In (what was then) zambia in 1970
the maamba open cast colliery (I typed "wankie" first, but that was over the border in rhodesia, not open cast, 200 men died there in one accident)
http://maps.google.com/?ll=-17.34261,27.183952&spn=0.038425,0.058537&t=k&om=0coal use to go by road 70+ miles in double trailer diamond t and old mercs, between the twisty roads and chibuku (beer) stands every couple of miles the carnage was incredible.
if you look at the map you can see a squiggly line going off at aboyt 10.30, that's the old dirt road to choma and the rail head, an alcoholic scotsman named jack lydon did the final stages of what was called the "ropeway", from memory they were 25 ton buckets, he did the cable splicing (under tension, seamless splices, incredible) , it was at the time the longest cablecar system on earth, at about 70 miles.
the pit itself had an RB (32?) electric walking dragline, big bitch, you could see it clearly from 20 miles away on the escarpment, the pit itself was a hellhole, 140 degrees and constant sulphur fires, and everything being either black or coated in black was too hot to touch in the sun.
the RB32 was of course electric, and it had a semi mobile power shed that had to be moved now and again, and services more than that or have breakers reset, it used to kill about one black a week, because they flatly refused to open the door and then throw a piece of pipe in before walking in themselves, huge static charges and of course the real power would easy follow an arc made by static
here a (different) dragline pic if others havent seen em before... the bucket is about the same size as a euclid, park two double deckers side by side in the bucket