Sam Musso kindly supplied me with an answer to my question about a "rope rider." Here it is in case any of you were also curious. Cathy ======================================= Hoist House - Steam powered, two drums working opposite to each other pulled two cables into the mine shaft and around a "Bull Wheel" at the far end of the shaft (the parting) where the mine cars were collected to be pulled out of the mine in trips of about twenty, each carrying about one ton of coal. The cars were coupled together and the hoist rope attached to the front and the tail rope to the back end of the string. The rope rider rode on the back car and signalled the hoist operator in the hoist house with a system of buzzers which were operated by shorting a pair of bare wires running on the roof above the tracks. These wires were also the telephone line from the hoist house to the "parting". Inside the mine the shaft ran up and down hills as on the surface as the shaft followed the curves of the coal seam so it was the hoist operators skill to know when to pull the cable and when to slack it off to keep the trip rolling steadily toward the entrance. The track was doubled between the hoist house and the tipple, a line of empty cars can be seen to the left of the hoist house. The loaded cars will come out on the other track, the cables detached from each end and hooked up to these cars and pulled back into the mine. Inside the mine the horses would move the cars around in the side shafts, moving empties in and loaded ones to the "parting" to make up the trip. At the tipple the cars were moved around using a single horse and the coal was dumped into the tipple.