A look straight down into the chutes were taconite pellets would dump into the dock hoppers. Rebar was a safety measure to keep workers from being buried alive, were they to slip into the holes.
history under ground
grates
Old conveyor belts are draped over the sides of the ore chutes to cut down on the noise and wear of the dumping trains.
Pocket door and light switches in the upper control room, at the top of the spiral staircase.
Looking across the catwalk attache to the elevated control room, in charge of the train dumping part of the operation.
The sluice room was surrounded in fine grating. The company would want to finely control when the doors would be opened so the gold could be removed under supervision. No yellow bonus for the working man…
Fermenters and mixing tanks fill this brewing room. The lighting is all natural, and is partially owed to a crumbling wall letting the sunset blast the interior in almost perfect profile.
Standing between pockets 1 and 2. You brought hearing protection, right?
The many levels of catwalks make for a place where you can look from the ground floor to the roof, about 4 stories up.
It seems logical that, at one time, a rock crusher was installed at the base of the mine rails shown here at the top of the Concentrator. Rocks small enough to fit between the rails would automatically bypass the crusher and continue to the work floor via the hopper below.
A swinging curtain to separate the beds.
The workshop sat below the main working floor and had serious power going to it.
A closeup of the key to the Dominion (aka Government of Canada) Elevator manlift. That it needed such a guide does not inspire confidence.
“The fresh snow mixed indistinguishably from the ashes of the half-demolished power plant.”
Looking down a manlift on the ore dock side of the elevator. It’s a belt-less belt-o-vator!
Filters and fans to draw air into the boilers in the second power plant.
A mid-line polishing booth. It was fun to see the thousands of lasers and other sensors that guided the robotic arms and tools around the bodies as they passed. Note the red/green stop/go lights in the distance.
The Sivertson’s sign seems like from a different time. I’ve never seen it lit, but I bet it’s beautiful.
Looking into the mouth of the hopper which mine carts dumped into at the top of the Concentrator.
Exploring Dock 4 was a very different experience, since it was almost all metal.
Beside the shaft building are two fans on skids, indicating they were used underground.
If you’re an Astra-Zenica representative and want to use this for some magazine ad, I’ll charge you a reasonable $10,000. Email me (ha)!
Not a part of the Foundry, but the Enclosed Body Building. The rebar welded over the windows and the rust patterns with the lighting makes this geometric photos one of my favorites from the year.
Looking through the trestle toward the ghost town.
A staircase threads between the top floor and the sluices, which are in the middle of the dredge-mill.
Where the tailings boom meets the mill.
The two exhaust vents coming out from the boilers en route to the stacks. Plywood marks where where catwalks were removed to extract equipment.
Though it’s a little unclear what control station controlled what function, these levers seemed to relate to some of the bigger equipment inside the dredge, such as the trommel.
Bits of pulp hang from a rough grate on the first floor of the plant, which was dark because all of the equipment blocked the light. This is a grate picture.