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Show LONG TUNNEL TO COPPER MINE NOWQMPLCTED March 6 Utah Construction Company crew are presently removing re-moving equipmeent and dismantling dismantl-ing facilities following completion last week of Kennecott Copper's new 5490 ore haulage tunnel. Swing shift crew mucked out the last few feet of the tunnel Saturday Sat-urday evening and were called to a halt at midnight two year and four month after the starting date. The 18,000 foot tunt.el is one of the longest single track mine tunnel tun-nel in the United States. It will be the third tunnel serving the ex-1 pending open-pit copper mine of the Utah Copper Division and the longest. The other two tunnels are the 6040 tunnel, finished in 1945 and the 5840 tunnel finished in 1953. The latter tunnel, the longest of the two, is less than half as long as the new tunnel just completed. Although now ending some 150 feet below the present bottom of the open-pit mine, the new tunnel will eventually connect the bottom . of the pit with the Copperton Assembly As-sembly Yard at the mouth of Bingham Bing-ham Canyon. The $11,000,000 tunnel was started Oct. 30, 1956 and wa not expected to be completed until early I960. However, as the work progressed, it was estimated the project could be completed in the spring of 1959, almost a year earlier. At the present time, Utah Construction Con-struction crews are removing ventilation ven-tilation and electrical facilities throughout the tunnel. They toon will begin removing track end grading the floor of the tunnel for the permanent track which will be laid later. Construction company shops and other facilities at the mouth of the tunnel are also being dismantled and removed. These activities are expected to take about three weeks, according to C. A. Mason, project engineer, for Utah Construction Company. The tunnel project ha been under un-der the direction of Poul C. Quinn, es project manager. M. F. Finlay wa tunnel superintendent. Preliminary Prelim-inary work, including the construction construc-tion of drainage facilities at the mouth of Bingham Canyon, was actually started on Sept. 22, 1956. The new tunnel will reduce mining min-ing cost by eliminating the uphill haul by ore and waste trains coming com-ing from the bottom of the deepening deepen-ing copper mine. The project is part of Kennecott' continuing effort ef-fort to improve operation. At point, the 18,000 foot tunnel tun-nel is 1,600 feet beneath the top "lip" of the open-pit mine. The tunnel is 18 feet wide and 24 feet high and concrete lined. Plan call for centralized traffic control to coordinate movement of ore and waste train in end out of the tunnel. |