BHP suspends Western Australia rail operations after runaway train incident
BHP Billiton said it had suspended all its iron ore rail operations in Western Australia on Monday after a train ran away at high speed for nearly 100km before being forcibly derailed. No-one was injured and the train, loaded with iron ore, was travelling in a remote area. However, operations would be suspended while an investigation was under way, a spokesperson for BHP, the world’s biggest miner, confirmed. The Australian newspaper had earlier reported that BHP had suspended rail operations in the region after the incident. The train, which was running on BHP’s private Mount Newman railway line, took off while the driver, the only person on the train, had temporarily stepped off the locomotive to inspect an issue with a wagon. The train ran for 92km at about 100km/h, Reuters calculations show. The incident is likely to raise safety concerns about miners’ plans to bring driverless trains to Australia’s iron ore heartland. Rival Rio Tinto made its first iron ore delivery by autonomo...
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