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71-505: The train began running in 1976, and closed in 1994, after a train lost power and rolled backwards down the track into a second train, injuring about 30 people. Parts of the line were subsequently taken over by the Zoomobile, an open-air tractor-drawn vehicle with five stations (Main Station, Canadian Domain Station, Africa Station, Americas Station) which had been operating since 1980. The vehicle

142-504: A monorail . Twenty-four vehicles were purchased for the system, sometimes operating in four-car trains during periods of increased demand. Known as the Toronto Zoo Domain Ride , the system opened in 1976. In March 1991 nine people were injured when two trains collided. In spite of a warning that major maintenance was needed to fix problems in the brakes and motors, in 1994 another accident occurred that injured thirty. The zoo

213-587: A network of tracks. Most competing AGT systems operated at a fixed speed that was much lower than the Dashaveyor, and normally followed fixed routes. They purchased the company and turned it into a subsidiary, developing the AGT versions in Ann Arbor, Michigan . Conversion to an AGT system was relatively straightforward. The steel wheels were replaced with rubber ones, which ran in a narrow concrete guideway structure instead of

284-653: A notable amount of silver , both in native form and naturally alloyed with the copper. Halfbreed is the term for an ore sample that contains the pure copper and pure silver in the same piece of rock; it is only found in the native copper deposits of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Native Americans were the first to mine and work the copper of Lake Superior and the Keweenaw Peninsula of northern Michigan between 5000 BCE and 1200 BCE. The natives used this copper to produce tools. Archaeological expeditions in

355-530: A second that was in the process of loading. Upon leaving the Weston station, a train would have to climb a hill; however, at the top of the hill, the train lost power and rolled back into the station at an estimated 40 km/h (25 mph), slamming into the front of a second train that was loading. In general, trains would be spaced out by 15–20 minutes; however, due to a larger-than-usual attendance, trains were operating more frequently, and were more crowded too –

426-545: A single automated one, controlled from a central operating station. One such system was installed and operated at the White Pine mine from 1968 to 1972, but was considered a failure. Bendix Corporation purchased the rights to the basic Dashaveyor system in order to use it as the basis for an AGT system during the heyday of urban transport research in the late 1960s. Often referred to as the Bendix-Dashaveyor in this form,

497-433: A single mass of copper, miners could spend months chiseling it into pieces small enough to hoist out of the mine. Although they were pure copper, removing the masses took a great deal of effort, and was sometimes not even profitable. The majority of the copper recovered was "barrel copper" (pieces broken from the rock and hand sorted in the "rock house," and shipped to the smelter in barrels), and finer copper broken loose from

568-414: A solution, but as they traveled in traffic their speeds were not comparable to separated rail systems. They key appeared to be to use smaller vehicles, which reduced the size of the entire system; stations, tracks and switches all took up less room and cost less to build. However, smaller vehicles also have lower passenger capacities, a problem for rush hour periods. In the 1960s a solution to this problem

639-635: A strip about two miles (3.2 km) wide and 24 miles (39 km) long, from the Champion mine on the southwest to the Ahmeek mine on the northeast, passing through the towns of Houghton , Hancock , and Calumet . In the early 20th century, copper companies began to consolidate. With very few exceptions, such as the Quincy Mine at Hancock , the mines in the Copper Country came under the control of two companies:

710-692: A thick sequence of northwest-dipping sandstones , conglomerates , ash beds, and flood basalts associated with the Keweenawan Rift . The native copper deposits originate in fissures, steeply dipping veins or in the amygdaloid top portion of the Portage Lake Lava Series lava tops and conglomerate beds. This series of lava "is at least 15,000 feet thick in the Michigan copper district" and consists of "several hundred flood basalt flows." The district rocks are Precambrian in age and belong to

781-430: A traction gear that engaged rack gears between the running rails that allowed them to climb high grades at lower speeds. Optional elevator -like systems allowed the cars to move vertically as well. The idea was to build an offshore terminal with docks equipped with Dashaveyor tracks instead of a conventional container shipping port on land. An operator would load containers onto Dashaveyor cars, which would then enter

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852-536: A tunnel to move them at high speed to the shore. There they would exit the tunnel and automatically drive the container to its storage location, and optionally lift it to stack them. In a Dashaveyor equipped port, a single vehicle would pick up, move and stack the containers. Normally each of these steps required a separate, manned, vehicle. Additionally, the ships never had to enter port, which had major advantages in terms of siting and construction. The system would also be useful for similar roles where any sort of freight

923-575: Is found almost exclusively in the western portion of the Upper Peninsula , in an area known as the Copper Country . The Copper Country is highly unusual among copper-mining districts, because copper is predominantly found in the form of pure copper metal ( native copper ) rather than the copper oxides or copper sulfides that form the copper ore at almost every other copper-mining district. The copper deposits occur in rocks of Precambrian age, in

994-653: Is located on the Yellow Dog Plains , about 25 miles northwest of Marquette , in Michigan 's Upper Peninsula. Construction work started in 2010, with commercial production commencing 2014 and anticipated to last up to nine years. After mining is finished the site will be reclaimed. The mine is expected to produce 360 million pounds of nickel, 295 million pounds of copper and small amounts of other metals over its nine-year mine life (2014 to Q4 2023). Other base metals include platinum, palladium, and cobalt. Ores will be processed at

1065-508: The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company north of Portage Lake , and Copper Range Company south of Portage Lake . Annual production peaked in 1916 at 266 million pounds (121,000 metric tons) of copper. Most mines closed during the Great Depression as a result of depressed copper prices. Many mines reopened during World War II , when wartime demand pushed copper prices higher. The end of

1136-576: The Cliff mine , began operations in 1845, and many others quickly followed. These first mines worked copper-filled fissure veins that cut across stratigraphic layers. Although the copper-mining region stretched about 100 miles from northeast to southwest, the most productive early mines, working fissure veins, were those at the north end in Keweenaw County (such as the Central, Cliff, and Phoenix mines), or at

1207-510: The Homestake Mining Company . None of these attempts lasted more than a couple of years or proved profitable. The copper industry was, for over 100 years, the life blood of the Copper Country. The town of Red Jacket (now Calumet ) used a portion of its budget surplus to build The Calumet Theatre , an opulent opera house which hosted famous plays and acts from across the world. Many wealthy mine managers built mansions which still line

1278-555: The Keweenaw Waterway . Most of these sterile sands are now superfund sites which are slowly being rehabilitated. Mines also required a great deal of wood, for supports in mine tunnels, housing, and steam generation. Virtually every part of the Copper Country was cleared of timber, to the extent that only a few small areas of old-growth forest like (the Estivant Pines ) are left. Formerly cleared lands have been left to regrow, to

1349-620: The Lake Superior region prized copper nuggets that they found there. Indians guided missionary Claude Dablon to the Ontonagon Boulder , a 1.5-ton piece of native copper along the Ontonagon River . When American prospectors arrived in the 1840s, pieces of copper were found in streams or on the ground. Douglass Houghton 's 1841 copper report, followed by the Treaty of La Pointe in 1843,

1420-621: The Vietnam War and Project Apollo , leaving the aerospace industry with a sudden lack of projects. Many of the HUD research funds were directed towards aerospace companies, and a wide variety of AGT programs followed. One of these companies was the Bendix Corporation , who found the Dashaveyor concept and decided it would make the basis for a competitive AGT system. Its main advantages in this role were its high speed and its ability to switch among

1491-580: The Calumet conglomerate, was opened by the Calumet and Hecla mining company in 1865. "Large scale production ceased in 1939." While the most successful fissure mines had been at the north and south ends of the district, the conglomerate and amygdaloid mines, which produced the great majority of Michigan copper, were concentrated in the center of the district, almost all in Houghton County. The most productive conglomerate and amygdaloid mines were located along

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1562-494: The GO-Urban decision. For the zoo deployment, a greatly simplified operating system was needed. Since the schedules were relatively slow, on the order of 10 minutes between trains, the automated system was not needed. The cars were modified to place a small operator cabin at the front of some of them, entered through a separate door. Trains normally operated in four-car units, with the cabins facing front and rear. The rear-facing cabin

1633-1041: The Humboldt Mill in Michigamme Township. The concentrate is loaded into covered train cars and shipped to smelters in either Canada or Europe. Eagle Mine was the first operation to be permitted under Michigan's Non-Ferrous Metallic Mining Law, better known as Part 632. On March 13, 2013, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued Orvana Corporation, of Toronto, Ont. final permits to begin mining north of Wakefield, in Gogebic County. Orvana estimates that approximately one billion pounds of copper are present at their site, along with smaller quantities of silver. Studies indicate that 800 million pounds (360,000 metric tons) of copper can be extracted, as well as 3,456,000 ounces of silver. Production would last 13 years, based on those reserves. The project

1704-484: The I-beam rails. The guideway was roughly the size and shape of a pedestrian sidewalk, with short vertical extension on either side to form a U-shape. Small horizontal wheels at the front of the cars pressed against the vertical sections and guided the main wheels around corners. Power was provided via a third rail system attached to the top of the right vertical extension (as seen in the direction of travel). The vehicle body

1775-544: The Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale revealed the existence of copper producing pits and hammering stones which were used to work the copper. Some authors have suggested that as much as 1.5 billion pounds of copper was extracted during this period, but some archaeologists consider such high figures as "ill-constructed estimates" and that the actual figure is unknown. Archaeologist Susan Martin wrote that "The competent excavation of many prehistoric archaeological sites in

1846-583: The Keweenawan Series. The first six years of mining exploited the fissure deposits, then gave way to the amygdaloidal deposits. Although native copper was the dominant ore mineral, chalcocite (copper sulfide) was sometimes present, and, especially in the Mohawk mine, copper arsenide minerals such as mohawkite and domeykite . Gangue minerals included calcite , quartz , epidote , chlorite , and various zeolites . A number of copper mines also contained

1917-583: The Lake Superior basin reveals the continuous use of copper throughout the prehistoric time range, in association with all of the other items of material culture (projectile points, pottery and the like) that are without a doubt the products of native technologies. Many of these sites have been dated reliably by radiocarbon means.... Clearly, copper-working continues up until the years of aboriginal contact with seventeenth-century Europeans. The speculators could at least acknowledge these facts rather than pretend that

1988-658: The Upper Peninsula boomed, and from 1845 until 1887 (when it was exceeded by Butte, Montana ) the Michigan Copper Country was the nation's leading producer of copper. In most years from 1850 through 1881, Michigan produced more than three-quarters of the nation's copper, and in 1869 produced more than 95% of the country's copper. Commercial production began in 1844 at the Phoenix mine. Most early miners began with little knowledge or planning, and few mines ever saw production, much less profit. The first successful copper mine,

2059-459: The association of copper with indigenous people doesn’t exist." By the time the first European explorers arrived, the area was the home of the Chippewa people, who did not mine copper. According to Chippewa traditions, they had much earlier supplanted the original miners. The first written account of copper in Michigan was given by French missionary Claude Allouez in 1667. He noted that Indians of

2130-464: The cars to climb higher graded areas. The cars sat between the rails, hanging down between them, with doors on top that opened and closed automatically to keep the ore from falling out when in motion. Major portions of the network were enclosed in rectangular tubes to protect them from the elements, especially snow. The cars could be loaded at 5 mph (8.0 km/h) without stopping, and traveled at up to 52 mph (84 km/h) on straight sections of

2201-761: The chain barriers. The Main Station still remains to this day and is now used for several purposes: the Peacock Cafe, and the Main Zoomobile station. During March break of 1991, nine people were injured when a train crashed into the rear of a second train that was stopped between stations. In December of that year, the Metro Zoo board of directors was warned that the monorail needed repair to its braking and propulsion systems in order to prevent future accidents. On July 11, 1994, 37 people suffered injuries (including broken bones and whiplash ) when one train crashed into

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2272-451: The company's Calumet division. By this time the Calumet and Hecla's original conglomerate workings had been abandoned and stamp sand reclamation had ended. The mines did not even produce enough copper to supply the company's internal demand. The company opened several new shafts and dewatered several old ones in hopes of finding additional wealth, but none were successful. Later that year, Calumet and Hecla's mine workers went out on strike, and

2343-652: The copper deposits in 1841, which quickly began a rush of prospectors. Mining took place along a belt that stretched about 100 miles southwest to northeast through Ontonagon , Houghton , and Keweenaw counties. Isle Royale , on the north side of Lake Superior , was extensively explored, and a smelter built, but no mining of any importance took place there. Some copper mineralization was found in Keweenawan rocks farther southwest in Douglas County, Wisconsin , but no successful mines were developed there. Copper mining in

2414-607: The deal was modified to the first 15 years of operation. The plan was approved by the Toronto Zoo board in December 2018. Construction was to begin after Magnovate raised sufficient funding to cover the estimated CA$ 25 million cost. The firm hoped to complete construction by 2021. However, this project is delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto . Dashaveyor The Dashaveyor

2485-608: The earliest major sales efforts for the Dashaveyor AGT was a system for the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport . Bendix and Varo both received parts of a $ 1 million grant from the new Urban Mass Transit Administration to study the system. Both bids came in well over the airport's budget, and in the end it was won by the Vought Airtrans . A similar system for Newark International Airport ended when

2556-604: The embossing machines used to produce the BankAmericard, the first plastic bank credit card system, which later evolved into Visa . Dashew moved into the area of offshore oil loading in the 1960s, and was instrumental in the creation of the single-point mooring systems used in modern terminals, as well as the omnidirectional thrusters used to maneuver the ships up to the moors. As a part of these developments, Dashew became interested in using similar offshore mooring to handle bulk freight as well, especially container shipping which

2627-505: The entire project was put on hold. In 1972, the company displayed the Dashaveyor as one of four major deployments shown at the Transpo '72 show in Washington, D.C. Like the other vendors, Bendix found little third-party interest in the AGT market, and was one of the first vendors to withdraw from the market, inactive by 1975. Bendix had found a customer willing to act as a prototype site,

2698-462: The extent that many parcels of land are now being harvested on a limited basis by timber and paper companies. The copper-bearing Nonesuch Shale at the south end of the Copper Country in Ontonagon County had been known since the 1800s. But the ore grades were too low, the ore mineral particles too small, and the copper was largely in sulfides instead of native copper. All these conditions made

2769-521: The first train was carrying 60 passengers. As a result, the Zoo was fined C$ 43,000, and trial evidence indicated that the ride operator was "inadequately trained to handle the 'unusual situation'". The current Zoomobile is a Chance Coach Sunliner tram with four cars set (carrying 103 passengers, 1 driver and 1 tour guide) that replaced the Domain Ride and vehicles have rubber tires running on along paved paths in

2840-720: The major industries. The copper industry left many abandoned mines and buildings across the Copper Country. Some of these are now part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park . Some mines, such as the Adventure mine , Quincy Mine , and the Delaware mine , are open as tourist attractions. Many other mining lands are simply left abandoned. Copper mining also took a significant impact on the environment. Mine rock processing operations left many fields of stamp sand , some of which grew so large as to become hazards to navigation in

2911-457: The mine for pharmaceutical research. The July 7th 2021 edition of the local news outlet Keweenaw Report has the headline: Mining set to return to White Pine . In addition to sedimentary copper ores that dominate the Upper Peninsula, Eagle Mine is a high-grade magmatic nickel-copper (Ni-Cu) sulfide-bearing deposit discovered by Rio Tinto in 2002 and later sold to Lundin Mining (2013). Eagle Mine

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2982-617: The mine site. The tailings impoundment at the White Pine Mine is presently the site of significant environmental degradation . The University of Montana undertook extensive efforts to restore and revegetate the barren landscape from 1997 to 1999, but it is unclear whether this has been successful. The university has published a detailed report of its project. Satellite images are available at ( 46°47′17.91″N 89°31′47.97″W  /  46.7883083°N 89.5299917°W  / 46.7883083; -89.5299917 ). In 2012, SubTerra used

3053-443: The mooring points were so far offshore that the movement from the ship to the land-side terminal would be a significant delay. The system they designed operated at speeds up to 80 mph (130 km/h) in order to reduce these delays. A variety of options were available to improve flexibility. The cars were normally powered by two electric motors spinning steel wheels that ran on steel rails at high speeds, but could optionally include

3124-425: The nearby mill. They reached an agreement with Dashaveyor in 1966 to install a pilot system, and when this proved successful, the two companies signed a contract for a complete system. Starting in 1967, workers laid 27,000 feet (8,200 m) of guideway rail for about $ 2.5 million. The rails consisted of two I-beams for the running wheels, with an optional rack gear on the bottom that could be engaged to allow

3195-506: The new Toronto Zoo that would be opening in 1974. The zoo covered 700 acres (2.8 km ), which made walking the site a difficult proposition. Boeing also entered a bid based on their new version of the Alden staRRcar . At the same time, the provincial government was in the midst of planning a major AGT system known as GO-Urban , and Bendix was one of many companies to bid for that project. The Zoo system would be an excellent demonstration for

3266-469: The new owners closed the mines for good. Only the Copper Range company's White Pine mine remained open, and its ore was mostly copper sulfides, rather than native copper. Michigan's native copper industry was essentially dead, after producing 11 billion pounds (5.0 million metric tons) of copper. Several companies attempted to reopen copper mines during the next two decades, including attempts by

3337-403: The north end of the zoo property. In addition to being a quick way to travel between sections of the zoo, the ride provided the only way to view several animals, in remote areas of the zoo. Moose , white-tailed deer and several other exhibits were not accessible from walking paths. The ride operator would provide commentary on the animals visible from the train during the ride. Plans to scrap

3408-413: The ore blasted out, hoisted to the surface, and sent to stamp mills located at a different site. Amygdaloid and conglomerate mining turned out to be much more productive and profitable than fissure mining, and the majority of highly successful mines were on amygdaloid or conglomerate lodes. The first mine to successfully mine a stratiform ore body was the Quincy Mine in 1856. The most productive deposit,

3479-517: The ore to the original shaft. The new shaft was used for ventilation after this point. In 1968 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a series of reports, known simply as the HUD reports , that described the problems in modern cities due to the rapid expansion of suburbs in the 1950s. The rise of the suburbs led to a flight of capital from the city centres, which in turn led to

3550-570: The permit in May 1996, and White Pine installed a pilot in-situ leaching project. Native Americans of the Bad River Indian Reservation in northern Wisconsin blockaded rail shipments of sulfuric acid to the mine (see Bad River Train Blockade ); the mine began receiving acid shipments by truck. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which had previously held that it had no role in

3621-544: The permitting, reversed itself, and stated that White Pine would have to apply for a federal permit. White Pine, which had already started to recover copper from the pilot project, suspended solution mining in October 1996, and applied for to the EPA for the permit. In May 1997 the company withdrew the EPA permit application, saying that further permitting delays had made the project uneconomical, and announced plans to begin reclamation of

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3692-522: The publicity of the Ontonagon Boulder back east, and a federal mineral land office at Copper Harbor kicked off the mine rush. The copper pits abandoned by Native Americans led early miners to most of the first successful mines. "All the principal ore deposits were thus known before 1900, and each was discovered in exposures at or close to grass roots." The Michigan State Geologist Douglass Houghton (later to become mayor of Detroit ) reported on

3763-418: The rock in stamp mills and separated by gravity in "buddles" or "jigs." In the 1850s, mining began on stratiform native copper deposits in felsite -pebble conglomerates and in the upper zones of basalt lava flows (locally called amygdaloids ). Although amygdaloid and conglomerate deposits tended to be lower-grade than the fissure deposits, they were much larger, and could be mined much more efficiently, with

3834-646: The shale deposits uneconomical, although repeated attempts were made to mine the shale at the Nonesuch Mine . In 1955 the Copper Range Company began large-scale mining at the White Pine mine, near the old Nonesuch mine. The deposit is a stratiform deposit in the lower 15 m of the Proterozoic Nonesuch Shale and the upper 2 m of the underlying Copper Harbor Conglomerate. The principal ore mineral

3905-566: The south end in Ontonagon County (such as the Minesota Mine ). In Keweenaw County, the fissure lodes were nearly vertical mineralized zones with strike nearly perpendicular to that of the enclosing basalts and conglomerates. In Ontonagon County, by contrast, the fissures had strikes nearly parallel to, and dips slightly steeper than, the surrounding beds. The miners sometimes found masses of native copper up to hundreds of tons. To extract

3976-434: The streets of former mining towns. Some towns which existed primarily due to copper mining include Calumet , Houghton , Hancock , and Ontonagon . As the mines began to close, the Copper Country lost its major economic base. The population declined sharply as miners, shop owners, and others supported by the industry left the area, leaving many small ghost towns along the mineral range. Tourism, education, and logging are now

4047-459: The system used the basic design of the cargo system, but with a larger passenger body running on rubber wheels. Only one such system was installed, the 5 km long Toronto Zoo Domain Ride which operated from 1976 until a lack of proper maintenance led to an accident that forced its closure in 1994. The Dashaveyor concept started with Stanley Dashew , a prolific inventor who is best known for building

4118-436: The track. Cars were normally linked to form small trains to increase route capacity, but could be detached to operate independently, all under the control of a single operator. In 1972 Copper Range stated that "Design problems could not be solved" and that they were ending experiments with the system. This left the mine with no way to haul the ore from the new shaft to the mill, and they fell back on underground systems to bring

4189-503: The vehicle and tracks dragged well past 1999. Portions of the guideway have now been removed, while others remain in place (overgrown by vegetation in many areas), but the electrical supply rails have been removed from the remaining portions of the guideway. Three stations remain in place: the Americas station stands behind closed gates, and the Weston station is still accessible for washrooms—the crumbling station platform can be seen from behind

4260-427: The war brought an end to high prices, and nearly all companies closed, leaving only the Calumet and Hecla, Quincy, and Copper Range mining companies. Both Calumet and Hecla and Quincy survived largely by reprocessing the stamp sand left from older mining operations, leaching out copper left by more primitive processing techniques. By 1968 the formerly great Calumet and Hecla was purchased by Universal Oil and became

4331-509: The widespread urban decay seen in the 1960s. The reports noted that cities with well-developed mass transportation systems avoided the worse of these problems. However, these systems were very expensive, and were only suitable for the densely populated areas of large cities. The reports called for a government-supported development project to design mass transit systems with greatly reduced capital and operating costs, making them suitable for less-dense environments. Busses and streetcars offered

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4402-485: The zoo. Unlike the Domain Ride, the Zoomobile uses open air cars. Zoo management has looked into plans for a maglev train operation replacing the Toronto Zoo Domain Ride. The Edmonton-based maglev consortium Magnovate, which includes Magna and Lockheed Martin , would pay for the construction, as well as the first five years of operation, while the zoo would pay for the operation afterwards. In November 2018,

4473-562: Was chalcocite , although native copper predominated in the lower part of the beds. The mine was very successful, producing more than 1.8 million metric tons (4.0 billion pounds) of copper during its life. The White Pine mine, the last major copper mine in Michigan, shut down in 1995. The company applied to government agencies to continue mining by in-situ leaching , using sulfuric acid to recover an additional 900 million pounds (410,000 metric tons) of copper by SX-EW . The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved

4544-427: Was a rubber-wheeled AGT prototype developed by American firm Bendix-Dashaveyor . The train operated on a concrete guideway with electricity supplied by rails located above one side of the guideway. Passengers entered and left via doors located at each double row of facing seats. A secondary set of controls was available in the last car of the train to allow it to be reversed into the storage/service area located towards

4615-502: Was an automated guideway transit (AGT) system developed during the 1960s and '70s. Originally developed by the Dashaveyor Company for moving cargo, the system used motorized pallets that could be routed on the fly to any destination in an extended network. The pallets could run at high speeds between stations, climb steep grades at slower speeds, and even climb vertically. They were designed to replace several manned vehicles with

4686-452: Was becoming practical; using automated guideway transit (AGT) technologies, the cars could be made to run much closer together to improve capacity. Their small size and lack of a driver would improve economics; payrolls amount to 60% to 70% of the operating costs of traditional transportation systems. When funding was announced in 1968, the US was in the midst of winding down construction for both

4757-415: Was being moved from point to point using custom vehicles; the company advertised the system for mining, trans-shipping, large factory automation and warehousing. In 1965 the Copper Range company decided to dig a new shaft at their White Pine mine in Michigan. Copper Range was involved in a number of different technology projects, and for the new shaft they decided to experiment with automated ore hauling to

4828-572: Was extended upward and generally enlarged to form a van-like structure holding 31 passengers. An image of the vehicle was published in Popular Science in its November 1971 edition in a story about personal rapid transit Each car had three sets of automated doors, entering into a set of facing seats. This divided the internal area into sections; it was not possible to walk the length of the vehicle, nor were there provisions for standing. They were normally operated in trains of two or four cars. One of

4899-538: Was fined $ 43,000, and instead of fixing the system the board of directors decided to close the system, and operations ended that year. Copper mining in Michigan#White Pine mine In Michigan , copper mining became an important industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rise marked the start of copper mining as a major industry in the United States . Within the state of Michigan , copper

4970-522: Was rapidly dominating the industry. After consulting with experts in the automated warehousing field for several months, he incorporated the Dashveyor Company in 1963 in California to develop these ideas. The company's solution to this problem was an automated conveyor, similar to the track-based systems being introduced for industrial automation and warehousing systems. Unlike those systems, however,

5041-401: Was used while backing up the trains. The operator also doubled as the tour guide. Three miles of track wound around the site, with a spur running to a maintenance depot at the northern end of the zoo. Most of the track was laid at ground level, although there were elevated portions above terrain features. In spite of operating on four wheels similar to a bus, the system was often referred to as

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