Pilbarra Iron Ore Railways in May 1977 

During our trip "up north" to Karratha in May, 1977, I wanted to see the Iron Ore Railways in operation. This is a short-ish video, once again shot on Super 8 film stock, of the three Iron Ore Railways in existence in the Pilbarra region. We commence with Hamersley Iron (which runs into Dampier, close to Karratha), then followed by the Cliffs Robe River Railway, viewed not far from Roebourne, which runs to Cape Lambert. Have a look at the different loading of their wagons, not neat well filled loads ready for shipping like Hamersley and Mt Newman, but containing huge boulders in the ore. They are destined for the Pelletising Plant at Cape Lambert where they will be broken down and prepared for shipping. (I have included a short segment uploaded by AussieAlco on RU-vid of these huge boulders. I have given ownership credit to him on screen) The third, and longest railway line is the Mount Newman Railway, running into Port Hedland. The locomotives of all three Companies are Alco C636 Century series, developing 3600 HP, the most powerful locos in Australia at the time. The sound is genuine, but comes from only from two run-byes. Luckily all the trains sound the same, so I have spliced the sound from these two into the balance of the trains seen on my silent Super 8 footage to add sound dimension to the video.