The Indian Railways boasts one of the largest networks in the world, but did you know that the world’s longest train does not run in India but in Australia. Yes, the Australian BHP Iron Ore train is the longest train in the world, stretching over 7 km in length and has 682 carriages and 8 engines.
As the name suggests, the Australian BHP Iron Ore train was designed to carry iron and was once the longest train in the world. The train achieved this record-setting feat in 2001 when it ran between the Yandi mine and Port Hedland in Western Australia.
At the time, the BHP Iron Ore train stretched a massive 4.53 miles (7.3 km) in length and carried 82,000 metric tons (around 8.16 crore kg) of iron ore, earning the title of world’s longest train. To put this in perspective, the train carried the same weight as 402 Statues of Liberty, each one of those weighs around 204,116 kgs or 450,000 pounds.
Comprised of 682 ore cars, the train was pulled by eight diesel-electric locomotives, and travelled 275 kilometers from BHP’s Newman and Yandi mines to Port Hedland in 10 hours. Remarkably, the engines were controlled by a single driver as
Notably, over the years, number of carriages on the BHP iron ore train has been reduced to 270, and the number of engines has been cut from 8 to 4, owing to decreased demand.
A typical BHP iron ore trains measures well over 2.5 kilometers long, weighs 43,000 tonnes and carries 24,200 tonnes of iron ore. It takes around half an hour to from one end to the other of ‘normal’ BHP train.
