The Australian Desert Train
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- In Western Australia, Rio Tinto’s AutoHaul project operates the world’s first fully autonomous long-distance heavy-haul rail system, a 2.4-kilometer (1.5 miles) train that transports iron ore from mines to coastal ports over 400 kilometers (250 miles) away. Developed with Hitachi Rail STS and launched in 2018, this system includes 221 driverless locomotives that cover over 1,900 kilometers of private track. Operated by a centralized algorithm rather than onboard crew, the train performs its journey autonomously, with operators only involved in the loading and unloading stages. Equipped with collision detection, cameras, and safety protocols, the autonomous system optimizes efficiency by mimicking skilled driver patterns, improving fuel usage and average speed by 6%. Removing crew requirements eliminates delays and minimizes labor and transport costs for the massive, 30,000-tonne train. Additionally, automation has made operations safer by reducing human error and removing people from high-risk areas, though recent derailments show risks still exist.
Beyond rail, Rio Tinto automates other mining operations, deploying over 130 autonomous trucks and 40 drill rigs. These autonomous vehicles operate on preset GPS routes, manage real-time data, and work continuously, reducing operational costs and enhancing productivity by minimizing downtime. Autonomous trucks, for instance, operate 700 more hours per year than their conventional counterparts and reduce costs by 15%. Automation is easier to implement in controlled, private environments like Rio Tinto’s remote mining sites, where predefined routes and private infrastructure enable streamlined, consistent processes. Such controlled settings make industries like mining early adopters of automation, contrasting with urban environments where more complex variables and regulatory considerations slow widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles. The substantial financial gains from efficiency improvements further motivate automation in high-value industries like mining.
Easy task when you don't have 200 level crossings with morons trying to beat the train at each one, well maintained tracks with no erosion, no trees to foul the track, no homeless people getting run over.
"easy" LOL
You can bet they wont stop here.
Lookin like Satisfactory up in here
Always so cool seeing freight locomotives native to me in other countries
Train in my country cannot be like this!
What country is that?
We've had driverless metro trains for decades now. But it is different to see driverless trains on mainline freight tracks as mainlines tend to be "less controlled" compared to a fully grade separated metro.
Now people who have craze for trains can never get their dream job
very informative thanks for the video
Train Sim Wolrd in 1:1 scale.
They took our jobs 😅😢
I mean instead of having this huge autonomous setup behind with cameras , sesons and all the tech they could have had a traditional team of locopilots which is cost effective and efficient
Autohaul systems have already caused 3 accidents
Interesting, thanks!
Hello, thank you there are new method in railway construction in desert plateau can reduce global warming that I mention in my profile.
I dont know if these autonomous trains still sound their horns at level crossings
Easy task. The crossing is always at the same Spot, let the train Sound that horn at this location. Done.
Trains in Australia do not sound their horns the same way as in America - often, they do not sound their horn at all (nobody in that location)
In Aus the rules on sounding the Horn is pretty lax, they only need to toot them once, and in cases like this, it's not really needed, there's no one to warn, but given that it's automated, a signal box at the level crossings would fix that, just at X meters sound the horn for 2 seconds, done.
It's all grade separated no crossongs.
Welp it dosnt work to flash, they have a few derail and go in the the back of another train recently
Stuff like that happens with manned trains mate. The system seems to work very well actually
ROBOTS DOWN UNDER NO MAN Dingo needed
Who fuels up the trains and trucks then or is that robotic as well?
According to the company
How much to make locomotives autonomous vs crew members pay?
Bet its already paid for itself
Worked in that area. The benefits of autonomous are obvious, but people not working is a bad thing.
People not working isn't the problem, see government. People not getting a salary is...
In the future, only bosses will remain among people. And even they will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Thus, only CEOs will remain on Earth. Less than a million living people can be left on Earth.
@@fischX If everybody is replaced by robots, who's going to have money to buy anything??? No one buying products means no need for products to be made...
1:40 operating autonomously - Two blue lights; yeap that's where Daleks have their lights.
I don't mind you using clips of mine but why not use a pic of a Rio train in the thumbnail?
Hello David, thank you for letting me use the video clips. If you change your mind, please let me know. I watched the other videos on your channel, like the one where you collect cow skulls by the tracks; it must have been a really cool job, with the landscapes and peace.
In my city, there are also freight trains passing by, very nice to watch.
Regarding the thumbnail, I had one from Rio Tinto, but the video didn’t do very well. So I decided to create a more artistic one illustrating that it wouldn’t need windows and highlighting the desert. I can test it again.
@@theshellchannel Oh. I watched the clip thinking that another railway whose loco is shown in the thumbnail had begun running unmanned trains even bigger than Rio's. BTW, I still have not painted another skull.
I think it's harder to find them now that you're not driving the train anymore.
@@theshellchannel If you mean harder for me to find skulls now that I no longer work there, then yes. If you mean harder for anyone who does work there, then no because the line I got them all on is the only one that still has manned trains and people have told me that since I left, there are hundreds more around and no one is collecting them.
All good until the internet stops working.
You must be intelligent enough to understand that they have their own network.
@@HansRegenburg that's exactly how industrial communication works kid. You build redundant systems and fail safe and regularly audit them.
@@HansRegenburg uhh yeah, that's why we have redundancy ?
@@HansRegenburg smh, thats why I called you a kid.
When you can't make sense, that's your problem but instead of owning upto it you make more nonsense comments ?
Like where does even narcissism come from in this ? Just because you have no research of your own of how things work in industry and/or is from some underdeveloped country who can't afford this high-tech machines and that's why is being bitter about it.
🙄 Guess what, Seeth and Cope.
@@HansRegenburg yeah tik tok kid 🤡 knew you would say that. LMAO 🤣
Dumb idea and it’s already showing with all the derailments happening plus the collisions. Put an engineer and conductor back in the cab, a robot will never handle a train better than a hoghead.
You obviously have no idea, im sure you know better than the experts that designed the system and the billiondollar company that runs it. . There's actually not been that many derailments, and derailments and collisions happen often enough with people in the cab anyway
Spoken like a true manager that has never beat ballast in his life. Trust me, I’ve had to replace 3 knuckles on a potash train because trip optimizer kept mis handling the train. Beltpack is just as bad when you pull heavy loads and the computer goes from notch 8 to idle in one go.
@@Maverick_31 And how many trains have you driven in Westen Australia. Western Australia is a remote location with high temperatures and getting people to work there is a problem. And unlike the United States or Canada the iron ore mines are at a higher altitude than the ports and the trains do not have any mountains to cross.
@@anthonyj7989 Irrelevant. The only reason they did it is to cut jobs. Say what you want bud, I really don’t care. A human will always handle a train better than a robot.
@@Maverick_31my understanding is that no one has lost their jobs. What you seem to not understand is the trains run by Rio Tinto are nothing like trains in North America. If you take the time to look at a Rio Tinto train loaded with 28,000 tons of ion ore in Northern Australia the locomotives are only at the front and they run in hot and in summer, very humid weather in a remote location.
If you were working in mining in Australia, you would be aware that getting people that have the ability to work in these locations is a big challenge and this is the reason why Australia is the leader in autonomous technology.
Foolishness.
Yeah mate, I'm sure you know better than the billion dollar company that hires the best engineers and rail experts
@@chrisszollos1543 do you billion dollar cares about world???
yeah not the smartest of ideas