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Post by Ragger on Feb 4, 2005 11:05:05 GMT -5
(a) board and pillar (b) pillar and stall (c) room and pillar (d) stoop and room.
The name varied depending upon the part of the country the mining took place, however the method was basically the same.
Anyone know of any other names.
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Post by dazb on Feb 4, 2005 11:34:02 GMT -5
Bord and pillar, (same as board I guess), Post and Stall, Stall Worked, and here is one up for grabs, for some reason I cannot shake off the thought that I recall this method being referred to as Pillar and Post locally at least, I know that it seems to be nonsensical by virtue of both terms being support methods, but we are a queer lot in this corner anyway (tail-gate corner that is, probably all the dust that causes it)
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Post by John on Feb 4, 2005 16:27:11 GMT -5
I knew of the names, but the two hard rock mines I worked in, in the UK it was Bord and Pillar, same in the coal mines I worked in down under. Pillar dimensions varied with the depth and pillars according to strata loading. All but one mine used roof bolts and w straps. British Gypsum were the exception due to the low roof cover and strength of the rock strata forming the overburden.
Roof creep was another problem in deeper mines, at Boulby, being three quarter of a mile from the surface, they used to leave a curved piece from the rib to the roof. That all stopped with the introduction of continuous miners. The conveyor road outside the control room "crept" from around fifteen feet in height down to less than six feet in around three years. It was backripped, bolted and steel arches set. CPL's site gives the amount of creep expected yearly on main roads.
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Post by kabelo on Aug 14, 2005 6:08:33 GMT -5
Hi there,
What is the correlation between pillar size and depth. would there be a simple table perhaps that one could access showing this relationship, specifically for the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa?
Regards, Kabelo
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Post by John on Aug 14, 2005 8:20:35 GMT -5
Pillar width, length and bord width are worked out according to geology, ie, seam stresses and seam depth. Rock mechanics and the Mine Manager work those out according to local conditions, ie depth from the surface and type of mineral. When I worked at BG's East Leake mine, Marblaegis, roads were seven yards wide, pillars were uniform at seven yards square, depth of cover, anywhere from a couple of hundred feet to tens of feet. Boulby mine on the other hand was three quarter of a mile depth of cover with a mineral that allowed "creep" . Hence the pillars were on the large size, long and fairly wide with narrow entries. Coal in the NSW coalfield, we used uniform square pillars and entries were approx 20 feet wide. There are loads of factors to take into consideration. Maybe we have a mining engineer who is a member who can answer you question better than myself.
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 14, 2011 8:16:43 GMT -5
Having only worked in the Longwall system I don't understand how in modern mining you could revert to Pillar and Stall. I know that in the no.1 seam at Tilmanstone it was all hand got Pillar and Stall, but that was seen as ancient. Is it possible to mechanise Pillar and Stall working?
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Post by John on Jan 14, 2011 9:17:41 GMT -5
Having only worked in the Longwall system I don't understand how in modern mining you could revert to Pillar and Stall. I know that in the no.1 seam at Tilmanstone it was all hand got Pillar and Stall, but that was seen as ancient. Is it possible to mechanise Pillar and Stall working? It is mechanised Sam, continuous miners and shuttlecars/telescoping conveyors. One major factor in deciding what method of mining you are going to do is strata. We couldn't work longwall at Boulby Mine, even though other potash mines around the world did, reason being, about 600 feet above us was a water bearing strata at high pressure and made up of heavy brine. Some of the collieries with workings under the North Sea were considered to shallow and therefore unsafe for longwall mining. All the mines I've worked in using Bord and Pillar were mechanised, BG's Marblaegis Mine used drill rigs, faces were drilled fired and mucked out using Wagner Scoop Trams, (LHD's). They now use Joy continuous miners. Boulby used the drill fire the headings and load out with Eimco's (LHD's) Now use Joy miners. Both the NSW collieries I worked at used Heliminers and shuttlecars, the last one I worked at used Heliminers and shuttle cars for development and one retreating longwall.
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 16, 2011 17:12:36 GMT -5
Having only worked on Longwall faces, first with ploughs and then shearers, can't understand how Bord and Pillar works. It seems to me to be ancient history as it was only worked on the No1 (Beresford) seam which closed years before I started. Coal seams in Kent were narrow - if you have Bord and Pillar, do you work the "face" at the same height as the "gate" roads and take a lot of muck out with the coal as opposed to Longwall only taking the coal in the main?
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Post by John on Jan 16, 2011 17:49:31 GMT -5
I've only ever worked in bord and pillar in 7ft and upwards Sam, lowest was around 6ft 6ins in gypsum, but mostly around seven feet. 15 feet in potash and around 8ft when I worked in collieries in NSW. But the full working thickness of the seams. I gather in thinner seams its worked the height of the seam with main roads driven in the dirt to gain height.
It does have it's usefulness, in shallow workings it's impossible to work longwall, under water bearing strata the same. Plus if your working under cities/towns reservoirs and other sensitive areas, Bord and Pillar is the only way to extract coal.
It does have drawbacks, in that it is hard to ventilate, you only get around 50% max extraction rates.
It's not all that long ago when all coal in the UK was extracted by Bord and Pillar.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Jan 17, 2011 15:21:33 GMT -5
It's not all that long ago when all coal in the UK was extracted by Bord and Pillar. Depends what you mean by "not all that long ago" - most coal was got round our way by long wall by the 18th Century - that's why it often used to be known as "the Shropshire Way" or more commonly "the Shropshire Method".
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Post by John on Jan 18, 2011 15:04:07 GMT -5
It's not all that long ago when all coal in the UK was extracted by Bord and Pillar. Depends what you mean by "not all that long ago" - most coal was got round our way by long wall by the 18th Century - that's why it often used to be known as "the Shropshire Way" or more commonly "the Shropshire Method". I know from my research longwall faces are nothing new, the first ones were semicircular and had many snicket gates through the goaf. But, many pits were still operating the bord and pillar method way into the 20th century. Lots of photos I have of my old pit, all seem to be taken around the 1880's, which would have been in the Deep Hard seam to the north of the shafts. (dates of photos and abandonment plans are same time period) look like the colliers were in bords, one is defiantly a bord being worked. Some of the photos I have seen of the Eastwood collieries underground also look like Bord and Pillar, as does Hucknall No1 colliery too. As an apprentice I'd never seen B&P working, wasn't familiar with it apart from a short mention of it in one of the Tech classes during our first year. It always amazed me how little surface, if any! damage was done to buildings to the north of my old pit, including the Midland Railway Station. Now I know, they worked the Bord and Pillar method and the pillars left enough support to protect the surface constructions. I know from WW2 onwards they worked longwalls at Clifton, many were double unit faces.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Jan 18, 2011 16:03:47 GMT -5
I know what you're on about John, each method had its advantages. Where subsidence had to be kept to a minimum bord & pillar would allow at least some coal to be extracted, say under important surface structures ( built-up areas, railways etc.). I know (only from reading) that the districts of Easington Colliery that worked out under the North Sea were worked B & P simply as a safety precaution when everything else with similar conditions was being worked longwall.
B & P could actually have quite a high extraction rate, with panels being worked first as bords (or "rooms"), then worked on the retreat with the pillars being lifted. The drawback was that the pillars tended to become very friable in the intervening period, while longwall meant that the coal was only worked once, with any problems being left behind in the gob (except for the roadways, and even there retreat working was at least a help).
The method must have remained popular to a fairly late period, given the number of arc-wall and short-wall cutters that were developed and used in the UK, not to mention equipment such as the Goodman Duck-bill Loader, which would have been of little use in a longwall system.
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Post by John on Jan 18, 2011 17:36:50 GMT -5
There's also a few variations on B&P pillar extraction, I worked in one at Wongawilli Colliery just south of Wollongong in NSW. It was called the "Wongawilli Method"
If you go to the university of Wollongong site, there's a link in the links section of this site, you will find an overview of this system. Extraction rates of over 85% are possible, total cave in is used with the goaf.
It can get a bit exciting too!!! The team had four "lifts" left off the fender, we were on swing shift, and our Deputy decided to take a sickie, so until a relief turned up we carried on cutting from afternoon shift.
I'd done my inspections as district electrician and was sitting at the end of the fender in the belt road, behind me was goaf.
Not long after the lads had started cutting, the timber behind me was creaking and groaning, never heard it do this before with still 3 plus lifts to take. I went down to the miner driver and got him to come up and listen, he wasn't a happy camper, but went down to cut a couple more car loads of coal. He asked me to keep him appraised.
About another half an hour and it was really working bad, so I reported back to the miner driver who was just finishing the lift off, he came back to listen and was very nervous.
He finished the lift, the fellers timbered up, and I gave them a hand to get the miner back to safety.
We all pitched in setting timber at the intersection, as fast as we cut props they were being set until, our cut props were "too long"!!
Time to get out, we all ran down the belt road to one hell of a crash, the whole intersection fell in, one hell of a roof fall!. Once the dust had cleared, I noticed walking back that the fall had gone over the intersection into the cut through to the track road, expletives!! The miner was parked up back there, I made my way through the nearest cut through, up the track road and good God, the whole of the boom of the Heliminer was buried under the fall.
I pressed the start button, half expecting it to have tripped on earth leakage due to the cable being under the fall too, no!! it started up. I operated the boom handle, but was just too much weight for the hydraulics.
Took nearly a week to extract the miner, which had to go to surface workshops for major repairs.
The lads got the blame until the Mines Inspector examined the area and said it was just convergence, he couldn't fault the supports they had set.
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Post by agumby on Feb 25, 2011 21:55:52 GMT -5
the last one I worked at used Heliminers and shuttle cars for development and one retreating longwall. All gone now john, still 2 heli's parked up underground one was the heli that got drowned when we stopped working D303 for a few years at about 9 C/T. It was winched back to 8C/T 303 and parked up where it still is today. the other still underground is the heli we converted to remote control that drove a fair bit of the bottom half of D303 place changing with a Fletcher twin boom bolter. It is parked up in about 23 C/T 303. all the old Noyes shuttle cars (sundstrand and dynapower) are no longer being used as of about 3 years ago. One of them was buried and never recovered about 10 yrs ago when we had a LW face drivage (LW25) fall in down the bottom end of the pit. We are now using 15t waratah cars now which are very similar to the Joys The 3 development miners are all waratah machines as well based on the Joy 12CM30's. Another 2 coming soon but they will be new generation Joys. current map for you to look at. www.planning.nsw.gov.au/asp/pdf/06_0021_part_3a_project_application_figure0.jpgLW is mining 960 tandem unit is most of the way up 970 Mains in 900 is stubbed out past 980 turn and 980 belt is being built up to 2C/T The promised land 303 was just that untill the bottom end of it and then we really struggled to get the next lot of mains (D900) happening as conditions were crap with slacky rolls everywhere. The Longwall blocks off D900 were reasonable good conditions untill about 2.2km in where we hit every block a zone called the Wolgan Zone. For about 500m we really struggle and the amount of support put in has to be seen to be believed. Current LW blocks are over 3km long x 3.4 high x 280m wide
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Post by John on Feb 25, 2011 22:20:15 GMT -5
the last one I worked at used Heliminers and shuttle cars for development and one retreating longwall. All gone now john, still 2 heli's parked up underground one was the heli that got drowned when we stopped working D303 for a few years at about 9 C/T. It was winched back to 8C/T 303 and parked up where it still is today. the other still underground is the heli we converted to remote control that drove a fair bit of the bottom half of D303 place changing with a Fletcher twin boom bolter. It is parked up in about 23 C/T 303. all the old Noyes shuttle cars (sundstrand and dynapower) are no longer being used as of about 3 years ago. One of them was buried and never recovered about 10 yrs ago when we had a LW face drivage (LW25) fall in down the bottom end of the pit. We are now using 15t waratah cars now which are very similar to the Joys The 3 development miners are all waratah machines as well based on the Joy 12CM30's. Another 2 coming soon but they will be new generation Joys. current map for you to look at. www.planning.nsw.gov.au/asp/pdf/06_0021_part_3a_project_application_figure0.jpgLW is mining 960 tandem unit is most of the way up 970 Mains in 900 is stubbed out past 980 turn and 980 belt is being built up to 2C/T The promised land 303 was just that untill the bottom end of it and then we really struggled to get the next lot of mains (D900) happening as conditions were crap with slacky rolls everywhere. The Longwall blocks off D900 were reasonable good conditions untill about 2.2km in where we hit every block a zone called the Wolgan Zone. For about 500m we really struggle and the amount of support put in has to be seen to be believed. Current LW blocks are over 3km long x 3.4 high x 280m wide Sounds like Angus Place is a long way in now!! I started there when LW5 was running, I was on dogwatch as LW electrician on LW5 towards it's end and carried on for LW6,7 and 8, I was then leading hand electrician on doggy for a few years. I finished on swing shift, I think LW13 was about half through when I left. Kerry Morris was the elec engineer, I keep in touch with him on Facebook. I doubt any of the blokes I worked with are still there, probably all retired by now. I left Christmas 1988.
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Post by agumby on Feb 25, 2011 22:40:46 GMT -5
Sounds like Angus Place is a long way in now!! I started there when LW5 was running, I was on dogwatch as LW electrician on LW5 towards it's end and carried on for LW6,7 and 8, I was then leading hand electrician on doggy for a few years. I finished on swing shift, I think LW13 was about half through when I left. Kerry Morris was the elec engineer, I keep in touch with him on Facebook. I doubt any of the blokes I worked with are still there, probably all retired by now. I left Christmas 1988.[/quote]
I worked with you on swingy, still remember the night someone reported smoke from the surge bin above the crushers and screens. the other fitters turned the belt but didnt tag it and you turned it back on to give them awake up call to tag it off next time and scared the crap out of them. have also run into old marmy the elec engineer a few times, rented a house out to his daughter at one stage.
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Post by John on Feb 26, 2011 8:08:14 GMT -5
Sounds like Angus Place is a long way in now!! I started there when LW5 was running, I was on dogwatch as LW electrician on LW5 towards it's end and carried on for LW6,7 and 8, I was then leading hand electrician on doggy for a few years. I finished on swing shift, I think LW13 was about half through when I left. Kerry Morris was the elec engineer, I keep in touch with him on Facebook. I doubt any of the blokes I worked with are still there, probably all retired by now. I left Christmas 1988. I worked with you on swingy, still remember the night someone reported smoke from the surge bin above the crushers and screens. the other fitters turned the belt but didnt tag it and you turned it back on to give them awake up call to tag it off next time and scared the crap out of them. have also run into old marmy the elec engineer a few times, rented a house out to his daughter at one stage. [/quote] I don't recall that episode, I think you're getting me mixed up with someone else. I often wondered how "Marmites" doing!! He was real easy to get on with. I was a stickler for safety though, probably a left over from my apprenticeship with the NCB in England. I was one of those involved in introducing the "Permit To Work" scheme at Boulby Mine. Luckily my bosses used it when they were on the tools at British pits. Worked a treat too.
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Post by garryo on Dec 20, 2011 9:52:35 GMT -5
Most people associate Board and Pillar or Room and Pillar with high or thick seams and rightly so. Cleveland Potash as John knows also used R&P, first with cutters, Secoma drill rigs and shuttle cars, later with JCMs. But R&P was also used in very thin seams where longwall was impractical due to height. A classic example was at the long closed Victoria Garesfield colliery near Rowlands Gill Durham where the 16inch yes 16inch up to the great height of 18 to 19 inches was worked. This coal seam owing to its superior coking qualities used to be mined and usually blended with other coking coal to increase the rank. The method was to drive narrow boards about tub height and take the coal from the sides up to about one metre in (or about as far as the miner could reach in whilst standing in the board),and then pack the bottom stone caunch into the voids. The distance between boards was calculated to take just enough coal to leave small pillars between the boards for roof support. Every so often a drive would be driven between main boards for ventilation. Across the hill from VG at Blaydon Burn colliery the same seam (Victoria) was worked again the seam was between 16 and 18 inches. In about 1953 the NCB installed a manless scraper face using a Haarman scraper. These faces were about 60yds long. Some footage is available on Youtube. Just type scraper box, Victoria or Blaydon Burn and you should get it.
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Post by John on Dec 20, 2011 10:51:21 GMT -5
From what I've read, bord and pillar was common in Durham Garry, it was used in Leicestershire coalfields too, talking of NCB days here. Prior to that, B&P was pretty common in all the UK coalfields prior to the 20th century, I have copies of photos in the deep hard seam at my old pit around 1880, and they were B&P method.
British Gysum use the method, probably because of the shallowness of the gypsum deposits in the UK, at the time I worked at Marblaegis near Loughborough they didn't use any extra method of roof support other than the pillars themselves.
Not sure, but I think you will find a link to the Youtube video you mention, in the video section of this site.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Dec 20, 2011 11:47:37 GMT -5
Across the hill from VG at Blaydon Burn colliery the same seam (Victoria) was worked again the seam was between 16 and 18 inches. In about 1953 the NCB installed a manless scraper face using a Haarman scraper. These faces were about 60yds long. Some footage is available on Youtube. Just type scraper box, Victoria or Blaydon Burn and you should get it. here yer go ....
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Post by John on Dec 20, 2011 12:31:51 GMT -5
Bord and Pillar is also used in sensitive areas due to almost no surface movement. It's used often in environmentally "touchy" places, under National Parks, cities and towns and major water courses and lakes.
It's the basic method of operating longwall mines believe it or not, gate roads are driven using chain pillars, ie double entry, one being the M/G of the new development and the other the T/G of the next development. All main roads are developed as Bord and Pillar method, usually several parallel roads with cut through's every so many yards spacings. Some of the collieries in the companies group I worked for in NSW had pretty high OMS rates, the one I worked at was under the Sydney water catchment area so we weren't allowed longwalls in that area, but the coal was high quality coking coal.
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Post by Wheldale on Dec 20, 2011 14:21:14 GMT -5
Dont know if anyone has heard of this accident? Coalbrook North colliery in South Africa used board and pillar, In 1960 as a result of the pillars being too small, the mine workings collapsed resulting in the deaths of 400 men.
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Post by John on Dec 20, 2011 16:27:52 GMT -5
Dont know if anyone has heard of this accident? Coalbrook North colliery in South Africa used board and pillar, In 1960 as a result of the pillars being too small, the mine workings collapsed resulting in the deaths of 400 men. That's basically what happened at the colliery in Utah just over three years back, only they were robbing the pillars and weakening the support. Ironically, the company that longwalled that pit had decided it was too dangerous to recover the pillars and sold it. In fact, the area Murray was mining, had been condemned by the original owners and bricked up.
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Post by garryo on Mar 24, 2013 2:09:51 GMT -5
Re Board and Pillar
Here is an interesting question regarding B&P working, normally this method is usually associated with thick coal seams over say 4ft or think metric say 1.5metres and highly mechanised, but how did they work coal seams under 2ft or 60cms. The first answer probaly be is they did not. Well they did especially in the West of Durham and in Northumberland, one colliery worked an 18in seam by B&P that mine was called Victoria Garesfield and worked the thin Victoria seam amongst others. First question is what did they do with the stone from the boards seeing that if the board was say four or five foot high and say tub width six feet wide and they were mining only twenty inches or less or coal. Second question is how they supported the coal worked either side of the board. Third question is why bother working seams that thin, well the answer is grade. the Victoria seam and other were high grade coking coal 301A grade which commanded a price at least two to three times higher than power station coal.
The fall in demand for steel in the UK brought about a drop in demand for coking coal so collieries working these seams closed early in the peace long before the Thatcher era.
Any thoughts
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Post by John on Mar 24, 2013 7:22:42 GMT -5
Just a guess Garry, but the stone would more than likely have been used as packs in old cross cuts, and having worked in B&P for many years albeit in thick seams, you don't need extra support in the thinner seams unless you're very deep. When I was on the south coast of NSW, at Wongawilli, the main road through one seam was too low to haul heavy machinery through on loco hauled flat tops, so they dinted the floor out by about two feet, the rock was used as road side packs.
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Post by bulwellbrian on Mar 24, 2013 12:04:28 GMT -5
Re West Durham collieries, at Nationalisation there were 89 collieries in 3 NCB Areas, many were small and produced coking coal. I think most were closed early in the Nationalisation years as production moved to the larger collieries in the East of Durham.
Durham and South Wales were the only coalfields in UK that produced prime coking coals, rank 301A & 301B. Other coals needed blending to make good furnace and foundry coke.
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Clive
Shotfirer.
Posts: 168
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Post by Clive on Mar 24, 2013 15:44:56 GMT -5
Your partly right there John. I know I never worked mechanized, but 99% on the time I worked seams 18" and less, down to 12".
At Grimebridge, we had maybe 100' of cover at best but the roof would never stand us to open up to any width.
With thin seams, it was always 'modified' P&S. At GB we would drive a heading off the drift. The heading would be on 4'6" to 5' long bars and would be driven about 42" high (depending on the collier and the roof strata ,looking for the best 'ley' or slab of stone to follow). The average height of coal being about 20". After leaving a very small pillar by the main drift a short face of about 12' would be cut over at one side of the heading, this would be inseam. The stone from the rip would be packed into here as the heading advanced, leaving a solid pillar on the other side of the road. At 12yd intervals, boards or 'warks' would be turned off at rightangles on the solid side . They were worked the same way though wouldn't be ripped as high, maybe a foot or so, again this depended on the collier and finding a good 'glass' top .
These warks were driven for about 40 yds and then robbed out at the top. To retreat, the solid side was then cut over for 4 yds and the collier would work back towards the heading. On average it would take about 6 weeks to drive the wark and 2 to fetch it back, working a single shift.
The roof couldnt stand this width of 11 or 12 yards and as the wark had been pulled back about half way you would be expecting the whole lot to fall up. so you would have to cut over again.
There were many variations on this, especialy in the Sandrock mine, where the floor was canched instead of the top. in my opinion it was the best way of working thin seams.
In Rossendale we never ripped them very high as you wern't paid for stone work, except for an extra pound a tub of coal working in the headings. The tubs were only about 30" high and held 4cwt.
whereas up in Alston they were half tonne tubs and the bords were ripped to about 5'. No more coal was produced and I always preferred the Rossendale method.
But as I say this was all handballing. It was worth it because using old fashioned meathods a decent living could be earned, even though it was hard work, it was well paid work, as long as the owner was getting a fair price (based on calorific value) for his coal, and as Grimebridge coal was hot, it paid, until the CEGB decided that they could get away with robbing the private mines.
By the way we used a variation on those scrapers up in Alston. They didn't cut the coal, but they were used to get the coal off some of the short wall workings. Do you know how they operated? The hewer had 2 long lengths of bailer twine running down the face, he pulled one for the scraper to drag the coal to the gate, and the other to get it back up the face again
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Post by John on Mar 24, 2013 16:23:50 GMT -5
I only worked in mechanised mines Clive, first B&P mine I worked down was in gypsum, drilled and fired on the solid and mucked out with diesel LHD's, Wagner Scooptrams. Only support was the pillars, seven yard wide roads, seven yard square pillars, about seven foot thick seam of gypsum. Then Boulby potash mine, about the same width roads, 15 feet high, using a modified B&P method, with roofbolts and "W" straps. Then back to coal, in Oz. roads were about ten foot wide, height of the seam, about 8 feet with several feet of poor quality roof coal...Support, pillars, with roofbolts, "W" straps plus hard wood props and half round bars. First pit I worked on a pillar recovery method called the Wongawilli method, looks complicated and dangerous, but it's not with a skilled team.. We used heliminers and Joy shuttlecars loading onto a ration feeder which loaded the belts.
The last mine was coal, one high production longwall with all development on the B&P method using heliminers and shuttlecars. Support was pillars, props, roofbolts and "W" straps. Seam height was between 12 and 14 feet, roads were about 12 feet wide, with about 1000feet of cover.
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 24, 2013 18:09:55 GMT -5
Like you Clive,i only worked in Smallmines,all hand got,although i did once drive a new drift down using a scraper chain conveyor for about 80yds,then striped it out,and layed a road .
About half the Smallmines i worked used Horses,so one had to keep good height,minimum 6ft 6in,some main headings were 7ft 6in,to allow for squeeze.
Similar to your discription,headings would be driven off the main level,every 100yds,and stalls off these headings every 20 to 25yds,depending on the pitch of the coal,these stalls would go the full 100yds,but usually the last 20 to 30yds,we`d keep the height down,and dram back to the Horse to save on dead work.
This one Colliery where i started,and worked for 2yrs before moving on to a better place,had a section of 2ft coal 4in clod,so we were cutting topholes of 4ft,all would be packed in the faces,10yds either side,a heartbreaker on a Saturday morning,throwing big stones down the face,several times to build the back wall along the rib[ventilation and 2nd way out],then bringing the face wall of the gob up towards the road,filling the small behind,but keeping the front down enough to throw the clod in when firing the coal of the next cut. All roads were notched timber.
Some muck was filled out on the main headings carrying the 7ft 6in height,and when turning stalls,but the bulk was packed for roof support.
Other Collieries i worked used different methods,according to the seam and conditions,some with better top,were flatted,some drifts with rope haulage ,also had Horses,others,we had to hand tram from the partin,and change ones own drams,others employed a rider.
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Post by tygwyn on Aug 16, 2013 18:39:18 GMT -5
In South Wales,in the old days in the big mines and up to the last in Smallmines,the majority of roadway supports were either Flats if the roof was good,or Notched timber pairs.
Was notching timber pairs ever used in other parts of the coalfield other than South Wales and the FOD,as i`ve never seen any photos showing this method anywhere else?
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