AUSTRALIA: Adani Group’s Bowen Rail Co has taken delivery of the first of 10 locomotives ordered to haul coal from Bravus Mining & Resources’ Carmichael Mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, which is to begin operations this year.
‘We launched the Bowen Rail Company in August 2020 as the first new rail freight company to be established in Australia in decades, and now that our locomotives and wagons have arrived we will soon get on with transporting coal from the Carmichael Mine to North Queensland Export Terminal’, said CEO Trista Brohier on September 24.
The operator said the 1 067 mm gauge Progress Rail GT46CU-ACE Gen 3 diesel locos supplied from the USA were ‘the most technologically advanced freight locomotives Australia has ever seen’, with ‘new safety technology which improves braking and ease of operating, providing a safer environment for our train crew.
‘They have highly intelligent IT systems that enable us to operate the trains and track their movements from anywhere in the country and they are also more fuel efficient, using 10% less fuel than the existing diesel trains in Australia’, said Brohier.
BRC has also ordered 360 Type PHAH tandem pair bottom dump hopper wagons.
It expects to have four trains per day running by the end of the year. Each train will be 1 400 m ‘or 14 rugby league football fields’ long, with two loco, 86 wagons and carrying 7 300 tonnes of coal for power generation in India and southeast Asia.
The trains will use a newly built 200 km line connecting the Carmichael Mine to the existing rail network, then run 100 km to the North Queensland Export Terminal which is 25 km north of Bowen.
Hillery Group is building a yard for the operator, and recruitment is underway for more than 50 positions including drivers, supervisors, maintenance planners, trainees and corporate staff.
‘Despite the cutting-edge technology of our fleet, all our trains will have drivers. We will provide real jobs for real people’, said Brohier.
