5 Of The Biggest Freight Trains On Earth And What They Haul

Like any form of transport, trains come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. For public transportation purposes, more riders mean more fares and more income, and so it's a matter of accommodating as many people as possible. If you're a frequent traveler on some of the world's busiest underground systems, such as New York City or London, you'll know just how busy and confining such circumstances can be. Meanwhile, freight trains take a rather different tack. They transport not people but a huge range of different commodities, and are often the safest and most direct route to doing so. They may even have to take some of the longest train lines in the world in the course of their duties.

It may be the case that the more laden a train is, the fewer the trips and the higher profit, but depending on the type of freight being transported, this might not be a concern. A freight train might be all but indistinguishable from a passenger car in terms of size, or it may be much smaller or larger. Some of the planet's biggest freight trains, unsurprisingly, are more specialized models, created for a specific route and purpose. These trains are big enough to make even the formidable Union Pacific Big Boy seem to be quite a sensible, modest size. 

The sheer size of Australia and the difficult terrain for which the country is well known mean that transportation can pose a significant challenge. There are some jobs even Australia's mighty road trains aren't ideal for. The key in such cases is to make runs as profitable as possible. One method of doing so is ensuring that freight capacity is as large as it practically can be. In the early 2000s, BHP Iron Ore clearly understood this fact. Guinness World Records reports that its train, made from a total of eight AC6000 CW models designed by General Electric, was the world's longest freight train. It consisted of a total of 5,648 wheels and weighed in at a total of 99,732 metric tons. 

BHP boasts that it was the designer not only of the longest freight train, but of the biggest and heaviest train ever to exist. The full setup stretched for slightly over 4.5 miles, and as would be expected of the company, it was charged with the transportation of iron ore. An absolutely outrageous amount of it, in fact, at around "82,262.5 wet metric tons" according to BHP. Of course, such a monstrous train would only be practical to use on a lengthy journey, and that's exactly what was ahead of all that iron ore. It took a journey that carried it "over a 275-kilometer segment of the journey from Newman to Port Hedland."  Newman, or Newman Operations, is a site in Pilbara, a region of Australia that passes all the way to the western coast. Here, across two different mining areas, an absolutely extraordinary amount of iron ore is drawn from the ground. In 2023, BHP reports that 257 million tons of iron ore were extracted from the sites.

Nations other than Australia also face the challenge of transporting hefty supplies of freight long distances through challenging terrain. Brazil also manages great quantities of iron ore. In the South American country, prominent ore mines are found in the north, in Pará, and so a transportation network had to be developed to make the best use of them. This transportation network would be the Carajás Railroad, and along with passenger services, it plays host to some enormous freight trains. They transport the precious iron ore to São Marcos Bay, São Luís, but inevitably, all this industrial activity has taken a heavy toll on the surrounding land and its inhabitants. As Greenpeace's Unearthed reported in July 2022, the 600-mile-long railway is crossed by these mighty freighters 35 times every day, at all hours, and they are monstrous trains indeed: Each two miles long and carrying iron ore cargoes of around 40,000 tons.

 Between 2010 and 2017, the outlet reports, 53 people were confirmed to have been killed by the freighters as they passed, as the line lacked adequate crossing points, and the indigenous people who live in the region have been heavily impacted by the development of the railway and the deforestation the work has caused. Akrãtikatêjê village chief Kátia Silene protested the "noise, pushing away the animals we hunt, and more dust, polluting our rivers, killing our fishes, and affecting bee pollination," which would only be magnified if the plans to expand the railway up to a capacity of 230 million tonnes of iron ore were completed. At the time, the local chiefs and the Vale company were engaged in faltering negotiations, with some chiefs far more amenable to the expansion plans than others.

Of course, the United States isn't a country that likes to be outdone when it comes to large vehicles. So it's not surprising that in the 1960s, it played host to what was then the heaviest and the longest freight train in history. The 48,170-ton train stretched for four miles and consisted of a total of 500 coal cars. Altogether, 21,600 horsepower went into the six diesel engines powering it, and it took its heavy haul to Ohio's Portsmouth, all the way from the West Virginia town of Iaeger. The series of sturdy General Electric U30Cs took the journey of approximately 159 miles across the Norfolk & Western Railway in its stride, and it was important that it did.

Unlike the many huge trains that speed along the Carajás Railroad in Brazil, this was not a regularly scheduled journey. Instead, it was the next step of a series of ramping-up tests to see how the system coped with enormous freighters of this caliber. The previous month, the Norfolk & Western Railway hosted another such run, from an almost-as-giant train with 450 cars, which traveled as far as Williamson in the same destination state. As the rest of the trains we've seen that are still in operation demonstrate, this sort of mega-scale freight would prove to be critical around the world. It's a safer, more direct way to transport enormous quantities, cutting down the number of trips that need to be made (and, undoubtedly, a lot of road congestion if that alternative route had to be taken instead). Valuable information, from fuel expenditure to the coordination of braking efforts, was gleaned from these journeys, which surely played its part in the development of future services of this sort. 

China is well known as one of the production powerhouses of the world. In order to become and remain so, it requires access to a huge amount of raw materials, both for domestic use and for export. In June 2025, Bloomberg reported that China was beginning to export more coal as a result of waning domestic need due to factors such as the country's push for renewable energy. When mining coal for export, China has a formidable tool it can call upon. Datong, in the north of China, is known as the City of Coal. Sure enough, the region is home to extensive coal mines that require a heavy-duty transportation network. In this case, an electric line was added from Datong to Qinhuangdao port, situated to the northeast of the country. 

Thundering across the Daqin line from the mines to the port, the Shenhua No. 3 carries 300 cars full of coal, powered by half a dozen HDX1 locomotives (such as the one pictured here). Together, this forms a train that stretches for approximately 1.6 miles across a track of approximately 406 miles in length. The Daqin line is also heavily used, with up to about 130 trains using it every day. Like iron ore, coal is a critical commodity around the world. Attitudes towards and usage of fossil fuels are shifting (as China's exporting efforts demonstrate), but coal's continuing importance can't be ignored. According to the Global Energy Monitor, 6,900 coal mines across the planet yield a total of 8.9 billion tons of coal annually. It's a dizzying amount, and it's clear why the most sought-after resources require freight trains of such huge size to keep up with the demand.

A lot of the biggest freight trains in the world, as we've seen, focus primarily or exclusively on transporting a very particular commodity: Iron ore. This is one of the planet's most important and heavily used resources, with the U.S. Geological Survey explaining that 98% of iron ore mined around the world is used in essential building projects by being made into steel. There are large-scale operations mining iron ore across the globe, and in Mauritania, another enormous vehicle plays its part in that duty. The Train du Desert serves the iron ore mines in this country, which is located in northwest Africa. The mines themselves are located in the region of Mount Ijill, near Zouîrât, to Mauritania's north. 

The ore's ultimate destination for exportation purposes is the port of Nouadhibou to the west, a distance of some 437 miles. To make this journey, which takes about 20 hours every day, the mighty Train du Desert is built to make every trip count. It boasts around 200 cars to carry the ore, measures a total of about 1.5 miles in length, and weighs 17,000 tons with all of its cargo. Transportation is not easy to come by in the region, so some travelers opt to ride in the cars with the ore, a free open-air "service." It's an extreme journey indeed, though. In September 2019, journalist Alastair Gill made the trip and reported to BBC Travel of "the booming and grinding; the constant tremors rippling through the body; the grit swirling through your hair in the hot breeze; the desert sun pricking your eyelids." The passenger car –- singular -– is also an option for those lucky enough to have access to it, but most travelers still ride in the ore cars.