Consistent growth in Western Australia’s rail network and the opening of a manufacturing facility in Karratha will see the continued expansion of Australia’s rail construction and maintenance industry.
The WA government has supported the establishment of an iron ore railcar manufacturing industry in the Pilbara town of Karratha, investing in the recently opened CORE Innovation
Hub’s Rail Collaboration Centre (RCC) as well as a new iron ore railcar manufacturing facility will open later this year.
CORE was granted nearly $1 million in funding under the Local Manufacturing Investment Fund (LMIF) for the RCC, which aims to boost rail design, manufacture, decarbonisation and employment opportunities in the region.
The RCC – which also has facilities in Newman and Perth – was announced last November and was established with support from Rio Tinto.
Some $7 million in funding was allocated to the establishment of the railcar manufacturing facility which will see the manufacturing of 100 wagons for Rio Tinto, as well as repairing wagons and refurbishing rail bearings for Pilbara-based miners.
At the opening of the Karratha RCC in August, Minister Assisting for Industry Development Stephen Dawson said the centre would provide a platform to undertake world-class testing, research and development in support of iron ore railcar manufacturing.
Dawson said the centre filled a strategic gap as an innovative and collaborative platform to assess the development of new rolling stock, infrastructure, technology and ideas.
He added: “Our resources sector relies heavily on railcars, and it makes perfect sense to invest in the development of a local industry that will manufacture, test and conduct research on delivering a state-of-the-art iron ore railcar.”
There have been substantial additions to the national stock of rail assets over the last 15 years, with significant expansions in rail infrastructure for bulk freight transport of mining and other commodities, as well as commuter passenger services.
The railway construction industry in Australia grew at a compound annual growth rate of 10.6 per cent over the last five years, according to market research firm IBISWorld, reaching an estimated value of $15.6 billion in 2024.
This is a record high in revenue for the industry and is up by two-thirds on the 2018-19 value.
Western Australia’s rail network in particular expanded rapidly following the mining boom and the state now accounts for more than 20 per cent of the national railway route kilometres.
The iron ore industry in the Pilbara required sizable infrastructure to transport ore from mines to Port Hedland, with four primary lines accounting for nearly 4,000 kilometres of track owned by BHP and Rio Tinto.
Pilbara Rail, formerly the separate Hamersley and Robe River railways and owned by Rio Tinto, has seen significant investment by the miner since it began operating 50 years ago, most recently the construction of an additional 166 kilometres of track in August 2022 to connect the greenfield Gudai-Darri mine to the existing network.
This resulted in the network reaching more than 1,800 kilometres in length, the longest operated by a single company in the region.
Notably, Rio Tinto operates the network under its AutoHaul autonomous rail transport system, which since 2019 has enabled the network’s 220 trains to be monitored remotely from an operations centre in Perth and travel across the network without the need for onboard drivers.
Both Roy Hill and Fortescue also operate railways in the region, with the Roy Hill railway transporting iron ore from Australia’s largest iron ore mine to Port Hedland over 344 kilometres of track, while Fortescue’s 620-kilometre network connects four operating mines and one under development to Herb Elliott Port at Port Hedland.
