The Kemira Valley Coal Loading Facility is located approximately 9 kilometers to the west of BHP’s Port Kembla Steel Works near Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast, the rail line passing through some picturesque countryside near the Cordeaux Heights district.
Originally the line serviced BHP’s Nebo and Kemira coal mines, the latter of which is located near the Kemire Valley Coal Loading Facility. When both closed, coal from the more remote Cordeaux, Avon and Tower mines was trucked in to the O’Brians Drift Coal Receival Facility, located high in the hills behind Kemira Valley. From here it was loaded into the coal trains and transported to BHP’s Port Kembla Steel Works, as seen in the main presentation in this DVD-R. Fortunately, after output from these 3 mines started to decline in the mid-2000s, BHP Biliton’s Dendrobium mine came on line in 2007, feeding a new coal loading tunnel constructed adjacent to the old (now disused) Kemira Valley coal loading bins. This operation is featured in the 2009 addendum to this DVD-R.
BHP’s first look at diesel-electric locomotives was back in 1945, when it hired NSWGR GE shunting locomotive 7922. Convinced dieselisation was the way to go, its Port Kembla operations standardised on the English Electric product, buying some 45 new units over a period of 25 years. Even when English Electric ceased building in Australia in 1976, it sourced some ex-Goldsworthy Mining units in the 1990’s. Alco power was first seen in 1995 when BHP dry-leased three ex-NSWGR units from Austrac Ready Power. These units were intended to operate Wongawilli coal trains primarily, but were occasionally seen at Kemira Valley. BHP also contemplated lease/purchase of surplus Freight Corp. 80 Class locomotives before the 1998 mining cutback announcements, and these too are seen trialing on Kemira Valley coal trains.
In 2007, PacNat took over all Bluescope Steel (formerly BHP) rail operations and currently they operate 81 and 82 class on the Kemira Valley coal trains.
Approximate run time: 81 minutes.