J Car at Wickham entry statement

Rio Tinto has very recently plinthed Nippon Sharyo ore waggon 001 at the Wickham town entry statement, joining ex NSWGR 40 class 9401 which was used during the construction of the railway and after that in operations.

Ore waggon 001 was built by Nippon Sharyo of Japan in 1971 as the leader of a batch of 285 waggons with 100-ton capacity ordered by Cliffs Robe River Iron Associates. The order was subsequently increased to 325 waggon.

These 'J cars' as these waggons were known that ran on the Robe River 'J trains' or 'Robe Valley' to Mesa J and Deepdale have now all been recently retired and have been being scrapped. The original Car Dumper One at Cape Lambert has also been decommissioned. And the Robe Valley line is now operated by a standard Rio Tinto train of three locomotives and 240 waggon which is banked from either Mesa A [Warramboo] or Deepdale / Mesa J to the siding at Maitland.

These images were captured on June 19, 2024.

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.