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https://thewest.com.au/business/mining/fmg-on-track-for-modernised-fleet-c-7025871
FMG on track for modernised fleet

Stuart McKinnonThe West Australian
Sun, 5 June 2022 4:40PM
Stuart McKinnon


An FMG locomotive after its refit. Credit: Wabtec

Fortescue Metals Group will this month receive its first tranche of locomotives rebuilt by US rail giant Wabtec to provide greater efficiency and help meet the company’s aggressive emissions reduction targets.

While the GE AC44C6M locomotives will continue to run on diesel, they have been re-designed and re-built to reduce fuel consumption, cut maintenance and repair costs by up to 20 per cent, provide a 55 per cent increase in tractive effort and a more than 40 percent improvement in reliability.

The first 12 of 28 rebuilt loco’s are due to arrive at Port Hedland this month by ship after being refitted at Wabtec’s Fort Worth plant in Texas.

Wabtec’s senior regional vice president Wendy McMillan said the rebuild of the FMG loco’s would give them another 20 years of life, while new energy management software would reduce their fuel burn and emissions.


Wabtec's senior regional vice president Wendy McMillan. Credit: Wabtec

The locomotive modernisation plan represents about a third of FMG’s Pilbara fleet.

While Wabtec has performed more than 1000 modernisations for customers globally, FMG’s program represents an Australian first.

Ms McMillan said Wabtec’s modernisation program represented a key component of the company’s effort to advance a circular economy.

FMG’s Hedland operations general manager, Mark Komene, said the procurement of the modernised locomotives was an important element in the miner’s locomotive fleet strategy.

He said the modernised fleet would also enable future upgrades to alternative energy sources such as battery electric in support of Fortescue’s industry-leading target to have carbon neutral operations by 2030.
Fortescue’s Pilbara iron ore rivals - Roy Hill, Rio Tinto and BHP - have already placed orders with Wabtec for the world’s first FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive, but they won’t arrive until late 2023.

FMG said in January it had placed an order for two battery-powered locomotives to be manufactured at Caterpillar’s Progress Rail facility in Sete Lagoas, Brazil.

Meanwhile the company’s green energy division Fortescue Future Industries is also working to develop locomotives that run solely on green ammonia and other green renewable fuels and technologies, eliminating the need for carbon-emitting diesel.

The Pilbara iron ore miners are in an ideal position to embrace battery-powered trains because regenerative braking allows batteries to charge on the largely down-hill trip from mine to port, with the power stored and used for the mainly uphill return trip.