I've been browsing some of the fantastic user images and historic images of cornish mines... and the surface machinery. I just had a few questions about the EPAL whim and wondered if anyone could show me the light?

I'm guessing from the photo below that the whim was connected to the headgear? and didn't have a shaft directly under the flywheel?

Also I wondered what the elevated structure was that runs around the headgear and into the foreground of the photo?

cheers in advance!

Photograph:

🔗East-Pool-and-Agar-Tin-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-001[linkphoto]East-Pool-and-Agar-Tin-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-001[/linkphoto][/link]

The hoisting rope woud go from the whim to the sheave wheels supported by the headframe which would, for obvious reasons, be over the shaft. I'm assuming the drum is to the left of the photo next to winder engine house. Mind it's normally fatal when I asume anything. By elevated structure if it's what I think you mean I'm afraid I have no idea.

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What you have here is Mitchell's Whim engine (around 1890) which was used for raising ore out of Mitchell's Shaft which as you say is under the headgear. The engine beam rotated (via the sweep rod) a crank to the left of the wooden shed, this in turn rotated the axle to which it was fastened, onto which were mounted two cable drums either side of the flywheel in the middle (the flywheel helped maintain the the smooth momentum of the engine). The cables were fed out of the wooden hut enclosing the cable drums and over the wheels atop of the head gear and onto a pulley on top of the skip enabling it to be lowered and raised in the shaft.

The engine is preserved today by the National Trust and can be seen in action during the summer. Its a great survivor and worth a visit.

Here is a closer view of the cable drums etc, the shed has been demolished along time ago.
[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-856-Image-012/[/img]
[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-856-Image-014/[/img]
[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-856-Image-013/[/img]
The headgear has of course gone too.
[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-856-Image-015/[/img]

The structure you refer to is an experimental Telpher monorail (erected 1890/1) which was intended to replace horse haulage of the ore to the mill, but it never really took off and remained a bit of an experiment.

Hope this helps. anything else please ask.

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Fine photos ICLOCK and as you say well worth a visit. The copy of the old photo I have is A3 size and not good on contrast as you will have noticed but surprising the amount of detail you can pick out. I didn't know about the monorail. Doesn't look big enough to carry much ore.

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Many thanks for the answers carnkie and ICLOK... i'm guessing that monorail was an underslung one?

I spotted this photo http://www.stagnesforum.com/images/walk7img/large/b.jpg  of Wheal Coates and wondered if the structures in that were similar to the ones at Mitchells Shaft... but im guessing not now knowing that thats a monorail... ?

No in the picture you have of Coates the structure to the rear is a water launder made of timber coming from the top of the pumps rising main.

You are right it was underslung.

Cornish mining is full of the weird and wonderful, they had to be inventive and thats what has kept me interested is the variations in engineering to be seen.

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My guess is it only carried a small tub size load probably similar to a Blondin type trolley from Dinorwic in size and volume, basically a small wagon or container. Not been able to find any other pictures thus far but will look.

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I think the shaft at eastpool mine is buried somewhere on the soutthern edge of the tourist carpark?

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Yes I think you are right, its at the edge under the tarmac.

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Funny I've been sitting here thinking about the position of the shaft before I read this. given the angle of the engine house I'm having a problem with locating it at the southern end of the car park. Would it not be nearer the northern edge? In fact it couldn't have been a million miles from the road.

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Also I wondered what the elevated structure was that runs around the headgear and into the foreground of the photo?

I would assume it's a launder carrying water to a part of the mine where it was required - perhaps the dressing floors
Regards TM

I was told it was on the Car Park by the fence on the southern Edge of the Car Park (there was no edge of course years ago) where it meets the Eastern edge (in the corner), even then its close to the road only being about 1 to 1.5 engine house widths off the road based on my OS of the site from the 1890's.

Quick up date... just found an archive pic taken off the road...
come straight forward of the engine house to the Eastern edge of car park then off set to the North so that the Centre line of the Sheave wheels is dead central to the fly wheel. By my estimation its about 25-30 feet off the edge of the road on the eastern boudry of the carpark. So about in the corner where the bloke showed me.

Really struggling to get any info on the Telpher Monorail though... No pics anywhere :thumbdown:

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About here then?

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-057[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-057[/linkphoto][/link]

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Spot on.... Remember the road was not as wide then either.

[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-856-Image-016/[/img]

This positions it nicely

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Also I wondered what the elevated structure was that runs around the headgear and into the foreground of the photo?

I would assume it's a launder carrying water to a part of the mine where it was required - perhaps the dressing floors
Regards TM

If you look at the enlarged version of the photo the horizontal part of the structure is more of a vertical flat section. Can't see how that could have been a launder, no where for the water to be carried. Also why have a launder supported by sideways projecting stands (sorry, can't think of a good way to describe it), would make sense for an underslung monorail though.

It was definately A Telpher Monorail... found a copy of the picture with it referenced.

The definition of a Telpher Monorail being as follows-

A small traveling car, usually driven by electricity, suspended from or moving on an overhead rail or cable.
A transportation system using telphers.
tr.v., -phered, -pher·ing, -phers.
To transport by telpher.

[Alteration of telepher : TELE– + Greek pherein, to carry.]

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No doubt about it, that is definately the Telpher Monorail. Mitchells Shaft is exactly where Malcolm puts it and a few years ago it made a brief appearence on the edge of the Quickfit forecourt, pulling a large section of tarmac down into the hole. They had a swing shovel there for about 2 weeks putting it right. Curiously enough, the shaft is still wide open at the adit level.

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Just Found this on the net, the description is similar in a few ways to the one in the photo. For such a new and inovative invention, it's odd that little has been recorded of it;
In 1885, the first electric telpher line*, an aerial tramway, was opened in Britain by Viscountess Hampden with a simple ceremony. It was built to carry clay from the pits at Glynde in Sussex to the railway. The line, nearly one mile long, was made with a double set of steel rods, each 66-ft long, 3/4-in in diameter and 8-ft apart, supported on wooden posts at a height of about 18-ft above the ground. An electric locomotive hauls ten buckets at a speed of up to 5 mph, hanging by their travelling wheels from the same steel line which carried the electric current. Each 100-lb bucket carried up to 300-lb of clay. The inventor, who had died four months earlier, was Fleeming Jenkin, who coined the name "telpher" line to mean, in general, "the transmission of goods and passengers by means of electricity without driver, guard, signal-man, or attendants."«

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Thats what I like about this site we seem to get the answers in the end, I'm into industrial railways and am still going to try and get a photo. Am at a railway auction today with a guy who I hope will know all about this type of system.

Thanks Roy

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I've just found this in a construction industry website
"Telfer, telpher, monorail ~ An electric hoist hanging from a wheeled cab moving on a single overhead rail, occasionally from a steel rope. It is used in factories, hung from roof girders and over dams being built. An overbead gantry may be built to carry the rail. The difference between an aerial ropeway and a rope-borne telfer is that telfers are driven by a motor in the cab, ropeways are pulled by a rope driven by a stationary engine."[i]
It appears that "telfers" are common in factories (so common that the word "Telfer" is used as a verb)
Only goes to show what a Johnny no mates I am to be looking this stuff up on a Saturday night !!

Oh yes the url (if you're as sad as me) is "http://www.theconstructionlibrary.com/index.php?option=com_glossary&func=display&page=99&catid=6&Itemid=12"[i]

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