I am concerned as well.
NDG has not been heard from for some time now. He lives alone is elderly and do not know how to contact him, although I have tried several times. He cannot be reached by private conversation.
I have been the only one submitting new topics for a while now but midterms, marking, life, have interferred. I am still finishing up a special project for Overmod regarding the Sue C Pit. Will be away at a conference starting Monday until Thursday morning and then get things going again.
Of course we all hope NDG is still with us and well.
This thread has gotten quiet. Too quiet.
Where is NDG?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
BaltACD and all-- Pit slope and stability is very carefully calculated by the Engineers. Complex to discuss all the factors here on the Forum. We have an entire Semester just for "Open Pit Mining" here at the College. Ground control engineers can get good data on how things will proceed just from Diamond Drilling. It carefully advances from there.
Another very important consideration is dilution. As you pointed out the pit has to expand wider and wider as mining goes deeper. Eventually you will reach a pit limit where you are extracting so much waste rock to get at the ore that it all becomes uneconomic. When the pit limit is reached the Mine will then go underground. This is very common throughout the Canadian Shield area and other hard rock mining operations.
Opposite that are Porphyry deposits, usually Copper ore but also Gold, found in the West of both our countries and in South America. They are enormous open pit operations that are miles long and can be extremely wide. They are low grade and production from these pits can exceed 100,000 tons per day! Since essentially everything is ore over a vast area dilution is not a problem. These pits are dependant on high production levels (tonnage). They would be the Wal-Mart of the Mining Industry.
There are at least 4 major categories of pit stability and slope failures and several smaller ones. Water is a major issue, lots of sumps and pumping stations. Open pits have become less favourable overall. They are an eyesore and ugly. It can really rankle the public. it's an efficient way to earn back dollars real quick spent on exploration and get some cash flow going. Most mines start off as an open pit for the first 3-5 years of its life before going underground. Underground is preferred these days as it is not an eyesore, just a headframe and associated buildings.
Pits must have a reclamation plan in place before a License to Mine is issued. The mining companies do an excellent job of putting it all back together and these days you would never know a huge open pit was there. That was not the case in the past.
There are other problems as well, manmade ones. Whilst in Schefferville working for the Iron Ore Company our large pit was bisected almost right through the center by the Quebec/Newfoundland Labrador Border. On one side of the pit you could only communicate in French. Quebecs draconian language laws ( protect the culture!) had just come in and the French workers were real militant about it. You could literally stand with one foot on each side and if you turned your head one way you had to speak French only and the other way you could speak English. There were also 2 separate Mining Regulations, 2 OH&S acts and regs, and 2 different levels of royalties imposed on each side. Of course the inspectors would enforce this with great vigor, especially the royalties. Arguments would ensue over $$$ all the time.
So some hazards are of our own design.
MiningmanAlso on the the 2nd link top picture of three if you look to the left near the bottom edge of the picture you can see a severe pit wall failure. Appx. 100,000 tons slid down all at once in a wedge slip failure. Needless to say this caused quite a stir. Once again no one was killed but a worker had his life spared by sheer seconds and had just cleared the road which disappeared right behind him. The failure was not catastrophic as they often are making further mining operations impossible or too dangerous. In this case it could be mucked out and after considerable delay to normal production things got back to normal mining operations.
I have often wondered how such mines keep from collapsing and eroding in on themselves as they go deeper and deeper and with the bottom be in 'X' wide how the pit has to continually expand to permit reasonable gradient to haul tonnage from the bottom back to the top.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Also on the the 2nd link top picture of three if you look to the left near the bottom edge of the picture you can see a severe pit wall failure. Appx. 100,000 tons slid down all at once in a wedge slip failure. Needless to say this caused quite a stir. Once again no one was killed but a worker had his life spared by sheer seconds and had just cleared the road which disappeared right behind him. The failure was not catastrophic as they often are making further mining operations impossible or too dangerous. In this case it could be mucked out and after considerable delay to normal production things got back to normal mining operations.
So just for fun I will point out a few things some folks might find interesting.
The shovels were used to fill 100 Ton Euclids. They used a red light/green light system in the cab for signalling when 100 tons was reached. Waste rock material would fill the trucks to overflowing before the light went green to "GO". On the other hand the Uranium ore was so heavy that the green light would come on at maybe 40% full and every driver I talked to said the tires were visibly flattened down with the weight.
In the top picture, group of 3, in the 2nd link, you can see 2 dark dots on the right hand side about a third of the way down into the pit. The first dot is a pumping station to remove water, the second dot is an overturned Euclid whose operator stopped momentarily at that pumping station to have a chat with a fellow but did not set the brakes properly (there were 3 different sets and types of brakes) ... it started rolling down with the fella in the cab and he had no steering or power and went over the berm. The guy crawled out OK but the truck was not salvageable from its position and not until the pit was filled in the reclamation process did they get that Euclid out.
The stockpile photo on the bottom has several visible large piles of ore. The high mountain like one to the right is low grade, the one to its left is medium grade, and the one on the left is high grade. There are 2 more high grade stockpiles behind these, one is "super high" and one is "extreme". The mill would order a specific grade for processing and the Geologists would calculate and oversee the blending of these piles to achieve a desired mill feed.
The stockpiles rested on a plastic liner, sand and waste rock foundation, all of which went back into the pit during reclamation.
https://imgur.com/a/LcHTi
This is the Sue C Pit. McLean Lake Mine, Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan.
The noticeably dark "rock" is the Uranium ore, blasted and broken up it is now "muck", so the shovels and loaders are "mucking ore".
This is the location where the glowing under normal light sample came from.
https://imgur.com/a/YuilI
The overhead shot shows the exposed orebody at the very bottom.
I am writing a comprehensive Geological summary, an abstract, that details the structure and geology of the Sue C Pit for Overmod.
If anyone would like this abstract sent to them please just use the private Email message provided by this forum and I will forward it along. I'll complete this over the weekend and send it off to any interested parties.
Hang on.. trying some images from the Sue C Pit .. going to have to go the long way around.
SD70M-2Dude Reporting mark SPSF = Shouldn't Paint So Fast...
Reporting mark SPSF = Shouldn't Paint So Fast...
Miningman Just to prove that one can see anything, anywhere, here is a picture of a leased Santa Fe locomtive way up in Toronto with this paint scheme in anticipation of the addition of an "SP" that never happened. ATSF 3600 in new short-lived Santa Fe paint scheme. One of 20 GP39-2 2300 HP units leased. And here is one for BaltACD Maybe Balt knew this unit with the easy to remember #4800 Pretty far from home.
Just to prove that one can see anything, anywhere, here is a picture of a leased Santa Fe locomtive way up in Toronto with this paint scheme in anticipation of the addition of an "SP" that never happened.
ATSF 3600 in new short-lived Santa Fe paint scheme. One of 20 GP39-2 2300 HP units leased.
And here is one for BaltACD
Maybe Balt knew this unit with the easy to remember #4800
Pretty far from home.
Granted, those shots are three decades old, but that's part of the fun of "run-through" power, especially now, you never know what you might see.
Here in the Richmond area I've see BNSF "Pumpkins," UP power, and various colorful leasers coming through on CSX trains.
Richmond was very colorful when we moved here in 1987. CSX hadn't repainted all the locomotives of their predecessor 'roads so there were some very interesting units to be seen.
Thanks for starting my day off with a laugh.
Johnny
Electroliner 19358 inch SOLID Tires
Ah, no. Look at the picture of the Montreal coach, and note the reference to ‘cushion tires‘ in the Versare article; the reference to 8” solid tires refers to the prospective truck adaptation of the chassis.
As for agile, consider that the turning circle is less ... only a smidge less, mind you, but most of you will still be astounded ... than 54light15’s vaunted Traction Avant, which is considerably shorter and holds fewer people. Servo PID control for the steering and less aggressive gearing for acceleration (and perhaps more motor hp than typical in the early Twenties) would give you better road speed, with probably excellent ride dynamics.
The carbody failure may be similar to the issues with the de Havilland Comet construction, progressive cracking at stress raisers perhaps in keyed glide planes in the duraluminum used? I note that the original coach had pronounced and well-developed truss framing. No good NDT for aluminum might have been present ... or the need for it not realized. If I remember the story correctly the reason the bus was not rebuilt was that so many other parts of the monocoque were close to similarly failing that it would have taken extensive reconstruction ... and by that time there were better monocoque buses in the offing.
Miningman Apparently not that agile. From the Coachbuilt article provided by Wanswheel Montreal’s ‘Beast’, aka “Le monstre de la rue Atwater“ aka car #800, had a much longer useful service. It entered service on May 11, 1927 and exactly 7 years later (May 11, 1934) its monocoque aluminum coachwork suffered a catastrophic failure and the vehicle literally split in two, after which it was parted out and junked. Now that must have been one heck of a day. Not everyday your bus splits in two.
Apparently not that agile.
From the Coachbuilt article provided by Wanswheel
Montreal’s ‘Beast’, aka “Le monstre de la rue Atwater“ aka car #800, had a much longer useful service. It entered service on May 11, 1927 and exactly 7 years later (May 11, 1934) its monocoque aluminum coachwork suffered a catastrophic failure and the vehicle literally split in two, after which it was parted out and junked.
Now that must have been one heck of a day. Not everyday your bus splits in two.
Aluminum coachwork, especially in the 20's before alloy's were developed would have averse reactions to the impacts created by solid tires on the streets and roads of the day.
8 inch SOLID Tires. I'll stay with the current air suspensions on todays coaches. And "Normal speed of 25mph. I recognize that this is 1925 and we've come a long way. I guess that it beats the old horse drawn omnibus. Who wants to do an alignment on those bogies.
Or as they said on Laugh-In, "Verrry Interesting"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versare_Company
http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/v/versare/versare.htm
So this beast had traction motors? Is that correct? It sure does not look agile, looks like a pretty stiff mover, but if you say it was agile then so be it. Would imagine that steering wheel needed some real arms.
Well that uniformed operator sure looks capable. Wonder what kind of noise's it made. With those traction motors I assume a full load of passengers would be a piece of cake.
There were as I recall more than one of these. And they were more agile than they looked.
I, of course, having wanted that one quintessentially British car better than the Hirondel, the Octopod, since I was very little, was overjoyed when first encountering the design, and I still love seeing them. Thank you!
Here is a doozey for technical savvy hopeless romantic Overmod!
So what in the heck is going on here? Traction motors? Is that right?
Gas-electric motor coach with electric motors on trucks!
OvermodRecommend that the resident Canadians (and others so inclined) look at the 'Unknown Ontario Train' thread on RyPN.
Regarding the 'lightweight' deck beam at the top of the end panel: It carries merely the weight of the portion of the train which is directly above it in that panel only. Most of the load from the rest of the bridge is transferred to the pier by the heavy diagonal member sloping down and to the right.
With trusses, the 'load path' follows the shape of the members. That beam is essentially an add-on external to the main truss.
Back in the day, the cost of the material was so significant that it was worthwhile to take the time to design a smaller member for a location like that with a lesser load. Today likley it would be just as tall as the other members for appearances and ease in joint fabrication, but with thinner flanges since that's all that woud be needed.
- PDN.
So we have Stone as a suicide and Collins dead as well, either suicide or murder, then 83 years later the Captain of the Lake Erie Ferry/Coal hauler Ashtabula also is a suicide during the trial about the sinking of the Ashtabula. By the way, he was found not guilty and exonerated after his death.
Even the ship Ashtabula itself, after being raised, and a decision made to scrap her, would not go easily and claimed more lives yet, resisting all attempts at moving and scrapping her. It was an incredible ordeal.
I resided on the North shore of Lake Erie and went over stateside by boat many times, to Erie PA or Ashtabula Ohio and I can tell you without any doubts both sides of Lake Erie are, or at least were, beautiful but very very spooky.
Huge "ghost fleet of Long Point" claiming many innocent lives, immigrant ships and sailors alike. Hundreds of ships. Be warned!
Overmod adequate documentation
adequate documentation
https://archive.org/stream/ashtabuladisaste00peetuoft#page/n7/mode/2up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtabula_River_railroad_disaster
Update: it appears the new bridge may have been constructed around the old one, while it remained in service, which best accounts for the location of the visible piers. This would also indicate that the single-track line was used to help place all the fill for the new, probably higher double-track embankments.
Get your pictures quick: this bridge is apparently set for triple-tracking enlargement starting as early as 2018, and the 'artist's conception' picture (which includes cat bridges) shows an external rationalized truss that 'gets rid' of the novel outside deck beams...
That particular bridge is almost certainly much newer than 1856. If you look at the aerial view in the RyPN thread you can see how the fills have been extended across the mouth of what likely was the Rouge 'estuary' to make this short a bridge practicable; that has the hallmarks of later 'line improvement' to me. You can clearly see the original, likely single-track remains of piers and perhaps abutment structure under the span in the 'mystery' picture.
The structure is also much less characteristic of early construction, particularly pre-Bessemer (which was only getting started by 1855); there's a lot of metal in that truss to hold up just two contemporary tracks even if it were iron. We need to find the dates this important line was double-tracked, and I suspect that will date the picture in question very closely; I also suspect there is a fun story about how the bridge was installed, judging by the fact that it is precisely centered over the 'old' bridge remains and not offset from it or built like the arch replacement for the truss over Big Sister Creek in New York State that was the site of the Angola Horror in 1867...
Which reminds me, this being Halloween season, of what the New York Central did in a somewhat similar circumstance. wanswheel can provide adequate documentation of a particular early bridge crossing across a ravine in Ashtabula, Ohio, and an incident that occurred there in 1876. Since my son is in school only a few miles from there, I set out to find the site of that event. What I found is highly interesting.
There is no sign of the bridge unless you know specifically that it is there, and then work your way around following the river. Unlike at Big Sister Creek, there is no commemorative plaque at the site I could find, and no sign that a bridge even remains. What New York Central did was to install a series of low reinforced-concrete arches across the channel, nearly as wide as the road tunnels at Kittanning Point are long, and then pile at least 50 vertical feet of stone fill on those, so the 'bridge' now resembles a considerable fill, more than four tracks wide, and you actually have to walk out on it and lean over to be able to see the river at all. No passenger riding the Great Steel Fleet would ever suspect that for a few seconds he was traversing the site of that fatal bridge crossing...
However, even now, there is considerable erosion from parts of the top of that fill down into the ravine, as if the hands of the victims were still clawing to escape...
Overmod I think this bridge comes from a period
I think this bridge comes from a period
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/255248/
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/629543/
Yes, that's what I was referring to (together with some of the nostalgia involved with that older, mistaken-identity eyebar-chord truss)
Once you know what you're looking at, and understand it's more a 'conventional' truss that has a bowstring bottom member, some of the unusual construction between the abutments and the upper chord becomes easier to understand. If you think of it as a standard Warren-type truss that happens to be sitting down lower, with added girder deck panels to let the track run over the top instead of the usual place atop the lower crossmembers in a truss bridge of that style, the weirdness largely goes away and it is abundantly clear what happens at the abutments, both at the bottom and top.
I think this bridge comes from a period where absolute cost of steel was still just high enough that the savings achieved on the major truss members by allowing lighter girder spans for the outer 'deck panels' was meaningful. Be fun to see the worked-out moment diagram for one of those!
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