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Post by John on Oct 14, 2011 18:29:09 GMT -5
Myself and another electrician were carrying out some repairs to the shearer in the electronic control section.
We'd got the lid off and had pulled the relevant part out to where we could do the repairs.
I'd brought a cordless soldering iron in with me with a roll of solder... No, it wasn't supposed to be underground, but it was either carry out the repair on the face, or dismantle the control chamber to get the module out, then transport it to the surface and hope we'd have it all back together for dayshift production.
We took a calculated risk and decided it would be safe to carry out the soldering job on the face, probably half an hours work total.
We were busy soldering when one of the nightshift maintenance miners walked past, stopped and looked at what we were doing, "Hey, you're not supposed to have that down here".
Quick as a flash my colleague came out with "This is a flameproof soldering iron"
"Oh", the miner said and carried on up the face.
We just stood there laughing our heads off.....
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Post by John on Jul 31, 2012 15:20:46 GMT -5
I was an apprentice, day shift and I was sent with a new engineer, he'd been transferred from a closing pit where he'd been a "green ticket" holder, but was taking day release courses at Tech for an engineers ticket.
We'd got to fit a snap lock switch to the Cable Belt thruster brake, it already had a mounting plate with one snaplock switch, but HMI wanted a second for "brake off" as a failure to safety precaution fitting and wiring.
All holes had been drilled previously by someone one weekend, so all we needed to do was bolt the switch in position, cables were there ready to wire it in.
Simple enough job, but should have been done of a nightshift or weekend when the belt was standing.
We bolted the switch in position, no problems at all, that is ........until the Cable Belt stopped........OH dear!! Someone hadn't drilled the holes in the right position, and our snaplock switch spragged the thruster in the raised position.............. The belt slowed to a stop, then started running back down the drift, faster and faster and faster, two of us doing our best to undo four bolts under increasing pressure.... ;D
There must have been one hell of a pile of coal at the bunker delivery point.... ;D ;D
I can tell this story now, as all involved, except me are probably all pushing up daisies... ;D
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Post by John on Jul 31, 2012 15:38:52 GMT -5
Same pit, that wonderful NCB had bought us a manless transfer system for our main truck belt system.
It was the all singing Winster MTP equipment. It had belt alignment probes, blocked chute probes, bearing temp probes, belt slip and sequence rollers, torn belt probes..Looked good on paper, and to top it off we'd have belt patrol men to clean spillage up instead of drivehead button men!
I helped Tommy Shaw do some of the installation, he did a very neat looking job with all the low voltage control cables, thousands of yards of them, many all the way back to the Master control console on the outbye platebelt bunker.
Tommy finished the installation in record time, tested everything, and he "ironed" out any teething problems.
It was set up to run one Monday morning, but all button men would stay in place until the system had been thoroughly tested by Tommy himself.
The day came when he was satisfied, and the button men were put on belt patrol duties. It did have a few problems that required constant maintenance, though not Tommies fault, just design flaws, like the blocked chute probes, they were ultra sound transducers that seemed to get blocked with fine dust and gave false blocked chute alarms. They were cured by a weekly cleaning.
Weeks went by with everyone patting each others backs on a job well done, and of course a lot of overtime saved at weekends on belt cleaning.
Then it happened.... ;D I's No4 belt blocked chute probe failed, BUT, it didn't trip the belt out, and the belt kept piling coal from three faces and the inbye bunker on the floor, how that belt kept running without slipping remains a mystery even today, but it did. The road was filled to about 100 feet past the drivehead and almost to the roof before someone found it.
End of belt patrolmen and back to button men.... ;D
The biggest scare was if it had caught fire, it would have been a major fire as 1's belt road was one of the main intake airways of the pit, and it ran parallel with the main returns, there were a set of airdoors just inbye of 1's No4 drivehead.
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Post by John on Jan 17, 2014 10:56:35 GMT -5
Dave Smith, probably long gone by now, but used to have a habit near time to leave the face of emptying his tool bag on the floor and counting his tools one by one as he put them in his toolbag...Not once, but two to three times.
Another apprentice elec I worked with, who now resides in Canada related this to me, he was working with Dave and just couldn't resist doing it, before Dave emptied his toolbag, the apprentice, when Dave wasn't looking, took a spanner out of Dave's bag, slipped it behind where he was sitting and buried it under the fines in the gate...
He said Dave counted, emptied the bag and counted numerous times and was still counting when it was time to get on the belt and ride outbye....
We presume Dave is till down there counting his tools..... 
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Post by kilburn on Mar 27, 2014 10:10:59 GMT -5
Someone was dipping into others 'snap tins or bags' and helping himself to whatever took his fancy and on a number of occasions he had 'dipped' mine so me and my mate decided to get our own back. On this particular occasion we had agreed to set whoever it was up by making sure those working in and around the main gate knew that there was some chocolate in a bag which was hanging by the gate end switchgear. What wasn't known is that my mate had brought a few blocks of 'E-Lax' chocolate with him and we swapped the 'Cadbury Dark' for this 'bowel relaxant'
Not really knowing who the bas' tard was (although rumor did point in one direction) it was a bit hit and miss - if you get the meaning. Well true to form the 'chocolate' went but we had to stay behind after coaling had stopped to replace flight bars and 'D' links so had no idea at that time who was going to be relieved so to speak.
We heard about it when we eventually went out of the pit. It appeared that the culprit had made it to the pit bottom and even on to the cage but the acceleration of the cage in an upward direction must have caused his bowels to react in an opposite direction 'rather urgently' as one lad put it he "sh*t himself in a BIG way" several times BEFORE the cage landed along with the associated smell which made him very popular!
Needless to say no admittance of guilt! and I doubt if the 'chocoholic' ever realised what caused his rather urgent bowel movement or perhaps he did as the 'dipping' stopped....
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Post by John on Mar 27, 2014 12:41:20 GMT -5
That was an old time favourite Kilburn, stopped the thieving with a vengeance.....LOL
One that happened at Boulby in the 70's, a lot of the lads back then were ex NCB, I was East and South East lecko, we used to play about a bit, but for the most time I was left alone under strict orders from the district Supervisors...South East side was a big ex NCB senior official, by big I mean built like the proverbial outhouse wall!!
He was a fair feller and well respected.
My annual two weeks holidays were due and the lads were asking who was to take my place..Well the South East lads liked a spot of fun, I said I had no idea but would find out.
We had a spare "yappy" lecko on the shift, general dogs body, little young bloke who gave lip...
My foreman said it was him...So I had a word in his ear, "I'd watch yourself with the South East lads, they can get a might playful if you give them any lip"
"Take bigger blokes than them to deal with me" he said...
Well here was an opportunity...LOL "I'll tel them" I said.
"Please your self, I aint bothered"
Yeah I did the dirty on him, eye's lit up in the bait room and a few sblack persons too....LOL
Two weeks later I was riding to work with my labourer in his car and I asked him what had transpired in my absence...
"Nothing, well not until the last shift, but he was very nervous when he was in the South East district, and he made sure he was in shorts"
Those lads thought everyone should wear shorts, they were always armed with a Stanley Knife and blades!!
"Well, they waited until they got to pit bottom, grabbed hold of him and held him on the floor while one of them sprayed his legs black with a "rattle paint can" he said.
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Post by kilburn on Apr 2, 2014 3:18:46 GMT -5
Before working on the coal face you had to do a shorter version of 'face training' which in my case was done at another pit in the area and it lasted IIRC about 3 weeks spending time on each of the three shifts 'getting in the way' of just about everybody. My first week was on the afternoon shift 'flitting the face conveyor' and I was supposed to meet the two men I would be working with in the main gate. I met up with the afternoon Overman who was to take me to the training face main gate or so I thought! what I did not know that this 'man' had a problem well in these politically correct so called enlightened days it would not be considered a 'problem'
The training face was about half an hours walk from the pit bottom and he decided that we would walk via the 'supply gate' then down the face. He chose a sort of short cut through a very narrow slit which was in fact the remains of an old road which was still in use as a return airway his reason being he needed to carry out his inspection.
This route needed us to crawl on our hands and knees for a short way he told me to go in front THEN I found out why he wanted to go that way. As I was proceeding in an orderly fashion I felt something poking my 'private parts' so I stopped looked round and he was shall we say VERY close and before I could say anything he made a grab for those self same appendages - he was going on about making my three weeks there so easy....
He made it very clear that my future would not have been in coal industry if I ever said anything to anyone - however shortly before I finished my time there one of the face workers asked me if this overman had 'approached me' because he was 'well known' for 'that sort of thing' and if so did I report it? "I doubt if you will get anywhere butty, he tries it on with all the apprentices who are here for face training" of course I never admitted that he tried it on with me.
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