Heavy-Duty Freight Railways

[GWR]

This really is the meanest piece of narrow-gauge freight I've ever seen. But where is it? The poster does not tell us:-

From weathermon
If you've never seen a sugarcane train before, this is what they look like, they run on a narrow guage track and can be seen hauling loads of up to 1km long with a single engine. I just happened to find one which was carrying a load almost 1km long on a single engine.. the power they have is unbelievable. ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaNxPuYtLhU

[GWR]

One reply reckons that ore trains in Australia can be longer at up to 6.8 kms long. I've got some good video footage of this one myself (must upload!), but I didn't realise it was as fast as this: -

From jleal01
This is likely to be the worlds' longest train. Situated in Mauritania, deep in the Sahara Desert. It carries iron ore from central Mauritania to the Nouadibou harbour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXXFZCsuQPk

Note the Third Class iron-Ore riders (they wear googles and face scarves because of the dust), and the Second Class and First Class (Couchette) bottlebank skips at the back. As featured in Michael Palin's Book & DVD 'Sahara'.

[ncr]

This really is the meanest piece of narrow-gauge freight I've ever seen.Oops. What amazes me is not so much how this smallish engine can generate enough power, but how it is able to apply enough traction to get the whole thing moving?

But where is it? The poster does not tell us
At first guess I would have said USA, but the poster is from Australia (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=weathermon). Note that the cars drive on the left, so that would fit. Probably Queensland.

[GWR]

Here's the website of the organization that runs the iron ore mines, 700 Km railway and port. I believe there are plans to extend the line to new mining areas. Notice here three locos and two tankers that probably act as a fuel tender. The site says they sometimes use 4 locos: -

http://www.snim.com/carnet/trainEn.html

SantaFe5811 (2 days ago)
The longest train to date was here in Australia. 862 wagons, 10 x AC6000CW class locomotives, 6.8km long.

[GWR]

Oops. What amazes me is not so much how this smallish engine can generate enough power, but how it is able to apply enough traction to get the whole thing moving?


At first guess I would have said USA, but the poster is from Australia (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=weathermon). Note that the cars drive on the left, so that would fit. Probably Queensland.

The frontpage picture from the Cane Railway (Tramline) Modelling Special Interest Group website also suggests Australia. Very similar looking loco: -

http://zelmeroz.com/canesig/

Locos look like this close up: -

http://zelmeroz.com/album/oz/qld/bm_herbert/bm-021.jpg

[Yappofloyd]

Khun GWR and Khun ncr, I cannot see the youtube as the UN server has a block on this site but your description is enough.

It seemed sort of strange when I came across your posts as sugarcane trains are very common in the coastal corridor from northern NSW all the way up the Queenland coast to Cairns (about a 2500km stretch). A lot of coastal and inland forest/bush was unfortunately cleared out to plant sugar cane early last century and in a couple of areas north of Cairns you can find sugar cane farms, but no trains, literally next door to tropical World Heritage listed rainforest.

The main concentration of sugar cane trains is probably around Bundaberg, Mackay and Cairns but I am a southerner so there may a Queenlander on the forum with more info.

However, having traveled quite a bit up and down the coast years ago the sight of a sugar cane train in not regarded as being anything but normal. Generally there will be one or two main refining mills in a sugar cane production area with a catchment area of farms serviced by very narrow gauge lines.

On the iron ore front, you have to go over to NW Australian, Western Australia in the Pilbara region which is basically one big iron ore mountain range. I had thought that the private line was owned by Hammersly Iron and Ore but the company may have changed name. I seem to remember reading earlier this year that the company will be expanding the railway lines and buying bigger engines to try to keep up with demand of shipping increasing qualtities. I may be wrong but I think that these long trains only operate with one staff being of course the engine driver.

[airlana]

A typical day in the life of a Queensland sugar train

http://www.lrrsa.org.au/Lr150_ct.htm


Normal gauge is 610mm [2 feet]
Locos and wagons are much wider which results in consideraable 'overhang'

I'm pretty sure that the loco featured in the video clip is one built by Clyde Engineering in Sydney. Often no two locos are the same. They tend to be modified and "personalised" by the various sugar mills

airlana
.

[ncr]

Great insight into the operations of these narrow gauge trains. A recommended read for any rail lover.

Wouldn't have thought that 600 mm locos could weigh 18 to 32 tons (see the remark about the traction in my post above), or haul 300 sugarcane bins weighing 5 tons each!

Thanks for the link, airlana!