Pilbara Railways Historical Society photo album.

We have pulled our finger out and collated all of our digital images taken at the Pilbara Railways Historical Society Museum and put them into one album within our gallery.

Pilbara Railways Historical Society Gallery

Pilbara Railways Historical Society visit.

Went down and checked on the status of the museum as it has been a while. The museum is unable to be accessed by the general public now as it has a locked Rio Tinto access gate at the Dampier Salt end of the road. However, being a member access was arranged to do a quick inspection of the place.

In this image you can see from the left, the PWD crane, waggons and Simplex loco from Point Samson, a couple of ALCo engines, the Locotrol 'cab'; off of BHP 5663, the ALCo S2 Hamersley Iron 007 'Mabel', ALCo C415 demonstrator Hamersley Iron 1000, former NSWGR ALCo RSC-3 Robe River Iron Associates 9405 renumbered to 4002, English Electric ST95B Goldsworthy Mining 1, ALCo M636 BHP 5502 and EMD F7A Mt Newman Mining 5450.

Former Robe River CM40-8M units stored.

The former Robe River CM40-8M units that were last operated under Rio Tinto have been retired and stored on the triangle at the old quarry at Cape Lambert.

The units are all facing west with the line up being from the eastern end;

• 9422 serial 8297-03/93-138 rebuilt from Comeng NSW built ALCo M636 serial C6103-2
• 9419 serial 8109-10/90-117 rebuilt from ALCo built ALCo C630 serial 3486-3
• 9418 serial 8109-12/90-118 rebuilt from ALCo built ALCo C630 serial 3486-2
• 9411 serial 8206-02/92-125 rebuilt from AE Goodwin built ALCo M636 serial G-6060-2

Hamersley Iron 9-44CW unit 7093 stored.

Originally Hamersley Iron 9-44CW locomotive 7093 serial 47772 was the highest numbered and final Dash 9 in the original order of twenty-nine locos delivered from Erie GE in early 1995.

This unit now under the guise of Rio Tinto is written off following a loadout 'incident' back in March 2019 and is now stored on 38 Road at Rio Tinto's 7 Mile facility with long stored retired Dash 7 (CM36-7) units 5051 and 5052.

We understand this is the first 9-44CW unit to be written off by Hamersley Iron / Rio Tinto.

BHP CM40-8M 5662.

BHP has two Dash 8 locomotives that didn't end up getting scrapped when they were retired. One of them is the first unit built new September 1988 in Western Australia as a CM39-8 with serial number 5831-09 / 88-079 and numbered 5630 and names Zeus, this is stored at Nelson Point Port Hedland after having travelled some 4.5 million kilometres.

And the other is a Goninan ALCo to GE rebuild CM40-8M model unit 5662 'Port Kembla' with serial number 8412-07 / 94-153 and rebuilt from Comeng NSW built ALCo M636 model unit 5490.

This unit has been down track parked in the backtrack at Gidgi Siding at the 270 km (from Hedland) with a rumoured traction motor failure. It has been parked there for some years now and we first actually saw it here in July 2015 when it had already been there for some time.

Here it is on the 12th of September 2020.

BHP SD70ACe/Lci unit delivery continues.

Another two new SD70ACe/Lci units were delivered to Nelson Point on Sunday 23rd of August. 4496 and 4494 were walked the 3.5 km distance from the Pilbara Ports Authority complex to the hard stand at BHP Nelson Point yard on Mammoet self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT) with 20 lines of 4 wheels for a total of 80 wheel. Once locos are unloaded then the platforms are again walked back to the PPA for another load.

The image shows 4496 under the loco lift gantry while 4494 waits for its turn to unload on its SPMT.

This left units 4495 and 4497 to be delivered on Monday.

Delivery of SD70ACe/Lci units continues.

BHP's new SD70ACe/Lci units are being delivered to Nelson Point by Mammoet on their self-propelled modular transporter or SPMT, then unloaded at the BHP Nelson Point Hard Stand by a 'Loco Lift' or modular gantry system. The locos tip the scales at 180 tonnes devoid of fuel and, water and lube oil.

BHP latest loco delivery.

BHP has had a further six Electro Motive SD70ACe/Lci units delivered via the port of Norfolk, Virginia (USA) on the vessel BBC Sapphire. The six units, 4492 to 4497 were unloaded at the PPA Port Hedland wharf during Tuesday the 18th of August 2020.

Built by Progress Rail at Muncie Indiana in May of 2020 with serial numbers 20198860-001 to 20198860-006.

The units are seen here at the PPA hard stand area awaiting delivery to BHP's Nelson Point yard by heavy lift road floats by Mammoet.

Loram grinder at BHP Nelson Point.

Spotted this arvo inside BHP's Nelson Point yard was this Loram RGS 24 stone rail grinder. 

Link to Loram website.

How to spot an SD70ACe-P6.

The only way to tell an SD70ACe-P6 model unit from a standard unit is the difference in height of the inverter cabinet located on the observers or left-hand side immediately behind the cab. The -P6 is slightly higher and is noticeable on Aussie units as we have a kickplate on our handrail assemblies.

The -P6 model has an inverter per axle to allow better traction control and therefore greater adhesion over the standard model which has an inverter per bogie or truck.

The attached picture shows the step height change on FMG SD70ACe-P6 unit 727 serial 20188761-006 built in Nov 2019. The FMG order was built to the same specs and at the same time as the final ten units of Norfolk Southern order for 50 units #1175-1224.

• FMG Roster page

• NSDash9.com roster page

FMG operating new EMD SD70ACe-P6 model locomotives.

Back in February 2020 two deliveries of five locos each were unloaded at Port Hedland then delivered via road to FMG. The ten units were built by Progress Rail at their Electro-Motive factory in Muncie. The units were built the same time as an order was being built for Norfolk Southern and the FMG units were delivered pretty much identical to the NS order. With the Australian standard handrails being installed locally.

The units are the SD70ACe-P6 and they have an inverter per axle rather than the standard inverter per bogie (or truck) giving better traction control and also have a higher rated T3 compliant prime mover the 16-710G3C-T3 for 4500 horsepower.

Some videos of the units running trains can be found here: Shift Pig Youtube videos.

Speno rail grinder RG5 being tested at Bing.

Between Bing Siding and the Flashbutt Yard, Speno Rail Maintenance Australia appear to be testing / commissioning their new RG5 rail grinder, which is an RR36, meaning 36 grinding wheels with serial M36A. It is between RG3 and RR48 and RG4 another RR36.

BHP Iron Ore use Speno and Loram for rail grinding activities to enhance operational performance of their rail line and wheel wear.

FMG SD90MAC-H2 units still stored.

Here's a panorama image of FMG's eight SD90MAC-H2 units stored out of service down the south end of the Thomas rail yard. From left (port) to right (mine) are 910, 911, 912, 917, 913, 914, 915 and 916.

From studying images, it looks like both 912 and 916 have the engines removed, while 917 is partially stripped. Also, other items have been removed, like handbrake mechanisms and no doubt other 'bits'.

There was a rumour these units are to be scrapped.

FMG receives more ore waggons.

FMG has been taking delivery of more ore waggons over the last few days. This is believed to be the second part of an order for 248 new cars as part of expansion and removing bottlenecks in the supply chain.

The first 124 waggons arrived in February.

Numbers in this second batch look to be filling in some gaps in the numbering sequence. Numbers seen have been 10018, 9017, 9033 and 7997.

By the style they are from China Southern CSR Yangtze.