Following Australian government approval for the export of iron ore, four companies established mining and rail transportation facilities in the Pilbara area of north-western Australia.
The first active Pilbara railway was Goldsworthy in 1966, followed closely by Hamersley in 1967, Mount Newman in 1969 and finally Robe River in 1973. Goldsworthy was built on traditional Australian permanent way standards and used English Electric 1339KW, 110 Tonne locomotives. The other 3 companies adopted American Class 1 standards and used Alco locomotives of typically 2051-2685KW power and 176-193 tonnes mass.
Alco power (some fully imported but most built locally by licensees Goodwin and then Com-Eng) dominated in the Pilbara throughout the 70s and 80s. Hamersley did try small numbers of the opposition brands (3 Goninan-GE C36-7s in 1977 and 5 Clye-GM SD50s in 1980), but it was not until 1995 that it introduced new GE C44-9s to replace its entire Alco fleet. Part 1 of this video covers these subjects in 1995.
While Hamersley purchased new replacements, in the late 80s Mount Newman, and later Robe River, began to have their old Alcos remanufactured by Goninans to include state-of-the-art GE electrical equipment and diesel power plants, thereby giving birth to an extensive fleet of Goninan-GE CM39-8s and CM40-8s in the Pilbara, most of which are still in service in 2001. In 1999, BHP Iron Ore (the successor to the now combined Mount Newman and Goldsworthy operations) took delivery of 8 new GE AC6000s, the most powerful locomotives in Australia, whilst the merger of Hamersley and Robe has seen the formation of Pilbara Rail and the addition of further GE C44-9s in their new livery. Part II of this video covers these subjects in 2001.
Approximate run time: 59 minutes.