Newman is a modern town built in the 1960's, primarily to house the workforce of the Mount Whaleback iron-ore mine. Discovered in 1957, the iron-ore deposit was named Whaleback because the hill resembled the shape of a humpback whale.
Behind the Visitor's Centre is the short drive to Radio Hill to lookout over the town.....the township is in a semi circle below the hill.
We took a tour of the BHP Billiton Mount Whaleback Iron Ore Mine..............a truly interesting and informative tour giving one an insight into modern mining. Everything is huge!
Mt Whaleback is the largest single open-cut iron ore mine in the world – currently 8klms long and 3klms wide. It is forecasted that the mining operations of this mine is still expected to be 40 – 60 years! There are 13 x 190 tonne and 43 x 240 tonne ore trucks at this site.
The first giant Haulpak truck used at Mount Whaleback mine is on view at the Newman's Visitors Centre. Whaleback Mine owned 22 of the 30 trucks produced. The trucks carried a total weight of 200 tonnes. When fully loaded the truck and contents weighs 75 tonnes
more than the take-off weight of a 747 jumbo jet. The ore truck today is priced at 5 million dollars.
The first trainload of iron ore left Newman in 1969 to Port Hedland. Since then over 1 billion tonnes of ore has been railed out of Newman. Average train is 3.75 klms long, consisting of 6 locomotives, 212 – 336 ore cars and one driver. Each car holds approximately 125 tonnes of ore and a loaded train will weigh approximately 42,000 tonnes.
It is a real eye opener to visit isolated and outback towns.............while we were in Newman a large truck from Perth (The Mobile Butcher) was in town and town folk were purchasing their monthly meat supplies.
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