Post by smshogun on Dec 6, 2014 21:45:44 GMT -5
It was an interesting Saturday night as we headed for the pub (in the days when I drank) as it was a retirement party for one of our headers as he now has just hit 52 years at the same pit and hanging up his helmet. He was very popular and many people attended to the point that at 10.30 the pub shut the doors as they were still full to bursting and didn't want to attract attention from the police for after hours drinking. At around 1.00 am the party started breaking up and many left for home, it was approaching 1.30 when someone came into the pub and shouted "some bastard's nicked my front suspension and wheels off me car and we all went out to see this phenomenon, what met us soon sobered everyone up.
Sure his car was still there but the front of the floor pan was sitting on the ground and looked for all the world like someone has stolen his front wheels and suspension but a closer inspection revealed something different, with the aid of another car we turned its headlights on to illuminate the area and with a 12 volt plug in light from my car we saw a massive hole had opened up and the landlord suggested calling the police. We had to get our stories straight and the landlord held off calling the police for about 10 minutes to give those going home by car chance to get out of the area to avoid the breathalyser which was gaining popularity with local police, then he called them; our story was simple, I was already down to stay at the pub that night anyway so we told the police he was staying also and he had come out to check his car was locked and secure when he noticed what was wrong.
What had happened was an old shaft had opened up and the front of the vehicle was hanging over the shaft, next we had an NCB shaft team appear to confirm it as an old shaft and cordon it off, they managed to secure a chain around the back axle of the car (good old rear wheel drive) and anchored it to an old steel post conveniently located nearby; they left and we went to bed.
8 am the next morning we were all woken by the banging on the pub door and the area shaft team had reappeared with old maps and charts and were trying to figure out which old shaft it was and from which old pit so they could establish its depth and age so they could assess its condition as a previously filled shaft in which the fill had settled or an unfilled shaft. They had no record of the shaft so it was out with the temporary bridge and a call to get a crane, while we waited for the crane the shaft team assembled the temporary bridge and assessed the surrounding ground for stability. When the crane arrived it rigged and lifted the bridge into position and it was anchored securely in case of a ground collapse and a black and white camera was attached to a pole and a feed laid to a black and white television; as it was lowered down the shaft we assessed the shaft and concluded it wasn't a filled shaft as it was just covered over with multiple layers of old wooded railway sleepers criss crossed over each other and covered in dirt.
We lowered the camera to its full depth of 200 feet and established it was an 11 foot diameter shaft with a brick lining which was in good condition, we dropped measuring equipment down the shaft (a ball of string with a fishing weight on it) which was marked in 20 foot sections, the shaft was nearly 400 feet deep so it was a massive construction; to this day we never knew who sank this shaft or why as it isn't on any records anyone could trace.
Arriving at work on Monday I was told to report to the deputy mechanical engineer who had arrived at work early, and told to pick three men as we were the nearest pit and were assisting in filling this shaft, and as I had seen it we were to take what we wanted to fabricate a delivery system onsite to allow concrete and hardcore to be delivered into the shaft, I selected my men and we loaded up the van with materials and tools, I took a bucket from the RAP site and loaded it with oxy-acetylene bottles on a trolley and more materials and drove it to the pub. After about an hours fabrication we had fabricated a shoot system and the crane lifted it into place. Later lorries started arriving from a local demolition place and dumped lots of hardcore into a corner of the pub car park, I was informed concrete lorries would be arriving at about 8.30 am the following morning.
The following morning saw several concrete lorries arriving and two lorry loads were dropped down the shaft, this was followed by 10 buckets of hardcore, two more lorries of concrete, then 10 more buckets of hardcore, this continued for the next three days until we could see the filling from the bridge. Deliveries of hardcore were stopped and the remaining hardcore was dropped into the shaft and left overnight for the concrete to harden.
The following morning saw a boring rig arrive and was dropped into the shaft, the concrete was hard thanks to accelerated concrete being used and the shaft lining was marked out for 8 holes which were to be drilled radially sloping downwards and allowed to fill with concrete to secure the cap, this took most of the weekend, but on that Friday late morning (10 minutes before opening time) the hierarchy from area arrived, they looked into the nearly filled shaft, said "well done everyone" and as the pub doors opened spot on 12.00 they all disappeared into the pub for a liquid lunch on expenses. At around 2.40 they appeared again (pubs shut at 2.30 then) and someone shouted "well done boys, there's £100 behind the bar for you to have a good drink on us" and they disappeared. As there were 9 of us it was £11 each which was a lot of beer then and we carried on working, the shaft was filled and capped, the site de-rigged and we had a party at their expense.
