Mount Newman Railway

Mount Newman Railway
Education at the entrance to Port Hedland
Route length:	426 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	25  ‰
Top speed:	75 km / h
Dual track :	Port Hedland – Jimblebar Junction
Legend Nelson Point Port Hedland Goldsworthy Junction Finucane Island – Yarrie 21.0 Bing 33.0 Mooka Yard ore wagon repair shop 62.0 Walla 95.0 Gillam 121.0 Gymnast Abydos Fortescue Railway Poert Hedland – Nunna Junction Coonarie Roy Hill Railway Fortescue Railway Solomon Hub – Nunna Junction Chichester Deviation Garden Shaw 248.5 Fortescue Marsh Cowra Gidgi 281.0 Yandi Junction Kurrajura siding Yandi Wye Yandi 2 loadout loop Yandi 1 loadout loop Rio Tinto Rail to the Yandicoogina Mine Area C mine 401.0 Jimblebar Junction Eastern Ridge Mine (Orebody 23 & 25) Orebody 24 Homestead Junction Orebody 18 Wheelarra Mine and Jimblebar Mine Mount Whaleback Mine (Orebody 29, 30 and 35) Swell:

The Mount Newman Railway is a heavy-haul route in the region Pilbara in Western Australia , which the iron ore - open pits at Newman with the harbor in Port Hedland  connects.

Route and history

Opened in 1969, the 426 km long route connects the Mount Whaleback Mine with the harbor at Nelson Point in Port Hedland. A greater proportion of the workers who built the line came from Thursday Island . They had worked in Queensland and on the Hamersley Railway before the Mount Newman Railway was built . 62,000 tons of rails made of BHP steel were laid for the route. In addition, 25 bridges, 15 kilometers of water passages and a few cuts through hard rock had to be built or realized.

The main route was expanded in 1989 to include a 32 km branch to the Wheelarra Mine , in addition to the Jimblebar Mine in 2014 . In 1991 a 30 km long branch line was added to the Yandi Mine , which was extended by a further 38 km to the Area C Mine in 2003 .

In May 2011, the two-track expansion of the Port Hedland – Jimblebar Junction section was completed.

In the 2015 financial year, the railway transported almost 220 million tons of ore; in the long term, an increase to 290 million tons per year is possible.

vehicles

Locomotives

The railway owns 180 locomotives, some of which are equipped with the GE Locotrol radio remote control .

EMD SD70ACe

The largest part of the fleet is made up of 165 locomotives of the SD70ACe series from EMD .

SD70ACe / LCi

Initially, the SD70ACe / LCi version was ordered, where LCi stands for Low Clearance international , which indicates that the vehicle boundary profile , which is smaller than the standard version, is required for driving under the loading systems. The locomotives were also equipped with cover plates for the windshields so that they are not damaged by ore dust when the locomotives are lined up in the middle of the train.

In total, 23 locomotives of the SD70ACe / LCi variant are in operation. The first locomotive was delivered in 2005 and had the number 4300, it was stored as a spare parts donor after commissioning. The remaining locomotives were delivered in three delivery lots, with the first delivery lot being exchanged for other locomotives at Progress Rail because the cab insulation was not up to the level of the version improved in lots two and three.

SD70ACe (standard variant)

Due to an acute shortage of locomotives, BHP Billiton purchased ten standard SD70ACe locomotives in 2008, which were originally intended for the BNSF. Because of their orange paintwork, they were referred to as pumpkin ("pumpkin"). This was followed by orders for a further 132 locomotives of the standard variant in three delivery lots, so that the total stock of this version increased to 142 units. The latest locomotives are built in 2014.

In addition, 15 locomotives of the Dash 8 series from GE were still in service in subordinate services in 2015 , which are being phased out. Only six of these GE locomotives were bought new, the remaining locomotives were ALCO Century 636 delivered at the opening of the line , which received the drive train of the Dash 8 series from GE during refurbishment. Three locomotives were refurbished without a driver's cab and could therefore only run remotely. The driver's cab was retrofitted to these locomotives later.

GE AC6000CW

From 1999, the railroad used eight locomotives of the AC6000CW series from GE. After delivery, they received the 16-cylinder GEVO engine developed for the Chinese HXN5, which was tested on these locomotives before series production. All locomotives were decommissioned and scrapped in 2013.

EMD SD40 family

As of 2004, 20 locomotives of the SD40 and SD40-2 series from EMD were in use. These locomotives were bought second-hand from Union Pacific and Southern Pacific . They had neither radio remote control, nor train protection, nor radio or air conditioning in the driver's cab, so that they could not be used at the Zugspitze and not as the leading locomotive in a group of intermediate locomotives . Some locomotives were later equipped with radio and air conditioning so that they could be used as shunting locomotives in Port Hedland. All locomotives were decommissioned and scrapped in 2013.

Ore wagon

The railway owns around 3400 ore wagons. A typical ore wagon with an empty weight of 20 tons can carry approximately 132 tons of ore.

The first 114 ore wagons were delivered from the USA together with the first used rotary tipper . They were previously used in the construction of the Oroville Dam . Other ore wagons were built by the Australian companies Comeng , Goninan and Transfield . Of the 350 wagons from Romania , only 75 were used for their intended purpose.

Other vehicles

In addition to the vehicles mentioned above, BHP owns several tankers for transporting fuel from the port to the opencast mines. Carriages are also available for the calibration of track scales .

For checking the tracks BHP uses track recording railcar of MERMEC one.

business

The railway is constantly striving to make the transport service as efficient as possible with the means available, which means that the operating concept changes frequently.

Compilation of trains

Since 2015, the trains have been running with 259 cars, pulled by two SD70 locomotives, at the Zugspitze, which are supported by two further radio-controlled SD70 locomotives, which are lined up after 130 cars. Such a train with a total length of 2.8 km carries 34,200 tons of ore with a total weight of 39,400 tons and an axle pressure of 38 tons. There are 14 trains a day.

Up to January 2014 the trains ran with twice 124 cars, with intermediate locomotives also lined up in the middle of the train.

Trains used to run with 336 cars that were up to 3.7 km long - the maximum length of the sidings on the single-track line until 2011. After 112 wagons there were intermediate locomotive packages, which often consisted of a leading modern diesel locomotive and two guided SD40 or Dash 8 locomotives. After the expansion of the main line to double track, these long trains were abandoned because the longer the train length, the greater the forces generated by dynamic processes in the train formation and the resulting loads on the couplings often caused them to break.

World record trains

The railway set a world record for train length twice:

A 5892 meter long and 72,191 ton heavy train with ten locomotives and 540 wagons ran for the first time on May 28, 1996. This train held the world record for train weight, but not that for the longest train, because the 71,600 t heavy trains on the South African Sishen – Saldanha railway were more than a kilometer longer with a train length of 7200 meters.

On June 21, 2001 a train ran from Yandi to Port Hedland, which carried a load of 82,000 tons of ore with a train weight of 99,734 tons. The 682 cars were carried by the eight AC6000CW locomotives that were available at the time. Three pairs of locomotives and two single locomotives distributed over the 7.2 km long train ensured that traction and braking forces were evenly distributed over the train. The train, which ran at 75 km / h, was operated by one man, as the intermediate locomotives were operated via radio remote control, as with the other BHP trains. The train took 10 hours for the whole journey. The clutch broke on the climb over the Chichester Ranges, resulting in an almost five hour standstill. After the repair, the train had to be pushed by two additional locomotives for the last kilometer of the gradient.

Loading and unloading

The trains are filled with processed sintered fine ore or lump ore in the open-cast mining operations, with the loading being carried out with the train locomotives. In the port of Port Hedland, the trains are unloaded either at Nelson Point or on Finucane Island with a total of five rotary tippers. For the unloading process, the train is separated in front of the intermediate locomotives and each part of the train is guided individually by the associated locomotives through the unloading facilities before they are reunited for the return journey to the opencast mines. A monitoring system is installed in the unloading systems, which monitors that the wagons are actually emptied. This prevents partially unloaded wagons from derailing due to uneven wheel load distribution. The turnaround time for a journey from loading to port and back is approximately 30 hours.

Operations control center

The operation of the Mount Newman Railway is monitored from an operations control center in Perth , 1,300 km away . In addition to rail operations, she also manages production in the port and in the opencast mines.

Railway accident

On November 5, 2018, a train with four locomotives and 268 wagons loaded with iron ore ran out of control and was deliberately derailed near Turner's Siding. In the railway accident at Turners Siding , many of the wagons were destroyed and the railway infrastructure was destroyed over a length of about 1.5 km.

Individual evidence

1. ^ BHP Billiton Iron Ore Road. In: Pilbara Railway Pages. 2010, accessed December 27, 2015 . 
2. ↑ David Lee: Iron Country: Unlocking the Pilbara. (No longer available online.) Minerals Council of Australia, June 2015, p. 52 , archived from the original on December 30, 2015 ; accessed on December 30, 2015 (English). 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.  
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Resourcing global growth Annual Report 2015. BHP Billiton, p. 83 , accessed on December 30, 2015 (English). 
4. ↑ BHP Billiton Opens Jimblebar Iron Ore Mine. In: BHP Billiton. Retrieved December 29, 2015 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Locomotive roster. (No longer available online.) In: Pilbara Railway Pages. Archived from the original on January 3, 2016 ; Retrieved January 3, 2016 . 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.  
6. ↑ Richard Montgomery: SD70ACe - brute power . 2009, ISSN  1835-6370 , p. 24-31 .
7. ↑ SD70ACe / LC - SD70ACe. (No longer available online.) In: Pilbara Railway Pages. Archived from the original on January 7, 2016 ; accessed on January 7, 2016 . 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.  
8. ↑ Dash 8. (No longer available online.) In: Pilbara Railway Pages. Archived from the original on January 3, 2016 ; Retrieved January 3, 2016 . 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.  
9. ↑ SD40R / SD40-2. In: Pilbara Railway Pages. Retrieved January 3, 2016 . 
10. ↑ ^{a b} Rollingstock. (No longer available online.) In: Pilbara Railway Pages. Archived from the original on January 7, 2016 ; accessed on January 7, 2016 . 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.  
11. ↑ JR West picks MERMEC inspection technology. In: Railway Gazette. Retrieved January 7, 2016 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Google Earth images of Port Hedland, taken in April 2015
13. ↑ ^{a b c} BHP breaks its own 'heaviest train' record. In: Railway Gazette. Retrieved January 7, 2016 . 
14. ^ BHP Billiton Iron Ore Road. In: [www.pilbararailways.com.au Pilbara Railway Pages]. Retrieved January 5, 2016 . 
15. ↑ Robert Boelena, Paul Curciob, Alex Cowinc, Russell Donnellyd: Ore-car coupler performance at BHP Billiton Iron Ore . In: Engineering Failure Analysis . No. 11 , 2004, p. 221-234 .
16. ↑ ^{a b} Guinness World Record Holder- 4.5 Mile Long Train! In: Train Fanatics. Retrieved January 19, 2016 . 
17. ↑ BHP Billiton Iron Ore - Laser Partially Dumped Ore Car System. (No longer available online.) In: Cardno BEC. Archived from the original on January 5, 2016 ; Retrieved January 5, 2016 . 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.  
18. ↑ BHP Iron Ore Railroad Overview. BHP Billiton, September 2003, accessed December 30, 2015 .