The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-04-15
The Aerial Tramway---Its Important
and Picturesque Part in Min
ing Operations.
George F. Stratton.

ing the river ia over 1890 feet in
length. and remarkable point about
the line is that it is an International
means of transportation and ii was
necessary that the operating company
the Del Carmen Mining company
should establish ports of entry and
custom houses at both the loading and
discharge terminals in Mexico and
Texas
4 In the Himalayas the longest aerial
tramway in the world is not being
CONSTRUCTED over and around terrific
mountains for IS miles. Frequent
!rockslides and landslides and the stu
ipendous cost Of construction show
that no railroad will ever be built
across that country So this cable line
! is designed to carry passengers as well
as freight. The towers are nearly half
a mile apart and the cable will be IN
| tive-mile sections; the cars automati-
cally passing from one section to the
next without stopping. Much of the
ldistance will be operated by gravity
without power; and on the up grades
electricity will be used, generated in
the numerous mountain torrents
When the great water supply tunnel
for Chicago was being constructed,
galloway was installed to carry " orll-
men and supplies over the lake to the
crih-S00O feet from the shore Steel
towers, erected on driven piles, car
ried the lines of cable on which the
carriers of 1000 pounds capacity tray
eled
South American Tram a Wonder.
The most notable aerial tramWay in
operation is in the Argentine Republic
1t runs for % miles through the rough
est country in which any transporta-
tion has ever been installed over
abysmal chasms around stupendous
peaks, across mountain torrents, up
and down grades at which an expert
are neither bridges, trestles, graded
roadbeds ties or locomotives. al
though four hundred tons of freight
are daily carried over it,
The track consists of two steel
cables supported on towers, some of
which are Is feet high, others hun
dred and fifty. The cars are steel
buckets in which ore, machinery. mine
supplies, mules, workmen and pass
engers are conveyed. 1t runs from
the mines at La Mejicana to the rail
road at Chilecito.
La Mejicana is $4,000 feet above sea
level; ChiIecito is 11,49O feet lower,
being 1910 above sea level; 50 the
loaded carriers on the aerial line make
a large portion Of the trip by gravity;
stationary engines being used at two
or three sections to work the cable up
from deep ravines.
Difficult of installation.
The use Of cableways are cYnced~
ingly diversified and extensive l'hey
are mining coal in Montana and gold
in California. They are building
enormous dams in Australia and South
America, and hauling granite in Yer
mont quarries. They are unloading
minerals and logs at wharves and ex-
cavating great canals across land
They are hauling wheat in the great
northwestern mills and asphalt at
Trinidad. They come with the first
crew of construction men to an i'm
mense reservoir. and a few days after
that is completed, may be found
hundred or five hundred miles away
hauling concrete for a core wall With
the dismounting Of the cable and re
moval of the carrying towers every
dollars worth of the equipment is Sc
cured for use at some other scene OF
construction.
Some of the installations of aerial
cables in mountain regions are made
under extraordinary conditions. The
terrific canyons are usually crossed by
a single span. One across the Ameri-
can River canyon at SlatingtOn. Cal,
is 2400 feet from tower to tower, and
the depth of that gulch is nearly one
thousand feet.
Some Trans for Coal Mines.
One thousand foot spans are com
mon and in many cases the entire
qulpment--cables and sections Of
towers, had to be packed onto the
ground by mules, sometimes even
mules could not be used; men with
tackle did the work
At the plant of the Vulcan Coal
company of West Virginia, cable
way runs down the side of noun
tain. The incline concaves from ar
IS per cent pitch at the top to go
per cent pitch at the bottom, and they
send down two tons of coal in each
carrier.
At the Thacker coal mine in the
same state, the mine entry Is 500 feet
above the railroad and up a mountain
side, and under previous operations
their haul down by wagon was over
a road zigzagging down that rough
steep slope. That road had to be three
miles long, although an airline from
the mine to the railroad below was
only 1900 feet Now there is cable