BHPB Iron Ore's SD70ACe loco photos

PILBARA RAILWAY PAGES
BHPBilliton IRON ORE ROAD

SD70ACe SIDING
Updated 15/06/2008.

Since the 16th of February, 2006 wagons have entered this siding.

On the 21st of October 2005 the heavy lift ship Jumbo Vision berthed at Port Hedland with the first 5 of BHPBilliton's order of 13 SD70ACe locomotives from EMD's London Ontario plant. On Saturday morning, the 22nd, unloading started with the first SD70ACe unit being 4311 to be delivered to Nelson Point yard. Three cranes were used to unload the locomotives, being a 200t, 160t and 100t, all supplied from Boom Logistics Port Hedland depot. By lunchtime on the Sunday all 5 units had been stored at the old Service Shop for the EDI technicians to commence with the cab fit outs and commissioning. 4311, 4302, 4301, 4303, 4305 was the order of unloading. On the 19th of November delivery of 8 locos (4304, 4306, 4307, 4308, 4309, 4310, 4312, 4313) were delivered to Nelson Point off the good ship Jumbo Stellanova. Class leader 4300 arrived on the good ship BBC Frisia and was delivered to BHPBilliton Sunday 26th of February, 2006.
These units with the exception of 4300 are named after sidings on the BHPB system:
4301-Bing, 4302-Mooka, 4303-Walla, 4304-Gillam, 4305-Coonarie, 4306-Garden, 4307-Shaw, 4308-Cowra, 4309-Gidgi, 4310-Weeli, 4311-Poonda, 4312-Mindy, 4313-Kurrajura.
All these locations are on the Hedland to Newman line with the exception of Kurrajura which is located on the Yandi line.
Class leader and spare parts unit 4300 has now been stripped of all major components, including on-board computers, and is stored under a tarp at the rear of the Overhaul Workshop.

An order was placed with EDI (Australian agents for EMD) for 10 additional locomotives and to include an isolated cab. These units departed Canada on the 21st of December for Port Hedland. On the 1st of April 2007 the units arrived off the heavy lift ship Jumbo Vision. By the Wednesday all had been unloaded and were at the old service shop being fitted out by EDI. They all had black tarps, the previous order had blue tarps.
Road numbers are 4314 to 4323, serial numbers are: 20058712-001 to 20058712-010, for date etc check the roster page.

On the 12th of June 2008 a further 10 units arrived off the heavy lift ship DA QIANG. The these units numbered 4324 to 4333 are in a striking all over orange scheme, as they were intended for an order of BNSF units. But being short of horsepower BHP purchased them off EMD with BNSF's blessing. The units have the same isolated cab, but are 'true' SD70ACe units, and not the LC variant the previous two orders were for. A number of other differences to the BHP units are: single rail hand rails, no classification lights, number boards on the cab roof, etc.
Only two cranes were used to unload the locos from the 128 wheel float, a 300 tonne and a 500 tonne Liebherr units from Boom Logistics and two primer movers and two 128 wheel floats from Kingston Heavy Haulage.
By Saturday the 14th of June 2008 all ten units had been unloaded and parked at the Overhaul Workshop for fitting out by EDI.

Roster shots for each unit can be found here BHPBilliton Locomotive Roster Page.
For technical information on these locos, see the Locopage SD70ACe page.
Overland Models have produced a brass model of these locos in HO scale. Three running numbers were produced.