About The Goldsworthy railway, owned and operated by BHP, is a private rail network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia built to carry iron ore. It is one of two railway lines BHP operates in the Pilbara, the other being the Mount Newman railway. In addition to the BHP network, there are three more independent iron ore rail lines in the Pilbara. One is operated by Rio Tinto, the Hamersley & Robe River railway, the Fortescue Metals Group operates the Fortescue railway and Hancock Prospecting the Roy Hill line. The total distance is 208 km (129.25 mi). Rolling stock SD70ACe SD70ACe/LC SD70ACe/LCi SD70ACe (Ten units are standard 'off the self' US models that were part of an order for BNSF, and are in an all-over orange livery (4324-4333). These ten units were subsequently modified by BHP and EDi to lead unit status.) Resources https://www.pilbararailways.com.au/...its were subsequently,EDi to lead unit status. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldsworthy_railway#Rolling_stock
If This Were to be made as the Western Australia heavy freight route these SD70ACE are reskinned from Union Pacific versions.
Awesome suggestion! A big scale heavily trafficked mining railway would be awesome. It's tough to know if the fact that the route is mostly empty desert works for or against its massive length. Maybe it would be better to choose a shorter length mining railway along the same path? It would provide the same experience without the huge length of time it would take to complete a service through scenery with not a huge amount of variation. Although the simplicity in scenery and essentially reused US stock make this probably the easiest Australian route to make if DTG so chooses. Added to the Australian proposals list found here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/australian-proposal-suggestion-master-list.41526
Whats the speed on this route? I somehow have the feeling this will be a drive about as interesting as watching paint dry.
80 km/h is the top speed on the line. But I would not be surprised at the operational speed of a fully loaded train not allowing for that.
This sounds like an amazing Aussie route. I've mentioned that I'd like to see a Pilbara Western Australia route with iron ore trains in TSW2. Perhaps the AC6000CWs that are now retired could be added later as DLC. The longest and heaviest freight train in the world (the record still stands) was a Pilbara Iron Ore train that was 6 miles long and had all 10 of the AC6000CWs to handle it.