0:20 “Pingchangxin”: The vehicle’s bottom is severely frozen. We have cleaned it up and spread salt;

10:35 “Listen to the pitter-pat while leaning against the rail”: The tailings between the 3rd and 4th roads at Xinzhuang Station have been cleared up;

12:10 Cai Yongjun: The flat panel has been unloaded. You can pick up the vehicle and contact the person in charge of Xinzhuang to prepare for subsequent loading;

21:03 “Clear Sky of thousands of miles”: Ore Concentrate Station, pay attention to water and control water.

……

From the silent morning to the brilliantly-illuminated night, 24 hours a day, on-site information is continuously sent to the tailings information exchange group of the Transportation Department of Shougang Mining on WeChat. Dispatchers and shunters who stick to the tailings dumping line and all levels of management personnel who always pay attention to the on-site production line are active in the group. From 6 cranes to 9 cranes every day at the very beginning, to 11 cranes, and to a maximum of 12 cranes, the production is both high-speed and orderly.

Transformation, we can do it

In 2016, Shougang Mining decided to build a new water plant tailings dry discharge project to extend the service duration of the Xinshui tailings storage of the Water Plant Ore Mine of Shougang Mining. After the project was put into operation, the mode of transportation production organization changed greatly. In August of the same year, the construction of the supporting railway project of “tailings dry discharge” undertaken by the Transportation Department began. Cadres and workers gave up the holiday like the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day, completed 552-meter line relocation, newly-build 302-meter lines, 300-meter line refit and 854-meter line adjustments. With a new contact network of 654 meters erected, the conditions for completion and opening were met. When the railway was being constructed, the Transportation and Production Organization Plan for Supplying and Dumping of Tailings covering the contents of vehicle equipment, locomotive equipment, adjustment of job responsibilities, production organization plan, and system revision and related measures for efficiency improvement and adjustments after trial operation were also successively introduced.

With new positions and new equipment, coupled with the shortage of personnel, how to rationally allocate manpower and material resources for the tailings line and ensure the smooth operation of the entire transportation network had become the most difficult issues at the time. The train depot integrated the cargo dispatchers at Jiaozuo Station, the car checkers of the Ore Dressing Station and the supervision positions and deployed 14 new personnel to form a new team. According to the needs of the spot, the automatic dumping truck operation training and the practical operation drill of the air compressor were successively carried out. The combination of theory and practice improved the actual combat capability of the positions.

However, the job responsibilities of the shunters on the tailings line are changed. They are responsible for the loading and unloading protection of tailings and inspections; they need to deal with common faults when inspecting and unloading. They are responsible for the operation of the air compressor and the control of the isolation switch. It truly shows the “combination of operations and inspections” and multi-functions of the positions.

When faced with transformation, the workforce, with an average age of 45, has demonstrated to everyone that they could do it! Xu Maoli, who is nearly 50 years old, and used to be a shunter. Faced with the new equipment and new term of air compressor, he was a bit puzzled. How to successfully obtain an air compressor operation permit? That was the most troublesome issue for him at that time. As training time was limited, he consulted an electrician whenever he had the time. While studying the teaching materials, he carried out practical operation. Eventually, he passed the exam and formally took up the job.

Innovation, smart integration

After the tailings, dry discharge project was put into operation, due to the large moisture content of tailings, tailings and water leaked along the gap between the floor and the door of the automatic dumping truck during transportation. In response, the Transportation Department concentrated its efforts on cleaning up the tailings scattered in station yards, turnouts, crossings, and railway lines during transportation. Six different workshops were contracted for different areas of responsibility. Workers also cleaned up the scattered tailings by shovels. The vehicle repair section found old belts and strips to transform the automatic dumping trucks by fastening with screws. During the transformation process, workers discovered that the belts could only be cut with paper cutter, but time waited for no one. Guo Qingliang, leader of the crowd-sourcing innovation studio, led everyone to produce a belt drilling rig platform to simultaneously punch three layers of belts at the same time, which improved the efficiency of transformation, and effectively controlled the problem of tailings leakage. Guo Qingliang said with emotion: “We have reduced tailings leakage with our own efforts. Although we paid a lot during the transformation, it has saved the overall situation of transportation, which is worthwhile.”

Subsequently, problems arose. During the unloading, some large sandstone easily jammed in the belts to form gaps, which resulted in lax sealing. As a result, the lines in the station areas such as Xinzhuang Station and Peizhuang Station were not cleared in time, which affected the normal traffic. In this regard, the workers of the train depot made use of scrap iron and iron rods to make sickle-shaped iron hook tools to remove the sandstone that jammed under belts. At the same time, they learned from the method of preparing the outboard vehicle and used foam rubber to block vehicle gaps after tailings were dumped, which had a good effect.

In the tailings dry discharge project, there was only one line available at the 104th station, so the vehicle couldn’t be directly received. It was not until the last empty excavator went back into the station, got loaded and dispatched that the next excavator could work again. Locomotives had a large workload and the tailings line was idle for more than one hour. “It is necessary to have effective tools to do good work.” The Transportation Department expanded the tailings dry discharge transportation line by transforming the original two lines of the 104th station, and moving the 2nd and 3rd southern signals to the south by 50 meters to extend the two railway lines. It satisfied both the parking requirements of locomotives and 22 dump trucks and realized the requirement of the 104th station to directly receive and dispatch tailings empty and load vehicles.

With the gradual increase in the volume of tailings dry discharge and dumping, the Transportation Department’s engineering projects continued to advance. At the end of October 2017, the second extension of the Peizhuang Railway was implemented. One and a half months later, the 187-meter railway line extension and the 108-meter contact network erection task of the Peizhuang tailings line were completed. Now they have passed the acceptance check and been put into use, which lays a foundation for generating revenue by tailings dry discharge.

Stand fast, the old “workers” become new recruits

After the tailings, dry discharge project was put into operation, the workers of the Transportation Department keep working as if they were wound. Check, hang buckle, contact, and dump; platform cleaning, inspection and maintenance, real-time reporting... Shunters keep working and talk more.

 “I work at the scene for the whole day. I have to attend to many aspects, so I can’t be relaxed. Especially when it’s hazy, the scene will be foggy, so I have to be more careful.” Li Chunhe, the shunter, said: “Every season has its own difficulties. No matter what happens, we must be careful.”

A heavy snowfall in early 2017 covered the entire mine. With the temperature plummeting, the silt tailings on the line bed became frozen severely and could not be manually cleaned. In order to ensure that the tailings could be dumped smoothly, the Transportation Department arranged cranes to crush the scattered tailings. The snow was still on. The squeaking sound of crushing constantly echoed in the open yard.

Wang Xinmin, head of Xinzhuang Station, bent down all the way to check the damage on railway lines and roadbeds. He kept working for several hours. Snow falling all over the sky whitened his hat and collar. It was cold. He stamped the ground from time to time. After half a day’s work, the frozen tailings in the station were crushed. After a simple lunch, he began to organize personnel to load the crushed tailings...

Winter comes again. They become busy again. However, workers on the tailings line work hard. They drive away chill with passion, and win the campaign of tailings production with a positive and optimistic attitude.