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The description is quite apt – the dump loop looks like anindustrial version of the loop de loop of a roller coaster at theMontreal theme park. Except that the ride at La Ronde doesnot unceremoniously drop its passengers out of the vehiclewhile they are suspended upside down three-quarters of akilometre underground.

The Rail-Veyor has been hauling ore at Goldex since Sep-tember last year, and is the first full-scale underground deploy-ment of the technology in North America. The technology was

“N ow here comes the best part. The dump loop,” saidDavid Paquette, the general manager of mainte-nance at the Goldex mine just outside Val-d’Or,

Quebec. Standing at the terminus point of its Rail-Veyor, alight rail electrically powered ore haulage system, Paquettegestured to a 360-degree loop of rail track. The Rail-Veyor,after travelling along a three-kilometre track from the lowestpart of Goldex, unloads the ore it is carrying on the loop. “It’slike La Ronde.”

To access the gold far below the surface at its Goldex mine withoutspending a mint, Agnico Eagle gave an innovative haulage system the opportunity to prove its worthBy Kelsey Rolfe

INDEEPANDON TRACKA series of electric-powered drive stations, such as the one shown here, propel trains filled with ore up from the Goldex Deep 1 deposit to atransfer station where it is then hoisted to the surface.

installed to bring ore from the mine’s Deep 1deposit closer to surface – and without it thedeposit would not have been economicallyviable to mine, due to its grade (currently1.59 grams per tonne) and location. Deep 1has added seven years to Goldex’s mine life,extending it to 2025.

“Because we have a low-grade deposithere, we have to have a high throughput,”said Christian Lessard, Goldex’s maintenancesuperintendent. “You can have high produc-tion with the hoist and the Rail-Veyor.” Thegoal at Goldex is to keep site costs below $40per tonne mined.

Since its commissioning, the Rail-Veyorhas, as of June, hauled a total of 439,755tonnes of ore from Deep 1, at a rate of 2,400tonnes per day. The mine is currently rampingup to the Rail-Veyor’s total capacity of 6,000tonnes per day, which they hope to reach by2019, Paquette said.

Down at the 115 level of Deep 1, morethan a kilometre underground, ore getsdumped into a grizzly, and a rock-breakingroom handles oversize rocks. A vibratingfeeder deposits material into one of the Rail-Veyor rail cars. From there, the remote-con-trolled train follows a circuitous track up anincline with a 17 per cent grade, from its start-ing point at the 1,250-metre level up to the730-metre level. Along the way it is pushedforward by foam-filled tires at 91 drive sta-tions that are spaced evenly along the track.The tires propel the Rail-Veyor forward byturning against the side plates of the rail cars.Loaded trains travel up to the unload point atthree metres per second and, once emptied,

descend at 3.5 m/s.To prevent rocks from sliding off the lead rail car and falling

on the track, loading begins at the second car.When it reaches the dump loop, the train cruises over the

top and, as it turns upside down, drops the ore into a silo.From there, the emptied Rail-Veyor returns to the startingpoint, and the ore is hoisted to the surface.

THE ROAD TO DEEP 1The mineralization that became the Deep 1 zone was dis-

covered in 2007, located underneath the Goldex ExtensionZone (GEZ) that Agnico was mining, and the company com-menced drilling work to determine what it had.

However, before releasing a resource estimate for the Deepzone, Agnico closed Goldex three years after it opened, due topoor rock stability above the GEZ, and above where work onthe Deep zone was taking place. But a little less than a yearlater, in July 2012, the company approved development of theM and E satellite zones at Goldex, where rock was more stable,

and reopened the mine in 2013. The GEZ has been written offcompletely as too dangerous to mine.

As work resumed at Goldex, the team started looking todevelop Deep 1, which was greenlit by Agnico in July 2015and began commercial production last August. They needed toextend the existing hoisting system from the GEZ to haul orefrom the lower deposit, and considered multiple options,including the Rail-Veyor.

“The key for [the Goldex team] was to see if we couldreduce their costs and, at the same time, extend the mine lifeby being able to go deeper without adding additional ventila-tion,” said Frank Ward, the vice-president of sales and market-ing at Rail Veyor Technologies Global, the Sudbury,Ontario-based company behind the Rail-Veyor.

The team found that the technology would be cheaper tooperate than haul trucks and would not require additionalventilation. It could also be constructed around curves toavoid areas of unstable ground, unlike a conveyor. “We expe-rienced geotechnical issues in the past when we started oper-ating in the GEZ,” Lessard said, “So it’s a priority here atGoldex to put the excavation in the best available rock.”

The technology, Lessard noted, also had the added benefitof allowing the team to reuse existing exploration drifts. “Wewere able to use those excavations with the Rail-Veyor, so wesaved a lot in terms of development costs,” Lessard said. Abouta quarter of the system was installed along existing 4.5 metre-wide drifts, which the company widened to 5.8 metres toallow a tractor to drive alongside the rail line. “You could usea Rail-Veyor in a smaller ramp, but in terms of maintenanceand availability, we opted for a wider ramp,” he added.

And with barriers around the drifts and access control toprevent harm to workers, Lessard said the Rail-Veyor also hassafety benefits. The system automatically shuts down if work-ers pass the barrier. It also produces zero emissions. “There’sno heat and dust coming from diesel,” Lessard said. “It’s ahealth and safety advantage.”

Perhaps the biggest boon is that the Rail-Veyor is able tohandle larger rocks than a conveyor. This eliminated the needto install a crusher, reducing the construction phase at Deep 1by six months.

MANAGING RISKSAny new technology comes with risks. The biggest concern

around installing the Rail-Veyor, Lessard said, was the possibil-ity the train could go off the tracks, especially at such a steepincline. “We didn’t know what would be the rate of derail-ment,” he said. “We didn’t know really how to repair derail-ment.” To mitigate that challenge, they added the safety systemand barriers, and have procedures in place for putting the trainon track, Paquette said.

The size of the train also presents maintenance challenges.The Rail-Veyor has 182 tires at its 91 drive stations, and morethan 400 train cars – 68 on each of six trains – Paquette said.The company has installed sensors for preventative mainte-nance, and has a large inventory of spare parts to preventagainst unexpected failures. Paquette said maintenance staff

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Clockwise from top right: The system is monitored remotely and access to the rail line is limited to protect personnel; The train rolls through a loopin the track to empty its load; The individual cars of the transport system have only side walls, so a single train forms one long trough that canbend around corners; The Deep 1 deposit is mined using long-hole stoping with cemented paste backfill.

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also regularly check the trains and drive stations to make surethere are no issues.

“Since we are the first operator [using Rail-Veyor] we aremore careful,” Paquette said. “If we run the Rail-Veyor for five,ten years, we will reduce the inspection. But for the momentwe are putting more energy into that kind of stuff than usual.”

Lessard said they are also working to resolve an issue withthe tires at the drive stations, which are producing a black“goo” that affects the friction between the tires and the rail cars’side plates. Agnico is currently working with Rail-Veyor andmultiple other companies on a test bench in Sudbury to find abetter tire.

GATHERING SPEEDThe path to the first underground deployment of the Rail-

Veyor in North America has been a long one. The first iterationof the Rail-Veyor was installed in South Africa at HarmonyGold’s Phakisa mine about 10 years ago. According to Ward,after the death of Rail-Veyor’s owner, Risto Laamanen, in 2009,his family struggled to manage the business, and between2010 and 2011, new investors helped to restart and refinancethe company.

Strategic Mine Planning with New Digital Technologies, RiskManagement and Mineral Value ChainsAt the time of a continuing rebound of metal markets, learn how the application of new digitaltechnologies that can add substantial value to strategic mine planning and asset valuation.The new technologies and related tools integrate technical risk management while capitalizingon the synergies amongst the elements of mineral value chains through their simultaneousoptimization – from mines to products to markets. INSTRUCTORS Roussos Dimitrakopoulos, McGill University, Canada and Ryan Goodfellow,Newmont Mining Corporation, USA • DATE September 19-21, 2018 • LOCATION Montreal,Quebec, Canada

Geostatistical Mineral Resource Estimation and Meeting the NewRegulatory Environment: Step by Step from Sampling to Grade ControlThis course is designed according to the latest regulations on public reporting of MineralResources. It aims at showing how state-of-the-art statistical and geostatistical techniques helpanswering the requirements of those regulations in an objective and reproducible manner. Aparticular emphasis is put on understanding sampling and estimation errors and how to assignlevels of estimation confidence through the application of resource classification fundamentals.In addition to a solid introduction to mining geostatistics this course provides a comprehensiveoverview of industry’s best practices in the broader field of Mineral Resource estimation. INSTRUCTORS Georges Verly, Wood, Canada and Roussos Dimitrakopoulos, McGillUniversity, Canada • DATE September 24-28, 2018 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec,Canada

Cash Flow Evaluations for Mineral ProjectsThe purpose of the course is to familiarize the participant with the form and content ofdiscounted cash flow evaluations as they are used in the mineral industry for studies andprojects. The course focuses on several aspects of mineral project evaluations: the data andcalculations required for a mineral project cash flow, the assessment of the viability (economics)of a mining project, and risk assessment.INSTRUCTORS Lawrence Devon, Lawrence, Devon, Smith & Associates, Canada • DATENovember 6-8, 2018 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada

“Up to 2015, a lot of time was spent to improve the Rail-Veyor to become more reliable, get the costs down and manu-facture it more along automotive standards rather than justfabricate it in a job-shop fashion. All of this was to get it com-mercially ready for today’s improving mining market.” Wardsaid.

Rail-Veyor is now installing a surface system at a Venezuelapetroleum coke facility and another system underground at alead mine in southeast Missouri. Ward said it used to be “astruggle to generate an inquiry” from potential customers, butnow the news is spreading and the pace of inquiries hasincreased. “We’re seeing a lot of interest internationally, as wellas in North America,” he said.

As for Goldex, Lessard said that one of the major sellingpoints of the Rail-Veyor was that it was expandable. Agnico iscurrently considering developing other zones at Goldex – thefirst test stope in the South zone is expected to be in place inJune, and the company is spending millions this year ondrilling at Deep 2 and 3. “The South zone is close to Deep 1,and it’s a zone that could use the existing installation,” Lessardsaid. “If we get a ‘yes’ to develop Deep 2, we could potentiallyadd some drive stations and be able to use it there, too.” CIM