Haulage of Ore

Ore is drawn from the chutes on many working levels into trail cars which are known as ore cars in track mines. These are trammed, or hauled, by diesel or electric locomotives to a station where the cars are dumped. The ore falls down a short finger raise into a main ore pass. Ore cars vary in capacity from one to twenty tonnes.

The ore pass is a fairly large raise, most of the time it is 8 to 11 feet (2.5 to 3.5 metres) in diameter, into which the broken ore is dumped. The principal ore pass extends from the uppermost level all the way down to the deepest level of the mine. Short finger raises are excavated from each level into the principal ore pass. The ore falls to an underground crusher station. Control chutes are most of the time established at many intervals in the ore pass system to provide ore storage on top of the crusher. Steel rails are placed in a grid-work pattern called a grizzly, over the dumping station to avoid oversized chunks of ore from plugging up the ore pass.

To install a large gyratory crusher or jaw in the underground crusher station is a common practice. This unit crushes the ore, in most cases to less than 6 inches (15 cm). The ore afterwards falls into a large bin or chamber below the crusher.from here, it is fed into a a loading pocket placed close to the shaft bottom.