WAMRC - Image Galleries
Derailment in the Pilbara
In the early hours of the 12th August 2004, Hammersly Iron suffered a derailment 337km down the Yandicoogina line. When you are running a 30,000 tonne ore train you have to expect that any sort of accident is going to be pretty devastating. As you can see from these photos taken at first light on that morning, the scene that greeted the accident investigators was spectacular to say the least!
73 cars of a ~230 car train derailed spilling around 8,000 tonnes of iron
ore. Bogies were ripped from the ore cars and axles were ripped from the
bogies themselves.
The concrete sleepers were ripped from the ballast and broken like matchsticks.
The spilt iron ore was enough to make a small mountain of its own.
The immense kinetic energy involved was enough to stack the cars up in a
pile as if they were only models.
Shortly following the accident, a rake of new iron ore cars that had been
sitting in the Goninans stock holding loop directly outside our club rooms
for several weeks suddenly disappeared. After seeing these images we now
understand why!
Initial indications are that a rail broke under the train whilst it was travelling
over it. Fortunately no one was injured as the only person on the train
(the driver) was well in front of the derailment and the locomotives stayed
on the tracks.
Damage to track and permanent way infrastructure was large. Fortunately the
accident occurred in an area where they were in the process of building
a new siding (passing loop) anyway.
As track crews were already in the vicinity, they were able to expedite laying
rail on the new sleepers that were already in place and were thus able
to restore the line to operation in less than five days.
Exports of Iron Ore from Dampier were not disrupted as there was sufficient
stockpiles of ore already at the port.
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Last modified: 17 February 2008, 01:01 PM WST (+0900)
