Video

A page for video media that you might find interesting. I’ll be adding content over time.

Webding

BOUTIQUE TRAINS

This video contains stories about luxury passenger trains I have been involved with – both in their creation and operation. There are three TV channel programs, and they are arranged in the following order. Click on the video below to view the 3 programs in sequence:

  1. The Peninsular Line: From ‘The Business of Travel’, a TV series from Capital Television (now Capital TV), Bangkok, Thailand. I think this is the only commercial vision of the Peninsular Line train. I wish they’d filmed some en-route footage from off the train but they had limited time, and for Peninsular Line Sdn. Bhd. at the time, any coverage is good coverage. I am interviewed by program host Patrick Cusick, who makes the usual narrative mistakes we have come to expect from industry outsiders. I keep smiling.
  2. The 5-Star Rattler – Creating the GSPE, the making of Australia’s greatest train: An ABC documentary, this provides some fairly reasonable footage around the concept and construction of the Great South Pacific Express. As Technical Services Manager for the Orient-Express/Queensland Rail joint venture (the Heritage Train Company) that created this project, I had a role in getting the train into operation and managing its technical requirements in its first year in service. My paygrade was not sufficiently elevated for me to have appeared in this, or the next, documentary… a matter about which I was not broken-hearted.
  3. The Great South Pacific Express – The Orient-Express in Australia: A Channel 9 ‘Getaway’ episode that features the inaugural run. The early (interim) ‘manual lift’ bogie exchange is depicted, not the later, semi-automated drop-table process.

MOUNT NEWMAN MINING

This video contains three programs as listed below. Click on the video to view all 3 in sequence:

  1. The First 500 million: This was made to celebrate the shipment (to Japan)—in Australia’s Bicentennial year—of the 500 millionth tonne of MNM ore.
  2. Into the 1990s – The Mount Newman Mining Railroad: This video showcases the MNM railroad of that era. It’s a lot different from today.
  3. The Record Run: A monster Locotrol train was assembled to demonstrate the capabilities of distributed power. This documents the ‘first’ BHPBIO record-breaker–operated on May 28 1996 over the 427 km from the Mt Whaleback mine near Newman to Port Hedland–with 10 GE Dash 8 locomotives, 540 cars, and grossing 72,191 tonnes at 5.9 km long. (On 21 June, 2001, BHP Billiton set a new world record for the heaviest train by hauling its ‘second’ record-breaking train – 99,734 tonnes [82,000 wet tonnes of ore] over the 275 km between Yandicoogina and Port Hedland. The train consisted of 682 wagons, was hauled by all eight of BHPIO’s General Electric AC6000CW diesel locomotives [none of which remain], and was 7.3 km in length.)

A PILBARA IRON ORE MINING HISTORY

To provide some context to the video above, here’s an excellent document that summarises the Pilbara mining and associated railroad environment.

Pilbara Heavy Haul Railways_Dec 2015