Flat Rods and Tramway

TeamManleyy

East Caradon Mine

Facts behind the View
The Flat rods

Running out from the dressing floor area towards Seccombe's shaft is a narrow embankment on which it s believed to run a tramway carrying ore for dressing. A set of flat rods was also thought to have been built onto the embankment transferring power for pumping.

Railways at East Caradon

The CAU survey states that the flat rods were operated by the rotative engine near the dressing floor.
Acton & Brown however, state that it was the engine at William's shaft that provided the power. The alignment of the embankment would allow either option.

Flat rods were a common device used on Cornish mines to transfer power from one location to another. They are often associated with waterwheels as a means of solving the problem of needing the wheel on a valley bottom and the pumping at a shaft higher up the hillside. At East Caradon they would have been used to avoid the cost of installing a steam engine at Seccombes shaft.

Summer 2001
The bracken clad embakment running away from the dressing floors with the trees of Wheal Tor behind.

Diagram of the operation of flat rods.
The rods ( wood or iron) would move horizontally back and forth on rollers mounted on the embankment. This horizontal motion was transferred to a vertical by the balance bob at the shaft and the vertical pump rods would power the pumps down in shaft bottom (sump).
Sometimes the rods were hung from pivots or rocked on stands instead of being mounted on rollers and they often ran distances of up to a quarter of a mile. To avoid power loss the run of the rods had to be kept as straight as possible and in this case the tramway embankment provided a suitable route

On many mine sites in Cornwall dangers may still exist, many hidden. This web site is published as a resource to those visiting the Wheal Tor Hotel to explain the view from the Hotel and its access road.