Fortescue Railway
| Fortescue Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Bridge over the Turner River
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 Iron ore mines and railway lines in the Pilbara region
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| Route length: | 620 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 80 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dual track : | 120 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Fortescue Railway is a railway company in the region Pilbara in Western Australia , which is a route network for the transport of iron ore from the mines to the port at Port Hedland operates. It is owned by The Pilbara Infrastructure Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of International Bulk Ports Pty Ltd. owned by the Fortescue Metals Group (FMG).
history
After FMG had tried in vain for years to connect its Cloud Break and Christmas Creek mines to the port in Port Hedland via the existing lines of the mining companies BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto , it began building its own route network in November 2006. It was the first new construction of a railway line in the region in more than 40 years. It took 18 months to build and cost the company A $ 2.5 billion (around EUR 1.9 billion). The only major interruption in construction was caused by a cyclone that killed two workers in March 2007. Eight prestressed concrete bridges and 360 culverts were built. Seven of the bridges were built with an arch width of 25 meters, only the overpass of the BHP-Billiton-Bahn is designed as a girder bridge. It was finally opened on April 5, 2008.
The 40-kilometer extension to the Christmas Creek Mine was opened in mid-December 2010.
In December 2012, the route network was expanded to include a 130-kilometer branch line to the Solomon Hub and 120 kilometers of double-track line went into operation. For this purpose, four new bridges and two new turning loops in Port Hedland were built. This expanded the capacity of the line to 155 million tons per year. Eleven trains can be dispatched per day. FMG invested US $ 9 billion in this project, which corresponds to approximately EUR 7 billion.
Route description
The route runs from the Christmas Creek Mine via the Cloud Break Mine to Herb Elliott Port in Port Hedland. She has eight 250 m and three 3000 m long passing tracks. The connection at the port is designed as a reversing loop . The connection to the mine is with a 3000 m long turnout. The turnouts with movable frogs can move at a speed of 70 km / h. The route leads over 100 km along the Mount Newman route from BHP Billiton and cross it without elevation .
The superstructure is with concrete sleepers at a distance of 675 mm and the rails were flash butt welded. The thermite welding process was only used in exceptional cases.
business
In January 2013, FMG operated a total of 53 locomotives, including GE Dash 9-44CW and EMD SD70ACe, as well as more than 3,200 iron ore freight cars and over a hundred other freight cars such as tank cars for the fuel for the locomotives, ballast cars , side tippers , rail transport cars and compressor cars .
The ore wagons built by CSR Zhuzhou in China weigh 23 t when empty and have a volume of 69 m³. 19 trains were formed from them. In order to reduce maintenance costs, the ore wagons are firmly coupled in pairs so that one coupling is not required per wagon and only every second wagon needs a control valve . The couplings can be rotated so that the wagons can be unloaded with a double rotary tipper in the port without separating the train formation . This rotates two loaded 150 t wagons by 160 ° in order to empty them. The system empties up to 80 trolleys per hour. The trains equipped with electropneumatic brakes from NYAB can load at a speed of 75 km / h in 800 m to be brought to a standstill, empty from 79 km / h in 486 m.
The journey time for the entire route is around five hours. On average, there are 14 to 15 trains a day that are run by one man. One cycle takes 19 to 21 hours, of which two and a half hours are required for loading and three hours for unloading. The 40th 000-ton trains are up to 2.7 km long and consist of 250 ore wagons that are hauled by two to three locomotives. Each train carries 36 000 tons of ore to the port.
In the first section of the journey to the port, the trains are supported by a sliding locomotive, which is uncoupled during the journey. When they arrive at the port, the locomotives take over an empty train that is ready to leave. So that the full train can be moved in the unloading system without locomotives, the brakes must be kept released with the aid of compressor cars.
The technical condition of the trains is checked by fixed monitoring systems that are installed along the routes every 50 km are arranged. Each control station includes acoustic warehouse monitoring, as well as flat spot and hot box location. The condition of the lines is constantly monitored with instrumented locomotives and wagons. The rails are sanded regularly.
Initially, 55 million tons were handled annually. This was increased to 72 million tons per year by June 2012. The route is controlled by FMG from Perth in train control. The company expressly allows other railway companies to use the route.
Entertains
FMG's maintenance facilities are located south of Port Hedland. Originally, all of the work was done at Rowley Yard, named after Graeme Rowley, FMG's first managing director. With the expansion of the route network, more efficient systems were put into operation in June 2013. The locomotives are serviced in the newly built Kanyirri Yard, the wagons in the former Rowley Yard, which was renamed Thomas Yard after Peter Thomas, the project manager of the route network expansion.
The maintenance of the ore wagon drives is largely automated. After they have been parked by a shunting locomotive in the forecourt of the maintenance hall, four wagons are always brought into the work area by an automatic car pusher, where they are lifted with jacks and the wheel sets are exchanged. The wheelsets to be refurbished reach the refurbishment line via rails, where the axle bearing caps are first removed, a visual check is carried out and the data for the refurbishment is entered into the production control system. Then each wheelset is measured in an automatic production line, the wheelset bearings are removed, the running surfaces are turned, an ultrasonic test is carried out and the wheelset bearings are pressed on again. Another production line processes the wheel sets on which the wheel disks have to be replaced. Pressing the wheel disks, washing and magnetic particle testing of the axle shaft, as well as pressing the wheel disks are all automated.
Operations control center
The Fortescue Railway is operated by an operations control center in the 1300s km away from Perth . It is normally manned by three employees, one of which is in charge of the Port Hedland operations including the unloading facility, one is in charge of operations at the pits and one oversees the lines.
Security systems
The traffic on the route network was initially regulated with written orders , later switched to Positive Train Control , with the changeover being completed in December 2013. The ITCS system was used for the first time outside of North America . With this system supplied by General Electric , similar to the European ETCS Level 2, the train position and the driving license are transmitted via radio data transmission.
The route is divided into eight-kilometer-long block sections, which are monitored by track circuits . With the introduction of the ITCS, the company switched to operation with four-kilometer-long virtual block sections. The route is provided with 150 solar- powered signal units, which are provided with a backup battery that can continue to operate the system for five days if the solar energy fails.
Axle load
The railway lines of the Fortescue Railway were designed for a higher axle load of 40 tons compared to the existing railway lines in the region, which are designed with 35 or 37.5 tons axle load. The route thus set a new world record for axle load. There are rails with a weight per meter of 68 kg and the profile PG4 are used.
In November 2014 the axle load was increased to 42 tons, with trains with an axle load of up to 43.5 tons. On a trial basis, 140 wagons are equipped with SKF bearings for an axle load of 45 tons.
expansion
There are further plans to expand the route network around a western branch from Solomon Hub towards New Pilbara Port near Anketell and to the Western Hub mine. This should bring the capacity on the network to 355 million t per year by June 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Keith Barrow: Pilbara's heavyweight champion flexes its muscles. In: IRJ. November 3, 2015, accessed December 24, 2015 .
- ^ The Pilbara Infrastructure Pty Ltd .: Private Company Information. In: Businessweek. Retrieved December 24, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c Port and Rail Infrastructure. (No longer available online.) In: Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. Archived from the original on December 25, 2015 ; accessed on December 24, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f Fact Sheet Fortescue Rail Operations. (No longer available online.) Fortescue Metals Group, February 2012, archived from the original on December 25, 2015 ; accessed on December 25, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f Peter Thomas: Fortescue Rail Expansion. Fortescue Metals Group, September 8, 2011, archived from the original January 8, 2014 ; accessed on December 25, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d e Fortescue opens the world's heaviest haul railway. In: Railway Gazette. July 14, 2008, accessed December 25, 2015 .
- ↑ Fortescue Rail Expansion. (No longer available online.) FMG, February 2012, archived from the original on December 25, 2015 ; accessed on December 25, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Rail Car Workshop Opens in Western Australia . In: Parsons Brinckerhoff Bulletin . tape 57 , March, 2014 ( online ).
- ↑ Thomas Yard, Kanyirri Locomotive Facility and Admin Center. In: Decmil. Retrieved December 24, 2015 (American English).
- ^ Pilbara Railway Pages Fortescue Metals Group Road. In: www.pilbararailways.com.au. Retrieved December 25, 2015 .
- ^ Wheel Shop Automation: Railway Wheel Mount Line - FMG, Port Hedland, Australia. Simmons Machine Tool Corporation, September 25, 2013, accessed December 25, 2015 .
