in the cabin for safety reasons. R.I.P. Uncle Darrel

someone's got a massive job checking and placing the brake pads on all those wagons

Great shooting

awesome video! should do another WA vid with more variety trains

NICE VIDEO

Cool Video! 2 DPUs at the rear will help a lot.

The union pacific uses three AC 4400 hp locomotives to pull 21000 ton coal trains almost 8000 feet long. Two engines on the front and one on the back. The hills reduce the speed where I'm at to about 14mph WFO!

OK you answered my previous question about where the ore goes. It would be interesting to see them loading and unloading the trains.

It strikes me as strange that Rio Tinto are going big on driverless trains and yet they make no use of Distributed Power to improve train handling.

Este tren esta mas largo ke la cuaresma😮

Sure we need A LOT of the iron ore XD Tris train easly match the cargo ship!

If they did not try and move the whole damn mine in one trip, the train could operate a lot easier!

It would have been spectacular to see when that BHP train took off down the Chichesters with no driver last year. I don’t know if you heard about it, but the driver was winding on the handbrakes on the cars after the ECP cable broke and put the train into emergency. Unbeknown to everyone the ECP system released the brakes after 1 hour and off she went. My neighbour is a FIFO driver for BHP and he told me all about it. ATSB report here. The second part is the most interesting with all the figures. 42,500 tonnes gross weight, 268 cars! www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2018/rair/ro-2018-018/

How does the autohaul system work? is it programed at the loading point and sent on its way, how do they keep a check on the power units and all the other stull that the trains do? That I would love to see in person. soon mankind is going to be obsolete altogether. Some of those power plants look like they have been well used. Thanks for an outstanding video, there was the scenery beautiful. (Mississippi gulf coast, USA)

THANKS YOU FOR THE VIDEO..SALUDOS FROM NEW YORK. BROO I like to know how many car pouch this locomotor.

Is there a reason the cars alternate in which side is towards us?

I find it absolutely incredible that the three locos can pull such an enormous load. Given that the trains are driverless (not sure why) I wonder what happens if the train breaks a coupling or something.

That is one long boi for ya

I'm surprised they bought any DC traction locomotives for such heavy haul service, must have got a good price from GE!

Amazing stuff! Very different scenery and trains compared to New Zealand

What is the grades in that area just curious as i run at about 0.4 to as high as 0.9 at our worst grades in my area of the mountains in canada.

Magnificent. Is the loco braking total loss regen into resistor banks or some other sort of controlled braking system?

You can hear the dynamic brakes in maximum in that first clip.

Are the locos built in Australia? They look very much the same as the GE models made in the US. That would be a heavy delivery all the way to Oz!

This train qualifies as being the worlds largest and heaviest robot

"Slightly" longer than our Swedish iron ore trains 🤣

That is one heck of a lot of iron ore. I wonder what tonnage is being hauled here?

Do you track the trains?

A few questions: 1. Do you know who built these ore gondolas? 2. How much do these wagons weigh empty? 3. How much weight can these wagons carry (maximum load)? It is also extremely unusual for me to see such long and heavy trains with no Distributed Power Units. If I were them I'd not only have the 3 locomotives in the front, I'd put two in the rear as well. Gives you better acceleration, better speed (especially when going uphill), and better dynamic braking when going downhill.

The first train in the video has 230 wagons. How much does each waggon load? By European standards, the total looks huge!

Where is the ore going? To a steel plant or export?

Is this breaking BHP record?

I wonder how long the brakes last!

The poor old traction motors would be fighting real hard to slow down that behemoth!

Looks pretty stable. Wonder why the train is going so slow? I understand safety. But that's pretty slow.

Were the two trains in this video, autohaul? Ive read that some of their trains are still manned. What does that hinge on? I assume that the ports, and mines have engineer/conductor crews in place to intercept the trains when they arrive to break them down, put them back together, brake test, program, and launch to train control for the return trip?

Indian needed this type of heavy duty locomotive... But remember driverless train or locomotive in India means benefits for people in who wants to suicide.. robbery and stole.. and last our network and communication system are very slow... Though wag 9 and wag 12 are fully computer and automated system available... But drive is mandatory to run train and watched.. in India.. if I am wrong then I am sorry...

Great video - do you know if there's a reason they don't use Distributed Power on those trains with big loads?

From Indiana

Australia has a lot of iron ore -Australia has a lot of coal -why are there no blast furnaces, steel mills, rolling mills etc -you make money when processing raw materials into products

Surprised they have regular GE locomotives out here. Area looks a lot like Arizona otherwise.

اية دة دا طويل فشخ !!!

How much tonne of iron ore this train can handle, must be 5000t

Is that meant to be a dog on that hill?

Locomotives with no engineer on board? The first time those Autohaul computers or sensors malfunction, and run a train off the rails, the company management is going to regret the decision to eliminate train crew.

Wouldnt want to have yo stop at a level xing

Are these trains operator-less?

GO Australia @ GO USA.

Tanks Brasil 😎😎😎 SEARCH EMD SD80ACE,,, GE ES58ACi EFC Carajás

If not for the cars this is pretty much just some unpainted engine leading a train through Nevada/Arizona

Basis is the correct spelling of the word in your. Subtitle NOT bases which means something all together something else

All it is is rust. That needs heat to turn it into iron ingots which is worth more. There's more to be made from value-adding but that would require businessmen with vision. Getting rid of a few drivers is a good day's work to them.

If each locomotive is 400,000 kgs that's well over 800,000 pounds for one locomotive...... Very very heavy machinery.

So sad that greedy miners blew up something irriplacable. Thats all they do is destroy and most people are still broke as.

All that money to make them automatous just to put a few men out of work.1.4 billion would of paid a lot of men.

1.3 billion just to eliminate two jobs per train? Doesn't make economic sense, it sounds like just mean spirited, money hungry, big business psychopaths to me.

RTZ: condemned for destruction of 46000 year old Aboriginal cave dwellings. CEO sacked. Sad, selfish company management.