My Time at Tom Price

Map showing location of Tom Price in WA.

During August of 2006, I spent 35 days in the Iron Ore Mine at Tom Price in the North of WA. I worked as a Trade Assistant up the top of the Mine in the Pit. What our job entailed, was changing out the old rock crusher for a reconditioned one from Japan. The original Primary Crusher had been in place since 1967 or so and it took the full 35 days to remove the old one and replace it with the new one. The Crusher is a mechanism which has a rotating Mantle within a shell, when the Dump Trucks dump their rock into the pit, it falls through the crusher, thus getting crushed. The heaviest part of the Crusher was 80 tonne from memory, that was the Mantle.

This is a rough diagram of the different levels and what things are called so as I post photos it can be used as reference :) :) The rock was dumped in the Dump pocket, crushed thru the crusher and then the conveyors at the bottom took it out for further processing.

The Dump Pocket. This is the very top of the Crusher where the Dump Trucks back into and dump the raw rocks.