Cynheidre Colliery

[rhonddalad]

Information taken from a Swansea Newspaper November 1958.

Cynheidre Colliery - Coal in Nine Months

'Starting from points three-and-a-half miles apart and 1680ft, below ground, parties of men began driving two tunnels.
Each tunnel is 15ft wide and 11ft high. When the tunnels meet-and the junction is expected to be perfect, Cynheidre Colliery the NCB's £18Million showpiece in the Gwendraeth Valley will have one of the longest underground drivages in the country.

"We expect the tunnels to meet on December 15 and we will have a party on the 16th at which we hope to celebrate" said Mr. J.H. Pedley engineer in charge of the project.

Cynheidre is the most costly new pit sinking undertaken by the N.C.B. in any part of the country.

When in full production in 1965-66 it will daily yield 4,000 tons of the finest anthracite in the world and employ about 2,800 workers. It will tap 8 seams varying from 6ft to 2ft. "We hope to be getting coal-about 500 tons a day-by September next year but before we can reach maximum output we have to drive about 24 miles of underground roadways" said Mr. Pedley. The colliery will have three of the deepest shafts in the anthracite area-800 yards-and will work coal at three levels-560yards, 660 yards and 760 yards'.

Cynheidre closed in January 1989 after barely 24 years at full production of top class anthracite. At its peak the colliery employed some 1150 men and produced 9,000 tonnes per week.

[John]

Nice bit of history there, not much output from so large a workforce though. Sounds like a few semi mechanised faces.
9000 a day is what Angus Place was turning from just one longwall face in the late 80's, you can double that now and at some high production mines triple it! Manpower?? less than 300 total at most high production collieries.

[John]

Here's some more great information about Cynheidre Colliery.
www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/Carm/Cynheidre.htm

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/coalhouse/sites/mines/pages/cynheidre_colliery.shtml


Looks like they had tower mounted Koepe winders.

[rhonddalad]

As I understand it, the problem at Cynheidre as with the most anthracite collieries was the poor geology and bad face and working conditions. Anthracite coal has always been more difficult to mine than steam and bituminous coals. By the early/mid 1970's around 95% of production was from mechanised faces. The saleable yield from raised and weighed in the 1960's and 1970's was only between 55% and 58%. Cynheidre Colliery throughout its life had always been plagued with geology problems, hence the output levels and I suppose the eventual reason for its closure.

[John]

Sept 24, 2008 9:59:50 GMT -5 rhonddalad said:

As I understand it, the problem at Cynheidre as with the most anthracite collieries was the poor geology and bad face and working conditions. Anthracite coal has always been more difficult to mine than steam and bituminous coals. By the early/mid 1970's around 95% of production was from mechanised faces. The saleable yield from raised and weighed in the 1960's and 1970's was only between 55% and 58%. Cynheidre Colliery throughout its life had always been plagued with geology problems, hence the output levels and I suppose the eventual reason for its closure.

My first pit hit problems from early on then towards the end.
Then I saw the problems Cotgrave had encountered on the North side. 20ft full diameter rings growing out the floor! I think that was in the deep soft seam. But the floor was very soft in the deep hard seam too. A full time team of road dinters was used in every main and tailgates.. All supplies had to be transported by monorail haulages.

[dazbt]

I seem to recall that Cynheidre's main geological problem was the frequency and ongoing threat of 'outbursts'. I believe that areas of coal were abandoned because of the risk and last ditch efforts to work the thinner problematical Felin seam with the infamous 420 Buttock Shearer were made but failed.
A full report on the 1971 Cyheidre outburst disaster that resulted in six miners being killed, is made available courtesy of the Durham Coal Mining Museum website;

www.dmm2.org.uk/uknames/4804-03.htm