Illinois § 29

§ 29.

Conveyances; rules. The superintendent of the mine shall establish for each shaft rates of speed for the cages, skips, buckets or other conveyances that shall not be exceeded in the hoisting or lowering of people, and he or she shall post a notice of such limitation in a conspicuous place near each hoisting engine: Provided, that the speed so permitted shall not be greater than 500 feet per minute in the case of shafts of less than 500 feet in depth, and not greater than 800 feet per minute in the case of shafts between 500 and 1000 feet in depth, and in shafts of more than 1000 feet in depth not more than one half the speed normally employed in hoisting material: Provided further, that in the case of inclined shafts the classification herein made shall be determined by the measurement of their slope. The superintendent of the mine shall determine the maximum number of people that in his or her judgment may safely ride on each cage, skip, bucket, or other conveyance used in the mine under his or her supervision and shall post in a conspicuous place near each shaft a notice stating the maximum number of persons so permitted to ride and forbidding the carrying of any greater number. At the beginning of each shift the mine foreman or shift boss, or some other responsible person appointed by the superintendent, shall be stationed on the loading platform at the top of the shaft and shall prevent any greater number of people than that permitted by order of the superintendent to enter upon or into any cage, skip, bucket, or other conveyances and shall remain at this station until the last person about to descend the shaft shall have entered the cage, skip, bucket, or other conveyance. And at the end of the shift, the people in charge of work on each level of the mine from which men are to be hoisted shall be posted in the station of the shaft at that level and shall prevent any greater number of people than the maximum permitted by the superintendent of the mine to enter upon or into any cage, skip, bucket, or other conveyance and shall remain in this station until the last person to ascend shall have entered upon or into the cage, skip, bucket, or other conveyance. In every mine operated on 2 or more levels in which 100 or more people are employed underground and in which the people are hoisted or lowered by cage or other conveyance except a bucket, such cage or other conveyance shall be operated under the charge of a person appointed as conductor, and no person other than this conductor shall give any signal for the movement of the cage or other conveyance. In hoisting or lowering people with a bucket, the speed, except in the case of apprehended danger, shall not exceed 200 feet per minute when the bucket is within 100 feet of the surface or 500 feet per minute in any other part of the shaft. The superintendent of the mine shall be responsible for the enforcement of the provisions of this Section. (Source: P.A. 87-1133.)