Australian mining railroad info?

Question

The question from Chicky, below, got me wondering once again about an ore hauling railroad privately owned, I believe, down under. I'd like the name so I can collect more info.

When last I knew of it, they were running their trains remote, across some 1,000 miles of track, straight as an arrow and as flat as a (insert the name of something really flat here).

They were handling 23,000 metric tons at a whack with six old SD-45's, three on the point and three cut-in the train.

Do I remember correctly and do you know the name of the company that operates it?

Answer 1

The mining railroad in Oz I hear the most about is BHP Billiton iron mining company.. Apparently they got some of the latest EMD and GE power on their roster, including SD70ACes and AC6000CWs.

Photo of one of their brand-new SD70ACe's.. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=138656

BHP AC6000CWs: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=135240

Apparently they also got some old SD40s on their roster too, but I don't know about SD45s.

Answer 2

The mining company is probably Hamersley Iron, this operates in the north west part of Western Australia and has spun off its rail operation under the name "Pilbara Rail"

http://www.hamersleyiron.com/oper_rail.asp

The long straight you are probably thinking of is across the Nullarbor Plain, (bad Latin meaning no trees) which is in the south of the state beside the Great Australian Bight, an "inlet" of the Southern Ocean. There is no connection between the systems. The track is called the Trans-Australian Railway. It was built as it was a condition of WA joining the Australian federation in 1900, but not until after the First World War. It has the longest straight in the world, 459 km or 287 miles. This is not a mineral line, not even close to primarily one.

Queensland Railways on the north-east coast hauls the majority of Australian coal production on it's 3'6" narrow gauge system. Locos are Diesel to some mines and electric to others. Typical consist might be two or three locos in front, two in the middle of a 90 plus wagon train, each wagon holding something like 50 tons of coal. Crew is usually one.

The Queensland government railways has made so much out of this that they have bought up part of the operations in other states and call them QR National

Search 'Pilbara Rail' " Hamersley Iron", "Trans Australian Railway" ,"Queensland Railways" and "QR National" for more information. I'm off to watch Mythbusters.

Answer 3

They have recently ordered some GE ES44 units. Don't know if they are ES44AC's or ES44DC's. Saw it in Trains Magazine a few months ago.