Mt Newman Mining Railway 240 car long Iron Ore Train 1990

A Mt Newman Mining, 240 car iron ore train on the Mt Newman railway near Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in 1990. Each car contains some 100 tons of iron ore and thus the train has a payload of some 24,000 tons. These were reported as being the longest and heaviest trains in the world at the time. The iron ore, is destined for Port Hedland for shipment.
At the start of the video, the rear of the train can be seen in the far distance on a long curve on the other side of the leading locomotive. There are three locomotives up front while two locomotives are in the consist of the train near the middle after the first 144 cars.
They are operated by remote control from the leading locomotive. The train was taken on the outskirts of Port Hedland near the highway overpass. Apologies for the bumpy start but I was not quite prepared in time.
Count the cars; there should be 240.
This though, is only a short light train when compared to one which ran on the line on June 21, 2001 consisting of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 locomotives with two at the front of the train and two at the end and two lots of two in the train at various points. The total weight of the train was near 100,000 tonnes and the load of ore was some 82,262 tonnes, The train was 7.353 km long which is over four and a half miles. This stands as the official world record on more counts than one. On a visit in May 2011, a train was observed with six lococomotives, paired in three parts of the train. The train was made up with 336 ore wagons. It seems that this could be generally the normal make up of trains on the Mt Newman Railway. The consist was two locomotives, 112 cars; two more locomotives and 112 more cars, and two more locomotives and another 112 cars.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• iron ore
• mineral railway
• minerals
• Mount Newman
• railway
• railroad
• mining
• line
• rail
• trains
• locomotives
• ore
• transport
• cars
• wagons

[pennsyr1]

Very, very cool. This is only the second video I've ever seen of Mt. Newman Mining's rail operations.

Thanks for posting!