Hottest coal mine in the UK

[Wheldale]

Does anyone know if any particular pit in the UK was labeled the hottest? I remember my father saying that he thought Acton Hall near Barnsley was the hottest? I've also read Tilmanstone was a hot one too, anybody know of anymore?

[Sam from Kent]

Yes Tilmanstone was very hot and very high humidity, can't remember what the temperatures were

[Wheldale]

I never worked in the UK mines, did my training in a South African gold mine. Very hot and humid at times depending on how good the ventilation was. There are some mines were it was said you could burn your hands on the bear rocks! Temperatures I encountered were about 30 degrees C. Once went into a development that wasnt working, 40 degrees and 100% humidity, that was physically draining when I tried shovelling some rock!

[billycasper]

All the existing coal mines in the UK are hot. I doubt there are any with development temperatures below 30 degrees C

The worst I've actually had the displeasure of working in was Rossington. We were setting steel to about 100m in and if you touched a ringleg you had to pull away from it. It was so humid too, even sat down resting you continued to sweat, which never evaporated, just dripped off. It was normal to consume about 6-7 litres of water and a bottle or two of isotonic drink in an 8 Hour shift.

I was given a digital temperature monitor with heads for air and liquid measurement once, because we were trying to locate a problem in the MD1100 cooling circuit. I put the air temp monitor head on and recorded 42 deg C at the front of the heading (in front of the forcing vent) and 46 deg C behind the overlap fan. Standing in front of the force vent felt like a hairdryer.

I was contracting at the time and this info prompted our foreman to write a letter to the manager, which got me a bollocking and him moved on. They didn't want to admit the problem even after several people, including the shift manager were overcome by the heat.

Maltby isn't much cooler, the Deputies were issued "cooling jackets" there to enable them to do their face inspection.
The heading I was in was 3000M in and in excess of 40 deg C

Although not a coal mine Baulby was pretty hot, also around 45 deg C on the south side. But due to the low humitity it didn't feel too bad once you acclimatised.

[John]

I never experienced a hot coal mine, very warm and humid sometimes installing a longwall, but once ventilation was established at normal rates soon cooled down.

I used to dread being called up the north side of Boulby when it was being developed in mid 1975!
It was then the hottest part of the mine. I was called to a Secoma drill rig one shift, it wouldn't start, I checked it over and it had tripped out on thermals due to the hydraulic oil being so hot.
Odd thing about those machines was the hydraulic cooling system, it was a fan blowing air through a radiator cooling the oil, problem was the fan was powered by hydraulics. The paint on the oil tank was peeling off!!

Myself and another electrician stayed back to change a cutter cable in the north development. The cable reel on a Joy cutter is horizontal, and to change it, one has to open the cable reel up as the cable terminates within the drum, unlike UK designed machines which have plugs.
We had to find some old sacks to put on the cutter metalwork where we sat to change the cable out, to prevent getting our legs burned. Both of us were in shorts.

[precky]

Bickershaw colliery was quite a warm one ,
perticually one district where i worked which had an underground air con/fridge system installed that fed two fans mid-way in main intake to cool face. still damn hot working thou.
remember having to take salt tablets fom first aid room at end of each shift on there.
don't know what temp's or humidity was thou.