Has anybody seen this yet?:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/26/mi ... +-+Text%29

Does anybody on our list know if this new mine will use car tracks? I asked Sutter Gold that on their online "request more information" page. They have not responded.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

Although I give them credit for paying homage to miners past by preserving the abandoned headframes on their property, their trackless "mine portal" suggests they are using trucks, not ore cars.

http://www.suttergoldmining.com/s/Photo ... Photos-New

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I think that it is nice of them to preserve the headframes.

That's what I don't understand. How can building a *HUGE* portal and adit like that to admit large vehicles possibly be more economical than a small adit and drift with car tracks? I just don't get it.

Another thing I am wondering about, could these huge adits and drifts built to accomadate large rubber-tired "wart hogs" possibly increase the possibility of catastrophic "rock bursts"? I am wondering about that but I am not a mining engineer so I don't really know for sure.

But! Here is something interesting I turned up: There is another reopened gold mine in California known as the "Washington Mine" operated by Shasta Gold. I e-mailed them and asked them if they planned to use tracks in their mine and was told that right now they are using rubber tired front end loaders and trucks *BUT*, ore cars and tracks are most definitely a part of their future plans. So, right there you have it. There must be some either economic or physical conditions where mining companies *STILL* prefer tracks.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

Although the trend in mining appears favor truck haulage atleast in America, rail haulage is still alive and well. According to Steven Gretton, the managing director of the UK based Clayton Equipment Company, "Development of rail haulage systems is never static and as technology advances so too does the application of this technology within the industry; striving for increases in productivity, efficiency and safety." I found an interesting article discussing the benefits of rail haulage at http://www.infomine.com/library/publica ... e2012k.pdf.

Certainly the possibility of rock bursts does increase with larger excavations in deep mines.

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Mike,

Yes, I've seen this article before. That is a good article! Thanks for sharing that with the group!

Regards

FMC

Is anyone familar with the California Mine that was giving tours maybe 6 years ago? At the time they were a tour mine with limited if any production but were hoping gold wout make $400/oz where it would be profitable to go back into production.

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Doug,

I believe the "Sutter Gold Mine" offered public tours for years but, if I understand right, the tours were closed when the plans were conceived to actually reopen the mine to mining.

But, the "Original Sixteen To One Mine" still offers tours (by appointment only). In fact, for $600 you can actually be a "miner for the day" and spend the entire day underground!

Click here: http://origsix.com/tmarticle.asp?id=330

I want to do this in the worst way imaginable. My problem is getting from Indiana where I live to California. I'm hoping, if the stars align themselves right, that I might be able to do this later this summer.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

There are some iron mine tours in Wisconsin that I know of. I didn't take one, because we were in North Freedom at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum. I would like to take a tour, because they have some that spend all day, and BIKE in the mine! I forgot the name, I will find the brochure.

Mike and Group,

Here are a couple of pictures to illustrate what I am wondering about. (Both of them taken from EmGold’s site).

In the picture below of the LHD, notice the immense size of the drift that the thing is shown working in. I don’t see how economical that can be to blast out a drift that large.



The next picture below shows a traditional mine “trammer” locomotive pulling a string of ore cars. Notice the size of that passageway. That looks more economical – and quite possibly safer to me:



Think about this: That trammer might be able to pull ten fully loaded ore cars and steel wheels on steel rails are very nearly frictionless. If a more powerful trammer could pull twenty cars, uh, well, you get the idea. Trains can move much higher volumes of very heavy material far more efficiently than rubber tired vehicles AND do it in a much smaller area.

But the huge size of that drift in the top picture still disturbs me. Could there be a correlation between the large drifts needed to accommodate LHD’s and rock bursts? A catastrophic rock burst at Hecla’s Lucky Friday Mine actually claimed some lives a few years ago. Were these large, LHD-accessible drifts partly responsible?

I don’t know – I am only asking the question. But I feel it is at least a question worth considering.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

If it was more economical they would still be doing it, trust me they're not in business to waste money. All of the mines I've worked in we're rail haulage. When it worked it worked good, when there were problems they were big and shut the entire operation down for hours. Rail equipped mines are great for small operations, with modern technology it just doesn't make economic sense to use it. Unfortunately for you guys though you can't get as much foam out of rubber tires and conveyors as you seem to with rail.

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Uh, well, you might just have a point there, Chris. I am not completely incapable of foaming at the mouth over the sight of a mine with ore cars!

However, if you look at my post further up in this thread, Shasta Gold is using rubber-tired LHD's in their reopened Washington Mine in California but plans to add rail later. So, there must still be some kind of economic advantage there.

Also, I fully agree that a strategically placed derailment could be a real serious headache.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

I once had the buggy full of state mine inspectors when it came off the road. That was a fun walk back out of the mine.

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OUCH !! !! That's the kind of day you don't wanna have everyday!!!


FMC

I'm guessing that they were complaining the whole way.