Rio Tinto welcomes Pilbara locomotives instalment

<p>Rio Tinto’s first instalment of Pilbara locomotives had arrived at Dampier, the iron ore miner said yesterday (Sunday, February 10).</p> <p>The 10 locos will boost the firm’s capacity as iron ore from the Hope Downs joint venture comes on line ahead of schedule.</p> <p>The company said it would buy 30 more 12-cylinder, 3,350 kW General Electric Evolution Series locos, which would help replace 30-year-old Dash 7 and Dash 8 units.</p> <p>These would complement the 1,200 new coal cars due this year, 700 of which will replace rolling stock of up to 40 years of working life. </p> <p>"The new locomotives represent a significant investment for our rail," Jack Sato, managing director of Robe River and Pilbara Infrastructure, said.</p> <p>&#8220The first 10 will be used to help support the increase in annual port capacity to 220m tonnes (mt) of ore next year.</p> <p>"The additional eco-friendly locomotives will significantly advance our build-up to annual port capacity of 320mt by 2012 and 420mt after that."</p> <br />