The little mining town of Tom Price is built upon the foundation of metalliferous earth, or iron ore if you prefer. 5 years ago we travelled the length of the Murray River from Lake Alexandrina South Australia variously through Victoria and New South Wales all the way up to the Snowy Mountains.
Similarly, earlier this week we opted to follow the course of Hancock’s first Hamersley iron ore project at Tom Price commenced in 1966 and now a part of the Rio Tinto giant.
For an hour and a half we were bussed through the Tom Price iron ore mining operations, gawking with the rest of our fellow passengers at the enormity of absolutely everything about the place.
Sufficient to say that big numbers have not been retained, but 360 million tonnes of the stuff will be railed to the Dampier coast for export to China in this year alone.
Those trains cart over 27,000 tonnes per load about 5 plus times a day across the Pilbara landscape, meaning we keep a very sharp eye out at railway level crossings all the time.
Before we leave Karratha we intend doing a mining tour to watch at first hand the transfer of ore from rail to ships at the Dampier port.
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