Post by rob52 on Jan 3, 2016 1:24:23 GMT -5
Came across this discussion paper on NCB UG Coal
Tub Size & InSeam Drivages Limited Britian Coal Productivity
Path Dependence, Fragmented Property Rights, and the Slow Diffusion of High Throughput Technologies in Interwar British Coal Mining
PETER SCOTT
Pg6
“Britain lagged well behind most major European producers. In 1930 31.1 per cent of British coal was mechanically cut, compared to 93.8 per cent in the Ruhr; 91.4 per cent in Belgium; 78.7 per cent in Czechoslovakia; over 72 per cent in France”….“while its principal competitors rapidly mechanized underground haulage, with locomotives becoming their standard main haulage technology, Britain failed to do so. “
Pg10
“ During the interwar years British tubs were only a fraction of the size typically used in Europe and the U.S.”
Pg11
“using 0.5 ton tubs increased the laden weight of wagons carrying four tons of coal by 19.9 per cent and their unladen weight by 79.2 per cent compared to a single 4 ton wagon.”
=>> Could a 4ton wagon even fit in a Haul Road 4ft high from a “thin coal seam of less than three (3) feet” mine? is this a realistic suggestion, would have required major changes to the out bye and haulage roads. They could not have been driven in the seam following the seam.
Pg51 THWUH - TL&DoTBCM “In 1900 only 1.5 per cent of Britain’s coal was being cut by machine. By 1925 this had risen to 20 per cent, though in two-thirds of British pits coal was still won entirely by hand”……“in 1981 three out of every hundred tons of British Coal were still being Hewn by men with picks”
Pg12
“Poor British haulage productivity was reflected in high labour requirements: the proportion of British mineworkers engaged on haulage during the 1930s remained roughly constant at just over 20 per cent, while in the USA it was less than 5 per cent and in the Netherlands – which instituted an intensive programme of mechanization - it declined from 26.96 per cent in 1926 to 12.41 per cent in 1937, with each haulage worker handling around 4-5 times the tonnage of coal moved by his British counterpart”
Pg142 THWUH - TL&DoTBCM “as early as 1860’s there were coal cutters in use in Durham, operated by compressed air”…”By 1925, still only a third of Britons collieries had cutters. This pattern was echoed in mechanical haulage underground”…”In 1913, British Miners were producing 233 tons of coal each per year; in 1980-81 this had risen to 652 tons….at the same time, there had been a drastic reduction in the workforce; for every one hundred men at work in the pits in 1913, there were by 1981 only eighteen."
"In 200 years miners had moved from sheer back breaking physical toil in conditions of near (and in Scotland actual) slavery to the status of technicians and engineers.”
Pg14
“British underground roadways followed the coal seams in often undulating and tortuous paths, along which locomotives could not operate. Continental mines, by contrast, generally used the `horizon mining’ system of cutting level roadways through the rock. Horizon mining was originally developed to cope with seams that were too steep for coal to be hauled along them. Yet as mine size grew during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it became the standard European mining technique even for relatively flat seams, as it offered various advantages over in-seam mining”
Pg16
“Adoption of mechanized techniques in British mines represented a rational `second-best’ solution - maximising the returns from mechanisation within the constraints imposed by technological lock-in into extensive in-seam mining”
Pg25
“As the world’s main exporter of a bulk raw material, the British coal industry inevitably faced severe problems in adjusting to a new interwar economic environment of rising international competition, protectionism, and stagnant demand. Meanwhile the industry’s unusually high sunk costs and the long lifespan of its fixed capital delayed the exit of inefficient mines, while adversarial industrial relations, flawed government intervention, and, very probably, poor or indifferent entrepreneurship for many concerns, placed further barriers in the path of efficient restructuring. This article has not sought to dismiss or diminish the importance of these factors, but to demonstrate that there were also problems inherent in the technical and institutional systems of British coal mining, which, while originally rational, later came to constituted powerful barriers to modernization in their own right."
Pg24
“Britain paying the penalty during the early twentieth century for having earlier taken the lead in industrialisation”
**************
THWUH - TL&DoTBCM = The Hardest Work Under Heaven - The Life & Death of the British Coal Miner, Michael Pollard, YOP 1984, ISBN 0091582806
Its an interesting read.
Rob
Tub Size & InSeam Drivages Limited Britian Coal Productivity
Path Dependence, Fragmented Property Rights, and the Slow Diffusion of High Throughput Technologies in Interwar British Coal Mining
PETER SCOTT
Pg6
“Britain lagged well behind most major European producers. In 1930 31.1 per cent of British coal was mechanically cut, compared to 93.8 per cent in the Ruhr; 91.4 per cent in Belgium; 78.7 per cent in Czechoslovakia; over 72 per cent in France”….“while its principal competitors rapidly mechanized underground haulage, with locomotives becoming their standard main haulage technology, Britain failed to do so. “
Pg10
“ During the interwar years British tubs were only a fraction of the size typically used in Europe and the U.S.”
Pg11
“using 0.5 ton tubs increased the laden weight of wagons carrying four tons of coal by 19.9 per cent and their unladen weight by 79.2 per cent compared to a single 4 ton wagon.”
=>> Could a 4ton wagon even fit in a Haul Road 4ft high from a “thin coal seam of less than three (3) feet” mine? is this a realistic suggestion, would have required major changes to the out bye and haulage roads. They could not have been driven in the seam following the seam.
Pg51 THWUH - TL&DoTBCM “In 1900 only 1.5 per cent of Britain’s coal was being cut by machine. By 1925 this had risen to 20 per cent, though in two-thirds of British pits coal was still won entirely by hand”……“in 1981 three out of every hundred tons of British Coal were still being Hewn by men with picks”
Pg12
“Poor British haulage productivity was reflected in high labour requirements: the proportion of British mineworkers engaged on haulage during the 1930s remained roughly constant at just over 20 per cent, while in the USA it was less than 5 per cent and in the Netherlands – which instituted an intensive programme of mechanization - it declined from 26.96 per cent in 1926 to 12.41 per cent in 1937, with each haulage worker handling around 4-5 times the tonnage of coal moved by his British counterpart”
Pg142 THWUH - TL&DoTBCM “as early as 1860’s there were coal cutters in use in Durham, operated by compressed air”…”By 1925, still only a third of Britons collieries had cutters. This pattern was echoed in mechanical haulage underground”…”In 1913, British Miners were producing 233 tons of coal each per year; in 1980-81 this had risen to 652 tons….at the same time, there had been a drastic reduction in the workforce; for every one hundred men at work in the pits in 1913, there were by 1981 only eighteen."
"In 200 years miners had moved from sheer back breaking physical toil in conditions of near (and in Scotland actual) slavery to the status of technicians and engineers.”
Pg14
“British underground roadways followed the coal seams in often undulating and tortuous paths, along which locomotives could not operate. Continental mines, by contrast, generally used the `horizon mining’ system of cutting level roadways through the rock. Horizon mining was originally developed to cope with seams that were too steep for coal to be hauled along them. Yet as mine size grew during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it became the standard European mining technique even for relatively flat seams, as it offered various advantages over in-seam mining”
Pg16
“Adoption of mechanized techniques in British mines represented a rational `second-best’ solution - maximising the returns from mechanisation within the constraints imposed by technological lock-in into extensive in-seam mining”
Pg25
“As the world’s main exporter of a bulk raw material, the British coal industry inevitably faced severe problems in adjusting to a new interwar economic environment of rising international competition, protectionism, and stagnant demand. Meanwhile the industry’s unusually high sunk costs and the long lifespan of its fixed capital delayed the exit of inefficient mines, while adversarial industrial relations, flawed government intervention, and, very probably, poor or indifferent entrepreneurship for many concerns, placed further barriers in the path of efficient restructuring. This article has not sought to dismiss or diminish the importance of these factors, but to demonstrate that there were also problems inherent in the technical and institutional systems of British coal mining, which, while originally rational, later came to constituted powerful barriers to modernization in their own right."
Pg24
“Britain paying the penalty during the early twentieth century for having earlier taken the lead in industrialisation”
**************
THWUH - TL&DoTBCM = The Hardest Work Under Heaven - The Life & Death of the British Coal Miner, Michael Pollard, YOP 1984, ISBN 0091582806
Its an interesting read.
Rob
