Traditional mining equipment such as shovel/trucks, draglines, front-end loaders and scrapers are the mainstay of surface mining; however, a new breed of equipment is being increasingly applied. These include hydraulic shovels, bucket wheel excavators, hydraulic bucket wheels, belt conveyors, high angle conveyors and cross-pit conveyors. The various components can be combined to provide a continuous and flexible material handling system for large, as well as small sized operations. High volume operations are dependent on continuous mining systems for their success. A variety of equipment of different sizes and mobility is either available or in an advanced stage of development. In some situations material handling systems are supplemented by crushing equipment to break large rocks. This paper reviews the current practice in continuous mining systems and attempts to highlight the manner and advantages of blending conventional mining equipment with newer equipment resulting in greater productivity and reduced material handling costs.