What Am I Doing?: 2011

Australian BHP Iron ore train, the longest train to ever run in the world, this train is officially in the guinness book of world records for the longest train. The record was set on june 21, 2001 in western australia between newman and port headland, a distance of 275km (170 miles) and the train consisted of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 GE AC6000 locomotives giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moved 82,262 tonnes of ore, the train was 7.353 km (4.568 miles) long. BHP iron ore did this to test locotrol which is where locomotives are evenly placed along the length of the train. The locotrol setup was 2 locos-166 wagons, 2 locos-168 wagons, 2 locos-168 wagons, 1 loco-180 wagons then the last locomotive on the back. This very long train is controlled by only one driver.

If you lined up Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Daniel and Henrik Sedin and Pavel Datsyuk at the opposite blue line and asked them to pass the puck through a hole in the net that is barely larger than the puck itself, I’d say that there is about a 3% chance that any of them successfully hits the target. If you asked a 59-year-old woman to do the same, I’d say there is about a 0.001% chance that she does it.

Luckily for Brenda Hewlett, 0.001% was all she needed. As the story goes, Brenda was at Frenchie’s Ford dealership on Friday getting her old truck serviced when she said, “god, I wish I could afford a new truck, because mine is falling apart.” It must have been her lucky day, as the dealership was holding a draw for a chance to win a new 2011 Ford F-150 4×4. Brenda filled out a ballot and it was picked from the box later that day, bringing her one step closer to the new truck she coveted so much. The only problem was that the final step would require her to shoot a puck from 114-feet away into a hole that is barely larger than the size of a regulation hockey puck. It is a feat that is difficult enough for anyone who has played hockey their entire life, let alone someone who has never previously held a hockey stick or shot a puck. But despite having the odds stacked against her, Brenda grabbed a hold of the stick, took an aggressive slap at the puck, and sent the puck 114 feet down the ice and into the hole, earning her a brand new 2011 Ford F-150 4×4. It is a story that is almost too hard to believe, but it certainly happened, and here is the footage to prove it.