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The Mount Newman railway, owned and operated by BHP Billiton, is a private rail network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia built to carry iron ore. It is one of two railway lines the group operates in the Pilbara, the other being the Goldsworthy railway.〔(Rail ) BHP Billiton〕 In addition to the BHP Billiton network, there are two more independent iron ore rail lines in the Pilbara. One is operated by Rio Tinto, the Hamersley & Robe River railway,〔(Rail ) Rio Tinto〕 while the other, operated by the Fortescue Metals Group, is the Fortescue railway.〔(Railroad Operations ) Fortescue Metals〕 ==History== The Mount Newman railway runs for 426 kilometres, from Newman to Port Hedland and is one of Australia’s longest private railways. The line, along with its spur lines to Mount Whaleback, Orebodies 18, 23 and 25, Jimblebar, Yandi and Area C, services the iron ore mines at Newman. It has the longest and heaviest trains in the world.〔 The railway line was officially opened on 22 January 1969 by David Brand.〔(Aerial photographs of the construction of the Mt Newman Iron Ore Railroad, Newman to Nelson Point (Port Hedland), 7 February 1968 ) National Library of Australia, accessed: 6 November 2010〕 Voice and data communications utilise a digitally trunked P25 VHF radio system and SDH transmission via either fiber or microwave linked repeater sites. The vast majority of remote repeater sites are solar powered with generator backup. The system is maintained by BHP Billiton Rail Communication Technicians based out of Port Hedland's Nelson Point and Newman. All track side infrastructure such as wheel scanners, signals, switch motors, telemetry data and monitoring devices are solar powered and are monitored and controlled out of Nelson Point and the Perth Operations Centre. The rail journey from Newman to Port Hedland typically takes about eight hours. The 248 wagon trains are 2.63 kilometres long with each wagon carrying up to 126 tonnes.〔 At the end of 2012, BHP Billiton opened its new train control facility. All train control function now operates from Perth.〔 On 21 June 2001, the line broke the world record for the heaviest train as well as the longest train when a train weighing 99,734 tons and formed of 682 wagons ran for 275 kilometres between Yandi and Port Hedland. The train was 7.3 kilometres long, carried 82,000 tons of iron ore and was hauled by eight GE AC6000CW locomotives.〔(Hamersley Freight Line, Australia ) railway-technology.com, accessed: 4 November 2010〕〔(BHP breaks its own heaviest train record ) ''Railway Gazette International'', published: 1 August 2001, accessed: 5 November 2010〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mount Newman railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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