Recently saying that they had successfully tested it: https://www.railwaygazette.com/australasia/rio-tinto-completes-autohaul-autonomous-train-project/47822.art

Recently saying that they had successfully tested it: https://www.railwaygazette.com/australasia/rio-tinto-completes-autohaul-autonomous-train-project/47822.article https://www.railwaygazette.com/australasia/rio-tinto-complet... Earlier announcement (2014) that they were planning to do so: https://www.railjournal.com/signalling/rio-tinto-gets-set-for-automated-heavy-haul-tests/ https://www.railjournal.com/signalling/rio-tinto-gets-set-fo... Note that the original contract with Ansaldo for development was approximately half what it wound up being. That they will admit to. And I suspect leaves out a lot of the work around the lines which can be used for autonomous and non-autonomous purposes. But then it goes back further, to this article from 2008: https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/rio-tinto-to-go-driverless/33047.article https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/rio-tinto-to-go-driverle... Predicting that autonomous trains would be done in 5 years. That is, they expected to be finished by 2013 ... when the next contract was signed. I won't be surprised if it's announced a few more times in the coming years. Mine automation is a big deal, Rio Tinto have spent heavily on it. Not just trains, they also have spent a lot on developing autonomous mine trucks. The pit is covered with a lot of beacons to help the trucks position themselves and they use regular scans of the site to update the map. I'm not sure how far they got with those. BHP-Billiton seems not to have gone as far, but they have spent a lot of money in remote operations: having the control centres for multiple mines consolidated into special-purpose offices in Perth etc. Cameras everywhere, das blinkenlights, the whole shebang.