More long/heavy trains

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

To the best of what I have found, here are two more recent long and 
heavy trains, at least according to the Guiness book of Records, not 
available on line.

The heaviest and longest train, with the largest number of wagons 
recorded, was run on the 3'6" gauge Sishen-Saldanha railway in South 
Africa on 26-27 August 1989. The train consisted of 660 wagons each 
loaded to 105 tons gross, a tank car and a caboose (guards van). The 
train was moved by nine 50kv electric and seven diesel electric 
locomotives distributed along the train. The train was 7.3km 
(4.5miles) long and weighed 69,393 tons, excluding locomotives. It 
travelled 861km (535 miles).

The longest train ever was 7.353 km (4.568 miles) long, and consisted 
of 682 ore cars pushed by 8 powerful diesel-electric locomotives. 
Assembled by BHP Iron Ore, the train travelled 275 km (171 miles) 
from the company's Newman and Yandi mines to Port Hedland, Western 
Australia, on June 21st, 2001.

I dare say the N&W's effort on the 500 car train, was and still is 
the US record.

Ken Miller