The Australian reported that BHP Billiton has warned that a messy iron ore train derailment on its main Newman iron ore railway in Western Australia's Pilbara region may affect fourth quarter production.

The huge iron ore train was derailed on Saturday morning.

However, the company was able to resume rail operations at 8PM on Monday.

No one was injured in the rail accident and its cause was being investigated, a company spokeswoman said. BHP would not give an estimate of the possible impact on production of the derailment.

The spokeswoman said any impact on output would not be revealed until July, when the company is due to release its production report for the fourth quarter.

While the trains are running again, photographs of the incident, provided by a third party, show damage to the tracks, and leave open the possibility that trains on the busy rail line might not be able to run at full capacity.

The trains that run on BHP's 426 kilometers private railway line to Port Hedland are some of the longest in the world. The usual configuration is six locomotives, pulling 208 iron ore cars, each holding 125 tonnes of iron ore. The trains are up to 3.75 kilometres long and take eight hours to travel from Newman to Port Hedland. At current prices, the 26,000 tonnes of ore carried on a typical train is worth USD 4.4 million when it reaches port.

(Sourced from www.theaustralian.com.au)