Speaking of runaways. Here is a wreck to remember. At Darwin, California
in the Thompson mine in the late 1960's a mining company had leased the mine
from Anaconda and were working the lower levels for lead, zinc, gold and
silver. The practice was to cage the one ton end dump cars and hoist them
to the 200 level where they were dumped into a pocket and transferred to
three ton, rocker dump, mine cars for transport out of the adit to the
surface over the main haulage way.
The cagers were not in the practice of setting the cage on chairs but simply
let the hoist cable stretch and using the two inch drop to help move the car
against the cage bars. The same applied to taking the car off the cage on
the 200 level. The top lander used the rise of the cage to push the car off
the cage. There was no stop bell ever given just a hoist muck signal (one
bell) when the car was secured on the cage and a release when the top lander
had the empty car loaded back on the cage.
On one occasion the hoistman claimed he had received a hoist signal just as
the cager was about to push the car onto the cage. The cage wasn't there
and the loaded car fell to the bottom of the shaft tearing out several shaft
sets as it plummeted to the bottom. It took several weeks to clean up the
wreck and replace the timber.
Mason
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