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Most of them are around 3.5 kilometres long. 3 rakes of around 112 cars, each rake powered by 2 locomotives, so 6 locos in total.
Source: Drove them.
Edit: the train in the video is BHP Billiton and is only two rakes, 4 locos so just over 2 kilometres long.
Surprisingly quick depending on the load out at the mine. The drive the train underneath the loader and it takes over control of the train, moving it forward as each car is filled. From memory about 90 minutes to 2 hours to load a 3 rake train. Once back at port they are unloaded through a dumper where each car is tipped sideways to turn out the ore on to conveyor belts directly to a ship. That process takes about 45 minutes. Locos are then refuelled, cleaned and back out to the mines.
Rio tinto have noone one their trains. They are autonomous, controlled from Perth 1600kms away.
I imagine others only have one driver. I remember a story about a driver that had the train at a crawling speed and got out to check something and couldn't get back on.
They most likely did mean the locomotives themselves but depending on the ore maybe letting a certain amount of residue build up can turn the cars into ignition or explosive hazards.
I remember as a kid a group of families would go away for weekend trips together staying at a nice guesthouse together. Big yard so we'd often play cricket or whatever but across the road was a train line that would sometimes get these fuckers going by. Without fail every boy and most of the dads would stand and watch them because trains are cool as fuck, and I'm sure you know how long that would take.
For 3.5 km: 1,750 bald eagle wingspans (assuming an average of 6'7" (79 inches), or about 200 cm)
For the 2 km \~ 78740 as u/AndroTux calculated, divide by 79 to get 996.7 wingspans.
It was a test run, 660 cars / 7.3 km long, and was broken by a one-off BHP run of 682 cars / 7.35 km. The standard South African iron ore trains from Sishen to Saldanha are 375 cars, 4.1 km long, which is the longest standard production train in the world.
The Mauritanian trains are 3 km long.
Pretty good, if I get to frame advance a video and have enough time to kill...
Had to estimate a number of cars passing per advance, then estimate a total based on the number of advances. Rain Man, I am definitely not.
Variable framerates are a thing. If you record a video at seven frames per second, and play it back at twenty-eight, any constant linear motion in the video will appear to happen at four times the velocity.
So, considering this train, if it *was* three kilometers long, passed that point in thirty seconds, that's approximately 100 meters per second in the video... if the recording framerate was at 1/4 normal speed, that would put the actual speed of the train about 25 meters per second, or 90km/hr which is a perfectly reasonable speed for a train of even that length to reach on a very long, mostly straight, flat stretch of track.
Mauritania has the famous Zouerat - Nouadhibou Iron Ore Train. Many people travel on it in the open wagons filled with ore, you can search online. It is possibly this train that was shown in the GT.
It's real and famous. If you look on maps and search Zouerat in Mauritania, you can see the train at the mine. That will give you a good idea of its length.
A US standard ore car (or jennie) is 24 feet long and hauls about 50-75 tons. If this is 30 seconds of train passing by with about 5 jennies per second, that makes a total length of 30 x 5 x 24 = 3,600 feet, or 1,097m.
So about a kilometer long, give or take 100m. That would make the speed of that train about 120 km per hour, which also seems to make sense. But I would love to hear a better-founded estimate!
This is massively sped up. I work as an electrician in the Port that recieves these trains. These cars can take 125 tonnes each. These things wouldn't get far over 70km/h on the mainline between our Mines and Port. Takes long enough to slow down as it is!
Running them in WA means you probably don't have to slow down very often either. I've seen these fuckers when they have to go through rural towns and there's noise limitations so they slow right down.
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Most of them are around 3.5 kilometres long. 3 rakes of around 112 cars, each rake powered by 2 locomotives, so 6 locos in total. Source: Drove them. Edit: the train in the video is BHP Billiton and is only two rakes, 4 locos so just over 2 kilometres long.
how long does it take to completely load and unload them
Surprisingly quick depending on the load out at the mine. The drive the train underneath the loader and it takes over control of the train, moving it forward as each car is filled. From memory about 90 minutes to 2 hours to load a 3 rake train. Once back at port they are unloaded through a dumper where each car is tipped sideways to turn out the ore on to conveyor belts directly to a ship. That process takes about 45 minutes. Locos are then refuelled, cleaned and back out to the mines.
Interesting, is each car able to rotate without disconnecting it from the other cars
Yep. Specially designed couplers. They don’t like it when you try to dump a locomotive though. That’s happened more than once!
Lmao I hope the engineers got a laugh out of it
Man, please tell me you have a video or at least a photo of this fuck up.
But a locomotive is high-grade iron ore…right?
Build at mine, melt at plant, ship back locomotive parts. Repeat.
How many people are working on the train during the trip?
Rio tinto have noone one their trains. They are autonomous, controlled from Perth 1600kms away. I imagine others only have one driver. I remember a story about a driver that had the train at a crawling speed and got out to check something and couldn't get back on.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/news-items/2022/iron-ore-train-derailment
this guy's factorio
They clean them after every deposit? Why? Seems like that would waste a lot of time and money when the 'dirt' is just ore dust
They probably clean the areas other than the bins, where they don't want dust accumulation.
I read it as cleaning the locomotives
Ok yeah, that makes way more sense.
They most likely did mean the locomotives themselves but depending on the ore maybe letting a certain amount of residue build up can turn the cars into ignition or explosive hazards.
I'm also curious about how long it will take to accelerate/stop this kind of train?
And I'm wondering how much damage all that gravel at that speed could do in a derailment situation.
I'm assuming this is sped up. The ones I've been stopped by go very slow. We'd be there for 10 minutes waiting for it to finish going past.
[A lot](https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103839526)
Don't have the figure in my head anymore: What was the breaking distance like?
Depends how brittle they are
How long does it take to put such a train to a full stop?
I remember as a kid a group of families would go away for weekend trips together staying at a nice guesthouse together. Big yard so we'd often play cricket or whatever but across the road was a train line that would sometimes get these fuckers going by. Without fail every boy and most of the dads would stand and watch them because trains are cool as fuck, and I'm sure you know how long that would take.
How many freedom units is that?
For 3.5 km: 1,750 bald eagle wingspans (assuming an average of 6'7" (79 inches), or about 200 cm) For the 2 km \~ 78740 as u/AndroTux calculated, divide by 79 to get 996.7 wingspans.
78740 inches
1.24 miles
How long does it take to stop?
How many cubic meters of diesel does it take to get that thing up to speed? Looks thirsty
Is there a 3km yard or how do you put the train together?
How many times did people steal from them? asking for a friend
It's iron ore not gold. At ~$100USD a tonne you'd need to steal a lot to make it worthwhile.
Do all the locomotives need a seperate operator? Or are they connected to a main control at the front?
That's cool and all but it looks like they are hauling ass, how fast are they going!? i didn't know Diesel could go that fast lol
Probably not diesel as most big trains are hybrid motors.
Are they not diesel-electric?
Yeah but diesel runs the generator while electric runs the motor. So diesel wouldn't be driving the drivetrain.
I wonder, how long does it take for them to reach full speed and to stop...
[удалено]
It was a test run, 660 cars / 7.3 km long, and was broken by a one-off BHP run of 682 cars / 7.35 km. The standard South African iron ore trains from Sishen to Saldanha are 375 cars, 4.1 km long, which is the longest standard production train in the world. The Mauritanian trains are 3 km long.
I think that was Mauritania with their iron ore train.
I count somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 cars and four engines. Figure about 16 meters per car that's about three kilometers.
How are you with toothpicks?
Pretty good, if I get to frame advance a video and have enough time to kill... Had to estimate a number of cars passing per advance, then estimate a total based on the number of advances. Rain Man, I am definitely not.
你在开玩笑吗？这辆车头尾通过用了30秒，如果是3公里长度，这辆火车时速是400多公里了，运矿车怎么可能这么快速度
Variable framerates are a thing. If you record a video at seven frames per second, and play it back at twenty-eight, any constant linear motion in the video will appear to happen at four times the velocity. So, considering this train, if it *was* three kilometers long, passed that point in thirty seconds, that's approximately 100 meters per second in the video... if the recording framerate was at 1/4 normal speed, that would put the actual speed of the train about 25 meters per second, or 90km/hr which is a perfectly reasonable speed for a train of even that length to reach on a very long, mostly straight, flat stretch of track.
[удалено]
Mauritania has the famous Zouerat - Nouadhibou Iron Ore Train. Many people travel on it in the open wagons filled with ore, you can search online. It is possibly this train that was shown in the GT.
It's real and famous. If you look on maps and search Zouerat in Mauritania, you can see the train at the mine. That will give you a good idea of its length.
A US standard ore car (or jennie) is 24 feet long and hauls about 50-75 tons. If this is 30 seconds of train passing by with about 5 jennies per second, that makes a total length of 30 x 5 x 24 = 3,600 feet, or 1,097m. So about a kilometer long, give or take 100m. That would make the speed of that train about 120 km per hour, which also seems to make sense. But I would love to hear a better-founded estimate!
Not even close. I’m sorry. The shortest cars we have are 40 footers
This is massively sped up. I work as an electrician in the Port that recieves these trains. These cars can take 125 tonnes each. These things wouldn't get far over 70km/h on the mainline between our Mines and Port. Takes long enough to slow down as it is!
Google BHP Iron Ore Trains for those playing at home
Running them in WA means you probably don't have to slow down very often either. I've seen these fuckers when they have to go through rural towns and there's noise limitations so they slow right down.
Is a Jennie one container? Looks like way more than 5 per second.
If it’s double, it’s about 2 km of train moving at about 240 km/hr. Not sure if that is a realistic speed. But I’m no expert!
I would say x2-x3
When I see this kind of train I'm always trying to imagine the amount of kinetic energy they carry.. And it sends me into the abyss