PILBARA RAILWAY PAGES
BHP Iron Ore Road

Sundowner Siding

Dash 8 AC6000 SD40 SD70ACe Rolling Stock

Sundowner - Silver Star

This passenger carriage was a gift to the then Mount Newman Mining Company from AMAX Iron Ore Corporation who were a partner in the original joint venture to celebrate the first 100 million tonnes of iron ore railed from Newman in 1974 (they have since sold their part).
The carriage was originally built by E. G. Budd in 1939 numbered 301 as the Silver Star as a diner-parlour-observation car on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's General Pershing Zephyr train from the 1930s and 40s which ran from St Louis to Kansas City.
A plan of the car can be seen here.

The entire carriage was relocated to the Courthouse Gallery Gardens precint in 2010 and is now in operation as a cafe called the Silver Star Cafe and open seven days a week. A Wikipedia page can be found here.

Pilbara Black Rock Stakes Special

BHP Billiton took the Sundowner coach out to Goldsworthy Siding for the 35th annual running of the Pilbara Black Rock Stakes wheel barrow race, from Goldsworthy to Port Hedland, which was run on Saturday 25th June, 2005. The Sundowner was stabled at Goldsworthy Siding passing track overnight to assist with the entertainment. Thus preventing crosses or meets at Goldsworthy whilst it was there.
5636 did the honours on Friday by taking it out to Goldsworthy, placing it in the passing track and was suppose to work back light engine. But due to engine problems on a loaded train, it ended up double heading the loaded back to Goldsworthy Junction long hood leading, very rare indeed!
And then on Saturday the 25th of June, 5648 headed out to retrieve the Sundowner, got all the way to Rubin Junction to turn (there is a triangle located there) only to find that the Hedland Gang had one leg out of service. So it ended up leading the Sundowner back to Nelson Point yard long hood leading!

These images Friday 24th June 2005 on the delivery run

3197 3202 3220 3237 3249 3254 3268 3297 3327 3346 3348 3351 3368 3371

These images from Saturday 25th June 2005 on the return run

3768 3779 3784 3788 3797 3801 3822 3829 3834 3840

Alstom Special

BHP ran a Sundowner special to commemorate 25 years of ALSTOM's signal and comms service contract on Friday 12th of April 2002. The train consist was 5634 "Boodarie" on the south end, The Sundowner coach, and 5653 "Chiba" on the north end.
The Sundowner carried BHP Rail and ALSTOM staff out to the 39 kilometre detector site. This site has Hot Wheel Detection (HWD), Hot Box Detection (HBD), Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) and Wheel Impact Monitoring (WIM). All this information is relayed to Repeater 1, located at the 55 kilometre mark (East Turner River), and relayed via radio back to Train Control at Nelson Point, Port Hedland.

267-19 GJ 267-23 GJ 267-27 39 km 267-34 39 km 267-36 39 km 268-13 39 km 268-29 39 km 268-32 39 km 268-34 39 km 268-33 39 km 269-14 39 km 269-17 Bing Nth 269-23 GJ
Set Back to Pilbara Yard / Photo Gallery / Blog / Departure Yard / BHP Road / Fortescue Metals Road / Rio Tinto Road / Roy Hill Road / Comalco Siding
Your IP address is: 3.236.55.137 Website and all images are © 1997-2024 www.pilbararailways.com.au Contact Us
Valid HTML 4.0 Transitional