Quote:
Originally Posted by sic1701
Targan, I've seen pictures of those goliath trains...how do they keep from getting knuckles? (i.e. broken couplers) Is it all flatland there? Or do they get up to speed and just idle from there?
|
Australia in general is a very flat continent. It sits in the middle of its own tectonic plate and hasn't had any volcanic activity of any note for billions of years so erosion has worn away most of the tall terrain features. I guess that is why Australia has such a huge mining industry - most of the work of getting down through the sedimentary layers to the goodies has already been done for us by erosion.
In the Pilbara region of Western Australia where most of the iron ore mining is done there are a few mountain ranges (in name only, really they are more like hills) but they mostly aren't in the way and where they are in the way the rail lines rarely go over them, they mostly travel through cuts blasted through the ridges.