Interesting that he reckons their transport costs will be 60% of Aurizons , 40% is a pretty major difference .
I imagine that to do this they would need a true heavy haul rail system and trains to suit .
Be interesting to compare what a heavy haul operator could run with a rail system based on at least US domestic or better infrastructure .
It could start with locomotives of 190-200 tonnes , the hoppers can easily be built to 40 tonne axle load standards with an empty mass of around 25 tonnes (rotary dump cars) .
Depending on things like grades/loop lengths/balloon loop lengths etc their trains could easily be 2-3 km long .
As a comparison what does Aurizon run for their coal railways . From memory their engines gross around 120 tonnes and I think I read once , could be mistaken , that their perway is good for around 24 tonne axle loads .
Even if their hoppers could gross 100-110 tonnes its a bit hard to compete with those that could gross - say 160 tonnes .
To get it together quickly they would have to source their rolling stock overseas because manufacturing is politically incorrect in Australia . I guess North America would be a good place to buy engines cost effectively and the Chinese would be only too happy to make hopper cars in big numbers .
Just thought of something , does anyone know what size rail South Australia is going to supply for this system .
By any chance would it be 68 kg/m rail ?