Mike,
What you describe, with the Koepe winding engine at ground level, is exactly
what is shown in the diagram illustrating the article I quoted in Peele's Mining
Engineers' Handbook, complete with balance rope suspended beneath the
cages..
Like you, I had always associated the Keope arrangement as being one with
the winding engine in a room at the top of the headframe, as at the Grangesberg
iron ore mine in Sweden I went to in 1951 as a student for work experience
during the summer vacation.
I think the Koepe system is one in which the rope normally makes a single pass
around the drum, i.e. is in contact with only about half the circumference, and is
running in a groove where the friction between rope and groove is high, so there is
no slippage.
Tony Brewis
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