Off to See the Wizard - Port Hedland Part 2

After our early afternoon tour with Seafarers, we had another tour.  This time it was a twilight bus tour, learning about the port and the land based side of operations.

We went for a drive around the area and Phil, our guide, gave us lots of info.  We drove past the salt farm, which I have previously mentioned.

As I have mentioned previously, the smaller players deliver their product to port by road train.  There are so many on the road.  It is more of a novelty to see only one or two trailers on a truck.  In the photo of the salt, the truck is a “Triple”.  Most are “Quads”, having four trailers and are 60 metres long.  This is a “Quad”.  You can get “Super Quads” as well.  On trailers 2, 3 and 4, they have four axles front and back, so they can carry more tonnage.  

Most of the iron ore is delivered by rail on the big three companies’ own rail lines.  So, let’s talk trains.  I haven’t had a chance to take a decent photo of a train.  Trains are 2.8 kilometres long!  They have two locos at the front, followed by 134 cars, each containing 120-130 tonnes of ore, followed by a further two locos, followed by another 134 cars!  They take a while to pass when you have to wait for them at a level crossing.  Having said that, they are gradually making overpasses at all rail crossings.  There are 24 trains coming in to the port each day.  The trains are still driven by a person, but it won’t be long until they are driven remotely from Perth.  That is already happening at a port a little further south. 

When they near the port, they drive through a shed (the red one is just one of them).  In that shed there is a huge machine that picks up two of those cars and tips them upside down to empty the ore onto a conveyer belt.  It just takes 30 seconds to empty and move onto the next two cars.  It takes just over an hour to completely unload one of those long trains. 

The ore is then stockpiled.  When it is ready to be loaded onto the ship another machine called a “reclaimer”, loads it onto the conveyor to the ship.  There is over 500kms of conveyor belts within the port precinct.

This is one of the loaders.

To finish off the tour, we stopped where we could see the sunset and enjoy a cold beverage.

Can you believe it, it was cloudy, but the sun did peek through for a minute or two.

We made a detour via the port on our way home.  There’s the Fuji Horizon again, just about fully loaded.  It would be heading out on the high tide during the middle of the night.  It was only in port for a day and a half since we saw it come in.  They say they only take about 36 hours to fill and that is spot on.

The highlight of the day was the Seafarers Mission and learning what a great service they provide.