Did you hear about the 7.353 km long train we, BHP, ran last week. Some 682 cars of iron ore with 8 AC6000's supplying the grunt. Locotrol 3 was used. Had a total weight just under 100000 metric tonnes. 2 broken couplers and a sticking brake were encountered on the journey from inland West Australiaa to the coastal town of port Hedland. Great trip with lots of teamwork required when the going got tough. Regards from the north west, null
Phil, No we didn't hear about that monster of a train. Thanks for letting us know. If we (americans) decided to try that stunt the cops in the towns along the way would be throwing fits from here to Kingdom Come. Glad ya'll can do that down there
You may want to check with Guiness, that may be a world record. Something in my mind reminds me that the previous record was a 660 car train of Africa that was run. Either way, that's one heck of a long train. I've been flirting with the idea of trying such a thing in HO, but even with the small stuff the logistics and the sheer physics of building up a train that long the has a reasonable chance of holding together and stying on the track is daunting. My hats off to the Aussies! Mark
And my conductor a couple of weeks ago moaned about walking 35 cars...if only he knew what he was missing.
We believe it might set a record. The train was run to test new technoogy, a pity we did not put a couple of extra cars on and then it would have been over the 100,000 tonnes. The make up was 2 AC6000, 168 cars, 2 AC6000, 168 cars, 2 AC6000, 168 cars, 1 AC6000 178 cars 1AC6000. We normally run either 112, 224 or 336 cars, hence the 168, 1and a half rakes. the 178 was to make sure it might be a record, allows for slack in the drawbar. Phil
Phil, Welcome to Trainboard it's great to see another aussie here. This is not the first time BHP has run a long train like that actually I thought BHP already held the record for the longest train. I'll have to look for the site where I read that. I hope to see you post here more often once again welcome to trainboard
