When cave explorers meet an electric mining loco...

robertmacdowell · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 3:32 am

There's a lot of arm-waving and nay-saying on RyPN about things like GG-1s, and trolley controllers. and lithium batteries... all buzz and nonsense.

Meanwhile, here's what a couple of cave explorers did in an old mine. IN TEN MINUTES.

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Note that they needed to backpack the gear down through thousands of feet of mine tunnel, including hundreds of vertical feet.

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Coming down the manway *to* the 500' level. They're on the 600'.

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The lithium pack barely fits in the backpack.

Sort out positive from negative (unnecessary but they didn't know that)... and...

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Full video:
https://youtu.be/xrf0cOBjb5I?t=47

Connie4800 · **Joined:** Mon May 28, 2018 11:28 pm **Posts:** 90

I'd like to see them get it back up. Can't be too hard.

Rick A · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 6:49 am

So cool. Isn't this the part of the descent where they run into some prehistoric creature wjo has somehow survived and is really pissed off?

Where is this old mine?

Dennis Storzek · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 8:31 am

Beneath the streets of downtown Chicago... Oh, wait, that's now much cleaner because it's been rinsed out.

EJ Berry · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 4:22 pm

If you take the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour in Scranton PA you'll find the mine motors are still in there, waiting for the day the mines reopen.

Over in Ashland PA, the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine & Steam Train has converted a mine motor to batteries and you tour the mine on narrow gauge mine cars. There's an operating 0-4-0T steam lokie to handle the surface tour.

https://www.lackawannacounty.org/index. ... /coal-mine

http://www.pioneertunnel.com/

Phil Mulligan

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2021 5:51 pm

................ then they're no longer "cave explorers," having crossed over to a mine. >:-D

Utah Josh · **Posted:** Fri May 07, 2021 4:12 pm

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

................ then they're no longer "cave explorers," having crossed over to a mine. >:-D

This is accurate. While there is some overlap, for example when a mine breaks into a cave making it the only access, however caving and mine exploring are two distinct hobbies with different methods. There are also different rules between them; for example, to protect underground biospheres found in natural caves, many grottos do not allow clothing contaminated in a mine to be worn when entering a cave.

I happen to have met this guy once, and the amount of cool stuff he does on his trips is both incredible and entertaining. Definitely somebody who takes his hobby seriously and yet has fun at the same time.