The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
THOMPSON _ Vale unveiled its new high-tech, taxpayer-funded mining simulator last week, nearly a month to the day after the grand opening of the Valer-Vale education building where the simulator is housed. The simulator is the crown jewel of the training centre that officially opened last month. When looking at the simulator from the outside, it appears as not much more than a shipping can with a large flat screen television attached to the outside. When you walk inside, however you're presented with some initial sensory overload, with an array of screens and a cockpit with a full control panel for the trainees. The most simplified way to envision it would be to imagine the most advanced and largest arcade game you can find. See 'Stu...' on pg. 12 Continued from pg. 10 Travis Bloomer is one of four mine trainers at the training centre, and he ran down the impressive list of features and benefits that the simulator possesses. 'Underground on these machines, the operators can't hear us, we can't stand beside them and tell them what they're doing right or wrong,' said Bloomer. 'With this machine, we can be right there and give them immediate feedback. There's also a bit of an ego that some people may have when on the machine and they don't necessarily want to accept a criticism, but this machine documents everything you're doing, so if you're spinning your tires or you bump a wall, there's record of it and we can show the trainees what they need to correct.' The completion of the Valer-Vale building, combined with a cutting-edge piece of technology like the simulator, is expected to aid in the transition of some 350 surface workers at Vale to underground operations in 2015. There are 700 to 800 employees now working in surface operations in Thompson. A top-notch facility should also help in the training of the future underground miners from Thompson and the surrounding area, Vale hopes. Taxpayers also funded a mining simulator for Flin Flon's Northern Manitoba Mining Academy, due to open this fall. _ÊMatt Durnan, Thompson Citizen, and The Reminder archives
