Canada - Northern Ontario; A Hotbed Of Mining Activity

From a distance, the 0.75-km (0.5-mile) rail line that sits in the shadows of Vale-Inco?s Stobie Mine outside of Sudbury, Ontario could be mistaken for a standard conveyor belt hauling ore from the nearby mine. But with its large, yellow-painted loop and interconnected green rail cars that invert themselves on the loop before correcting with a smooth rollover further down the track, one might assume that this is some sort of test track for a new roller coaster. The fact of the matter is that it is the proving ground for Rail-Veyor technology, a technology that the company hopes will one day change the face of ore transportation in surface and underground mines around the world. With a line of linked, low-profile rail cars that are capable of carrying up to 1 t (1.1 st) per car of ore by way of simple, above ground, lightweight rail track, the technology is not groundbreaking. In fact, it was developed in the 1960s for the French State Railroad. A demonstration plant for the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research was installed in 2000 and the first commercial under-ground installation was in 2007 in South Africa at Harmony Gold?s Phakisa Mine. There, a 4.7-km- (2.9-mile-) long tram between two shafts operates three Rail-Veyor trains on a shared track. The difference is that the application that is being tested day-and-night in Sudbury is getting closer to wide production, thanks to the use of computer controlled automation that has helped turn an old idea into a cost-effective modern solution.