Is this true? Or a first of April story;

Imeant to say that it neglected to mention the freight train in the headline, giving cause to believe it was the Ghan. Write once, read twice : )
Apologies.

Jack

What chance a caravan would have? or even a truck?

No chance at all. You may remember the bad cyclone they had through Port Hedland a few years ago. Tremendous amount of damage, and I seem to recall quite a few injuries. When these things hit, you tie everything down, keep your head down and hope. I lived in Cairns for a few years, and when they blow, they blow. : )

Jack

A couple of years ago we drove through what looked like a pretty innocent willy-willy somewhere around the Pilbara. But it was enough to push the Troopy around a bit and give us quite a fright. A tornado would be very scary.

Val

It would have to be the first time ever in central Australia ( to my knowledge ) for a wind gust to derail a train

Second one I know of. The first was at Loongana (directly North of Madura WA), 2 years and 2 weeks ago, Rememberance Day 2008.
Trains will continue to be subject to these 'freakish' events as containers are double stacked on both the TAR and CAR. Double stacking of containers, a 40' in the well and a 48' pinned above it, acts like a big sail. Double stacking of containers is an operational risk that has been deemed acceptable. In context, double stacking of containers on trains has been occurring on the TAR for about the last decade, so now the likelihood has probably risen from Improbable to Remote. The other alternative is to run trains that are not double stacked, which will result in more trains to shift the same amount of freight.
Cheers,
Dion.

This time of the year those "innocent looking" willy willys in the Pilbara can really pack a punch. When we were working at a construction camp there, one picked a large prefab building up off its supports for several inches, then "dropped" it. Scared the daylights out of some of the guys who were in it at the time. That big cyclone referred to above was Cyclone george and it killed a couple of people at the construction camp it destroyed in 2007.

They sure pack a punch, but luckily for us only along the coast, I have been thru few including Tracy;

Hi Richard,
You are right, a good sand blast, but to knock the train off the rails??
Not in central OZ.


That is a nice photo

Joe

Joe,

Was near Beltana in SA.

How about this Willy Willy??

Image Could Not Be Found

I saw this at work the other week. It's along a haul road so the dirt is loose.

It headed straight for my ute but only shook the ute a bit. Nothing major.

Matthew,

Love it.

Hi Mark,
Thanks for the video, very interesting, I bet it was a bit scary for the Camera mounts, lol.
I'm well aware that trains gets derailed by wind in America and other parts of the world, but in central Australia would be impossible as we don’t get the strong wind needed to derail a train.
However, we do get trains derailments in Australia due to rail expansion in hot weather.

The remark was intended to be just a talking point, and has brought forward the excellent photos by Richard and Mathew thanks guys.

Cheers
Joe