Green trains ‘not possible’ yet on South West rail

Battery-electric trains remain some way off for Western Australia’s largest grain handler as fellow heavy rail users in the mining industry press ahead with the technology to decarbonise their operations.

Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue and Roy Hill have each announced investments in battery-electric trains in recent years, with Rio Tinto hoping the new locomotives will half the miner’s emissions.

CBH Group in July this year revealed it would sink more than $400m into 17 new diesel-electric trains and 650 wagons to double the size of its fleet by 2033.

Purchase of a further seven locomotives was announced in December 2022.

Speaking after presenting the company’s annual report, CBH chief executive Ben Macnamara said while interested, electrifying the rail fleet was not yet possible.

“What we have done is spoken to our rail manufacturers around the optionality of that into the future and then also working with our rail provider in Aurizon who has a large program going into this space,” he said.

“So certainly that is an area of focus.

“In this initial phase we will focus very much on these locomotives which will be diesel-powered – they will be more efficient than our current diesel-powered locomotives.”

CBH has set a target to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions 50 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero on its site to customer logistics by 2050.

In the 2022/23 financial year CBH reported a 13 per cent emissions reduction.

On automation, another process well-advanced in the state’s mining sector, Mr Macnamara said a trial would begin next year, but not on rail.

“You would have seen Arc has recently done their own trial on automated wagons and so that is something we have discussed,” he said.

“Our automation focus at this point in time is more for on-site intra-silo trucks and we are conducting a trial of that in the next couple of months.”

CBH bought a suite of new stackers and loaders this year. Among them was 10 multi loader stackers which could be controlled remotely.

“The ability to remote control the MLS’ is so important, and it means you can actually load a truck with just one person – a driver can move their truck, start up the MLS, hit pause to move the trailer along, finish filling and then move on,” CBH grower and operations general manager Duncan Gray said of the purchase in June.