Massive Iron Ore Train! Watch in HD !
The iron ore trains in the north-west of Australia are the longest and heaviest trains in the world. This one would have around 232 cars, weigh around 35,000 tonnes loaded.
Locomotives are G.E. CM44-9CW of 4400 HP.
This is on Rio Tinto's line, formally known as Hammersley Iron, in the north-west of Western Australia, near the rail crossing of the North-West Coastal Highway near the Karratha truck stop.
The iron-ore trains up here are are the longest and heaviest in the world. At BHP-Billiton's operations a couple of hundred kms further north, they run 6 locomotives on a train, some of which are G.E. AC6000s of 6000 HP each. I've been told they've tried 45,000 tonne trains. These trains are controlled by one driver, no one else in the cab. Mid-train helpers and locos at the rear are all controlled by the one driver up front by radio "Locotrol" (on BHP lines).
You won't find these massive locomotives anywhere else in Australia, they are fully imported from North America with bigger radiators to cope with the 50C or 120F temperatures in the summer. It's not all flat going either as there are some 3% grades over the Chichester Range. Trust me, the ground shakes when they go past on full noise.
For you guys in America watching this we call the Engineer a Train Driver, though personally I reckon Engineer sounds better !
If you want to know more, check out this website :
www.pilbararail...
Copy and paste this into Google Earth and you will see exactly where I shot the vid :
20°47'31.99"S116°46'9.13"E
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2 окт 2024
