Rail-Veyor’s® material haulage solution for surface and underground applications has earned the company this year’s Bell Canada Innovation Award. Rail-Veyor was acknowledged as having successfully developed, commercialized and installed its material handling technology designed for the mining, aggregate and other bulk material handling industries. “It’s an honour to be recognised by our peers in the community.” says Rail-Veyor’s President & CEO Ron Russ at the Bell Canada Excellence Awards. “It is rewarding to see the technology developed by the Rail-Veyor team attract so much interest from so many industries worldwide,” adds Russ.
Rail-Veyor provides a simple solution to handle complex industrial material haulage problems by offering the best of conveyors, truck haulage and heavy rail haulage in one complete package. Rail-Veyor is an electrically powered series of two-wheeled interconnected mini rail cars that can operate 24/7 and travel along a light rail track at speeds up to 8 m/s. The remote controlled Rail-Veyor technology is comprised of simple components that allow continuous material haulage without diesel emissions and with significantly less capital and maintenance costs than other options. The simplicity, adaptability and its impressive financial returns make the Rail-Veyor technology appealing to many industries.
“Rail-Veyor’s ability to manoeuvre through complex track geometries, transport across difficult topography and easily stop and start on gradients up to 20% caught my attention,” comments Rail-Veyor’s President & CEO, Ron Russ, a former railway CEO. “Besides the safety aspects of an un-manned system, its efficiency as an automated system with a small environmental footprint is something most bulk materials handling systems can’t touch.”
Vale installed the Rail-Veyor system in Dec 2011 at its Copper Cliff 114 Ore Body and the system was operational by June 2012. According to Kate McLaughlin, a former Vale Engineer, the Rail-Veyor technology doubled the mine’s advance rates and production rates (IM, January 2013, pp8-10).
“Lead time to production for any project is extremely critical for the ROI on the project. So if we can develop twice as fast as we currently do to bring an ore zone into production and reduce it from four years of pre capital expenditures to two, this has a huge impact on the returns on investments,” says Alex Henderson, General Manager, Underground Mine Technology, Vale
The Rail-Veyor system, in an underground mining application, eliminates the need for underground infrastructure such as orepasses, crusher stations and large bins where accidents seem to occur. It enables mines to go deeper and easily transport far below the shaft within a small 2.4 m x 2.4 m opening and integrate with the mine’s existing mobile equipment if necessary.
“The multiple dump loop configurations offer so many site-specific ways to apply the Rail-Veyor technology and its ability to adapt to any application is self-evident,” says Mike Vanderhoof, Superintendent of Mine Development, Vale
