Top 10 Heaviest Trains Worldwide (Explained)

[Music] real lovers welcome to railways explained as you might guess trains come in all shapes and sizes from a single carriage passenger trains weighing approximately 40 metric tons to freight trains with multiple locomotives dozens of wagons and thousands of tons of cargo for example in the us a typical long-haul freight train can weigh anywhere from 3 000 to 18 000 tons depending on the number of cars and a type of transported freight local trains with less cars might weigh anywhere from 1500 to 6 000 tons or even more on the other hand in europe maximum weight is usually far less than united states and it goes up to 4 000 tons just to give you a perspective if we assume that one truck usually carries around 20 tons one train of four thousand tons represents a substitution for two hundred trucks even though we just took four thousand as a reference there are some examples of exceptionally heavy and long trains and today we're going to talk exactly about them these kinds of extraordinary trains almost without exception are few kilometers long and are used to transport enormous amounts of coal and other ores on our quest we will explore four continents and seven different countries we tame to share with you a list and some interesting facts about the heaviest trains in history let's waste no time and start with video we start with north west african state mauritania this 20 000 tons heavy train is actually the only operating freight train in this country and it carries siren ore on a journey which lasts 16 to 21 hours in total 220 wagons are connected to form a 2.4 kilometers or 1.5 miles long train weight is dependent on the number of 16 tons heavy wagons each being able to carry 84 tons of iron making the total weight of one wagon around 100 tons this railway service is in operation since 1963 and it covers 704 kilometers or 430 miles on its journey across the sahara desert it starts in zaurat and iron mine in the center of the country and finishes in noaa dibu a port on the atlantic coast it's interesting to mention that mauritania is the 16th largest iron ore producer in the world while the remaining nine countries from our list are among the top ten as a curiosity the iron isn't the only thing this beast of a train typically carries additional passenger carriages can be attached to the train but most often believe it or not passengers sit on top of the ore this actually makes sense if you take into account difficult economic and political situation this country is still facing however the train can also carry road vehicles if for example you want to travel together with your car on this train you can actually do it but for yourself you have to decide whether you want to travel inside of a car in a regular passenger carriage or on top of the orb anyway let's move on to our next heavy train the chinese rail company branded dutchin operates the ninth heaviest train in the world it has the same asses previous one which is twenty thousand tons the company was named dachin due to fact it offers services between the mining center of da tong located few hundred kilometers west of beijing and the port of ching huang dao in the northeast province of hebei trains on this service are consisting of 210 vegans and are transporting hundreds of millions of tons of iron and coal every single year just in 2018 dutch in railway transported about 451 million tons of these two resources for the sake of clarification this is about 61 trains per day and about 22 and 500 trains per year let's again change continents now we go to north america the quebec north shore and labrador railway is a private canadian regional railway that operates a 414 kilometers or 257 miles long railway line stretching through the wilderness of northeastern quebec and western labrador this company moves some impressive iron ore trains weighing about 30 000 tons carrying up to 240 cars each weighing 125 tons these are the heaviest operated trains in canada second in north america and as shown by this list eight in the whole world [Music] australia is home for some of the heaviest and most impressive freight trains in the world in the top 10 australia has four and if you take into account it is the world's largest iron ore producer it totally makes sense the one with the least mass of all four is the horizon iron ore train every day train on this service move on average more than 700 000 tons of coal iron ore and other minerals as well as agricultural products and general freight across the nation the company transports more than 250 million tons of commodities each year to be more specific horizon runs siren freight trains to esperance in western australia weighing 32 320 tons including several diesel locomotives the fortescue railways operate some of the longest and heaviest trains in the world for the 12 years since it was established it is hauling iron ore across the deserts of pilbara region in australia continuing to push the technical boundaries of this kind of service one of these services is the iron ore train weighing 40 000 tons with 250 wagons per train almost 35 000 tons accounts as payload while 5000 represents empty cars and locomotives this company typically operates 14 or 15 trains per day from the iron ore mines to port headland with an average cycle time between 19 and 21 hours loading takes around 2.5 hours while unloading at port headland takes around 3 with a rotary dumper dipping pairs of wagons which remain coupled to the train during unloading a banking locomotive provides assistance on the first section of the journey and it automatically decouples after some time while the train is still in motion transporting coal from what is now kazakhstan to urals mountain region in russia this train maxed out 43 and 400 tons back in 1986. multiple diesel locomotives carried 439 wagons on this sort of test train with a purpose to check the feasibility of running of exceptionally heavy trains across the soviet union this actually was some sort of routine in the sssr namely test trains were used to see if other trains would be able to achieve similar performance and so push the limits of railway traffic they were often recorded in record books but did not always became the regular railway service this was one of such trains and it turned out to be the heaviest and the longest train in the world at the time time for united states the heaviest train in the history of united states was a freight train which was transporting coal from west virginia to ohio weighing almost 43 and 700 tons similar to our previous example from the sssr only two decades earlier in 1967 this train was used as a test train for acceptable weights and lengths in the u.s it was composed of 500 cars and a caboose and it was powered by six locomotives heavy trains that run regularly in north america today weight around half of the weight of this legendary train and carry less than a half of the number of cars now it's time for a major breakthrough in terms of the weight in 1989 this south african train carried 660 fully loaded wagons down the session saldana line weighing 70 543 tons this was the world record holder at the time replacing the american norfolk and western on the eternal list of heavyweight champions listen closely now in order to move this cargo nine electric and seven diesel engines were needed in general seashen saldana line carries around 60 million tons of iron ore per year between the northern capes iron mines and the western cape saldana bay now it's time for the third australian train on the list in 1996 the company known as bhp operated an iron ore train across the pilbara region with a gross weight of 72 191 tons what is interesting this train has been shorter in length compared to south african one but it was able to carry more weight this train was powered by 10 locomotives and carried 540 wagons this is the second time the pilbara region appears on our list and it also shouldn't be strange pilbara region is the famous mining region in australia with lots of mines and world's largest mining companies and it is responsible for production of significant amounts of iron ore for the world's market [Music] number one same continent same region same company in 2001 we saw a new champion of the heavyweight category in the pilbara region in australia operated by bhp this time it replaced its own record and pushed the limits of what is considered the upper bound for weight which can be transported with a single train weighing unbelievable 99 734 tons this train blows all other heavy trains away it was 7.3 kilometers long and it carried 82 000 grass tons of iron between the yandi mine and already mentioned port headland it was hauled by eight general electric diesel locomotives and it had 682 wagons making it the heaviest as well as the longest train on the planet for the end we will also mention that this was a trial run which deemed successful despite minor technical difficulties that delayed the arrival time as we saw during the video heavy trains are another dimension of rail traffic the train with the least weight on this list represents a substitution for 1000 trucks and the heaviest one for almost 5 000 this is environmentally speaking a life-saving possibility not to mention transportation costs however these kinds of trains cannot and are not supposed to become a norm you need to know that there are a lot of technical limitations which prevent this from happening some of them are axle load which is the maximum weight per one axle a vehicle can carry on a given segment of rail infrastructure then load per meter which is the maximum weight a vehicle can carry per one meter of its length and there is also a maximum length of the train which is determined by the length of the shortest tracks in the railway stations on the route all these technical parameters might be the topic for another video on railways explained for now thank you very much for your attention and as always hit the like button share the video with your loving friends and for more interesting railway stories don't forget to subscribe to our channel goodbye

Channel: Railways Explained

Views: 701,974

Keywords: heavy train, heaviest trains, iron ore, Daqin Railway, Aurizon Iron Ore Train, Ekibastuz to Urals Coal Train, Sishen-Saldanha Railway, bhp railway, transport, how freight trains connect the world, Largest trains, Largest trains in the world, transportation, railways, trains, locomotives, iron ore mining, heavy train engine, longest train in the world, biggest train, high speed freight train, longest trains, iron ore trains, australian freight trains, freight train, long train

Id: gCwDAz7Ruh4

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020