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Post by John on Nov 26, 2004 13:05:40 GMT -5
I spent four and a half years as an underground electrician at Boulby Mine in North Yorks. I started there not long after the mine had been sunk. No1 shaft was used as an emergency egress and No2 shaft was the upcast shaft with steel vent tubes bringing the air down the same shaft. Men and materials also rode this shaft as well as minerals going out the three quarter of a mile deep shaft. That was early 1975, a little later that year we installed the two 1300HP fans underground and No1 winder was commissioned with 20 tonne skips for automatic mineral winding. No1 shaft became the upcast/minerals shaft and No2 shaft the men and materials shaft and downcast shaft.
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Post by John on Jan 26, 2005 11:49:32 GMT -5
A miners sixth sense. I was working as the East panel electrician and a good many of the miners were from none mining backgrounds. This was the first mine any of them had ever worked at. We did have a couple of ex "Big K" (Kellingley Colliery, in Yorkshire, so called because of the huge "K" on the headstocks), miners in our team though. One of the "new" miners came out of a heading to where myself and the district superviser were chatting away. He asked the super to come and examine the heading as he was having a feeling things weren't quite right. He apologised at being foolish and felt a bit stupid, to which both the super and I said he was "getting the sixth sense".....He was right, the roof when sounded was "hollow". It was scaled down safely and no one got hurt.
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Post by John on Jan 31, 2005 14:08:33 GMT -5
We had a set of air doors at the back of the workshops that led onto the main returns, I can't recall whether there were four or five sets, but anyway they were very hard to open as one side was the main fan intake and the other side came out on the opposite side of one of the main vent fans which were both underground, 1350HP each! I was on my way back to the shops from the control room on the return side and bumped into one of the day shift electricians sitting down leaning against the pillar behind the first door, "Whats the matter" I asked him. He told me he had got stuck and couldn't open the last door and couldn't go back for the same reason. I asked him why he didn't put a foot against the opposite side door and just use leg power! Turned out many years back he had smashed his knee caps in an accident down a pit, and the Docs had to remove them, because of that he had no strength in his legs for pushing against anything...
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Post by dazb on Jan 31, 2005 14:30:31 GMT -5
A good case there for the introduction of "Kneematically Operated Air Doors"!!!
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Post by John on Jan 31, 2005 16:27:10 GMT -5
A good case there for the introduction of "Kneematically Operated Air Doors"!!! Doors weren't that bad for the likes of us Daz, but like the feller said, your kneecaps are the fulcrum of the knees. He wasn't jesting either, he didn't have any kneecaps!! Must have been bloody painful kneeling down though I'd imagine!
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Post by dazb on Jan 31, 2005 17:07:52 GMT -5
By shear coincidence I start a course of physiotherapy next week hopefully to rectify or at least ease a problem I have with my left knee, I have had both "inbye" cartlidges removed in the distant past and therefore I know it can't be those. I just hope that it doesn't result in a kneecap removal because upright begging and pleading would not be acceptable to my missus.
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Post by John on Jan 31, 2005 19:01:08 GMT -5
I know just where your coming from Daz, my missus is under 5ft and if I can't get down on me knees, she'll knock me there!
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Post by John on Jun 24, 2008 8:09:42 GMT -5
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Post by John on Mar 23, 2009 13:10:05 GMT -5
Going back to Boulby's earliest days, the fitting workshops and elec shop together with the stores were on the west side of the No2 shaft, up an incline around 100 yards. Workshops?? Couple of benches and lock up tool boxes, very little room to work on anything! The diesel shop was on the east side of the No1 shaft between the east conveyor road and the main intake airways. You could get two Eimco LHD's in there for refueling and maintenance. Once the north area had been opened up, work was started on the new workshops. The whole area had concrete floors, pits for the diesel engined vehicles to go over and be worked on, hoists, and a very large underground stores. The electric shop was far larger, and we could carry out repairs to equipment and make ends of on armoured cables.
Main pumps near a shaft inset to No1 shaft were three "three throw ram pumps" capable of pumping water in "one lift" to the surface from the "Braithwaite" tanks. (settling tanks) Each pump was powered by a 125hp FLP motor.
Power was fed at 6.6KV via two shaft feeders, at the beginning to a main substation on 1E roadway, but later moved to a purpose built locked up steel switchroom in the north side fan chamber. From that subs, it went out to various substations made up of Brush SF6 circuit breakers bolted together in switchbanks. All transformers at that time were Brush 600Kva FLP air cooled units with Brush SF6 HT circuit breakers on the primary side with sensitive "restricted neutral" protection.
Belts were all Huwood, trunks were dual driveheads with two 125HP motors, automatic loop takeups, and controlled by Huwood Mk1A control units. GEB's were Wallacetown A69 master and an A67 slave at 1100 volts.
When the mine became fully operational two "in seam" ore bins were driven and put into use, they were 100 feet deep and 20 odd feet diameter holding 1000 tonnes of mineral each. They fed a belt to a surge bin holding 200 tonnes to keep the automatic shaft skipping gear running smoothly. Two skip pockets holding 20 tonnes each were mounted shaft side with strain gauge weighing equipment were in use. Once winding commenced, the driver would switch to automatic, and as long as ore was available and no breakdown occured, winding would be totally automatic.
Mining at the beginning was all undercut, drill and blast, loading out with Eimco LHD's onto a stamler feeder breaker that crushed large lumps of rock to manageable size and fed the ore onto the trunk belts.
Later, a Marietta Miner was introduced, it was modified in the north workshops to British Standards of FLP on the electrics and trammed down to the south side under it's own power. As far as I'm aware, it's still down a heading somewhere on the south side. It was a failure. After that a Heliminer was purchased together with two Joy SC10 shuttlecars were tried out with success. From what I gather the mine is now using Joy Continuous miners now.
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gaz
Trainee
Posts: 15
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Post by gaz on Jan 17, 2010 9:21:21 GMT -5
I am going on a visit there this week, first time underground since 1994
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Post by John on Jan 17, 2010 9:36:23 GMT -5
Be prepared Gaz, it's a very hot mine!!!! I've worked in pretty warm humid conditions in coal mining, but Boulby is very deep and the ambient rock temperature at that depth is 108F, that's about 40C in new money. But the headings are hotter. Since I left, all main roads are driven in salt, this started in the West Links during my final year there. That was to be a new intake airway, trunk conveyor road to the south side. From what I gather, all mining operations are now in the north area of the lease. You'll be on the cage for around four minutes, I timed the No1 shaft once when we were hoisting rock, load, wind, discharge took 2.5 minutes for 20 tonnes of rock. I hope they take you in the winder hall, quite awesome! Used to be that there were three motors in the UK similar to the No1 winder motor. One at the old Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall, and the other at British Coals Selby colliery on the main drift Cable Belt. One other held as a spare by BC. Both Wheal Jane and Boulby contracted that as a spare just in case.
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Post by John on Mar 13, 2010 11:56:39 GMT -5
Did Gaz get left underground?? C'mon Gaz, how did your trip down Boulby go??? Did you meet John Nielson? John Blower?
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Post by tonyrich on May 13, 2010 20:47:08 GMT -5
Hi John, I've just become a member but been following the site for over a Year. Really enjoy it, excellent site! Anyway I worked at Boulby for over 11 years as a fitter from 1996 When I came out of my apprenticeship I worked around the central area on belts and pumps before moving onto the face. Spent many hours working and sat at the bait cabin with John Blower "Jab" as he was known. He retired around 2003.
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Post by John on May 13, 2010 21:11:45 GMT -5
Hi John, I've just become a member but been following the site for over a Year. Really enjoy it, excellent site! Anyway I worked at Boulby for over 11 years as a fitter from 1996 When I came out of my apprenticeship I worked around the central area on belts and pumps before moving onto the face. Spent many hours working and sat at the bait cabin with John Blower "Jab" as he was known. He retired around 2003. I used to call him "Fozzy Bear" Tony. He started a little before me and he was the first electrician I worked with. I was new and being "shown the ropes" before being let loose! I recall it like yesterday, even though it was 1975. Scotch John Richards took me up what was then the east district to give Blower a hand with a cutter cable. Some idiot in purchasing had ordered cable too large for the cutters, so we were filing the backgland out to take the cable. Great job in 40 plus heat!! John and I used to work together when I worked overtime shifts in the central area. I spent my last couple of years in that district as "C" shift central electrician. John once said something to me, coming from him it was a compliment as he was a damned good electrician. He said "John, you and I are the two best electricians at Boulby mine"! I recall once when there was a vacancy for a Foreman, I can't recall whether it was Dave Horner or Peter who asked us both if we were going to apply for the foremans job. We both laughed at him. "I take that you won't be then" he said... Hell no way both of us said. John and myself were perfectly happy to be lowly electricians. I always call Boulby my second apprenticeship, as I learned so much there. I'd worked unsupervised before at British Gypsum, but Boulby was different, we were under pressure all the time, plus conditions were pretty rough. For a time, all central electricians were unpaid chargehands, we were the senior members of the staff, were authorised to sign stores requisitions and did things none of the other shift guys could do. It would be nice if John contacted me. I received an email from John Barrett a fair while back. Anyway, welcome to CC&M Forum Tony!!
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Post by John on May 14, 2010 7:07:30 GMT -5
I wrote a "white paper" for another site on the early years of Boulby, I will be including an updated version for the rebuild of my Coal, Collieries and Mining website, which is taking a lot of my time up! The site is linked from here on the Links section, where there is some info on Boulby together with names of staff that was there during my stay at the mine. John Neilson was the mining shift supervisor on C shift during my last couple of years there, I gather you'd have known him. He also lived a few doors up from my at Loftus. The one before him, Gerry Meades, migrated to Australia a year or so before I left on the same route, in fact I stayed with Gerry and his family a couple of weeks in early December of 1979. He and his good wife showed me around Wollongong and it's environs. Gerry showed me around the clubs! I ended up staying in the area and working at the same pit that Gerry was Undermanager in Charge of. My direct boss at Boulby was John Littleton, Winders, Ore Handling Electrical Foreman. Our small staff included the two winder electricians Norman Logan and John ? Can't recall his last name, but he hailed from Barnsley. Just before I went on the central area, the first of the Heliminers arrived, with two Joy SC10 shuttlecars to go down the south side. I fully expected to be working on those. Keith Tomlinson my foreman apologized and told me I wouldn't be getting them, but I would be taking on the central area when Fred Fletcher migrated to South Africa. Keith was probably one of the best foremen we had, great feller to work with and under, he had the respect of everyone, left not long before myself to work for Joy Manufacturing. Mine clerk when I left on C shift was Bill Ions, a gentleman! Of course electrical senior staff was Dave Horner, he interviewed me in 75, he was originally the mine Electrical Engineer in Charge and progressed as the site Elec Engineer being replaced by Ron Mitten. Under him was Peter Allen as Mine Elec Superintendant, another gentleman. Peter always thanked me if I'd stayed back to get the job running, or gone out my way for the company. Under him were the four shift foreman, John Richards, Malcom "Wanker" Bell, Keith Tomlinson and Trevor Atkinson plus Dave Day shift elec foreman. Most of the elec staff were ex colliery electricians, a few were from the steelworks. Fitting side were mostly local and steelworks fitters, a few were ex colliery fitters, but smaller ratio than the elec staff. When I started in early 75, I think everyone on the elec staff was NCB trained, most were from the northern coalfields, myself and George James, I know he was a Geordie! came from Nottingham, a few from south Yorks.
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Post by tonyrich on May 15, 2010 5:37:22 GMT -5
I read the paper you wrote for one of the mine exploration sites I really enjoyed it. I love hearing anything from the past down Boulby. My dad started down there 75/76 time as a miner on B shift, he's still there today working on the face line. He often tells me what it was like back then when he started. I finished down there 3 years ago and moved offshore in Africa as a chief mechanic. Strange really because I loved working in the mining industry and miss the place quite a lot! I guess I just got offered a job too good to turn down. Scotch John Richards was still at Boulby when I left, still as a shift electrical foreman. Real nice guy seen him a couple of months back. As for John Nielson he was on the surface in the surveyors department when I started but I worked with his two sons down there, they are both electricians. I was the last person to operate a 120HR heliminer down Boulby, I trammed it into a heading, removed what was called the castle key (each 120HR had it's own specific key to start it) and left it to be buried and the heading sealed off. Beginning of the eighties they started replacing out the 120HR's with Jeffrey 1060 Heliminers, 100 Ton of machine. Brilliant machines and so simple! Real easy for the electricians and fitters to work on. We were operating 10 of the 1060's when I left and two Joy 12CM36's. I hate the Joy's as did all the other fitters and elecs, they were a nightmare to work on. Apparently they have four Joy's down there now 12CM42's I think? Massive beasts! largest continuous miners Joy produce. They also still operate the same Joy cutters, Secoma drill rigs and Eimco 711 roof bolters from back when the mine opened! A few overhauls have been carried out to them since of course, haha.
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Post by John on May 15, 2010 6:35:00 GMT -5
I hated Joy CM's too, we had a spare miner at Wongawilli Colliery in NSW that was a Joy, only brought into service should one of the Heli's needed major working on outside. Slow as a snail, too many motors and a fitters nightmare. We used Heliminers for development of longwall faces at Angus place, very reliable miners. When I left Boulby I think there were two Heli's in operation, one in production on the south side the first 3.3kv powered machines, and the other driving the West Links, still heading west and due to start heading the southern section of that main conveyor road. The Secoma drill rigs and bolters are very reliable machines, first worked with those at BG's Marblaegis Mine at East Leake before I moved to Boulby, diesel powered for tramming though as against the 50HP motor on the Boulby machines. I think I only "lost it" with one man at Boulby, that was John Littleton over an overtime shift, I had him pinned up against the wall outside the report room wall, we never really got on after that, he'd shown his true colours to me and I stopped doing nearly all overtime for him until I left. I did breakdown's at the end of the shift, and covered overtime for sickness and holidays but not planned overtime like "ANDO days" He tried to get me to do other overtime, I always called him a two faced so and so when he did. If he'd apologised to me, I'd have relented, but he didn't and wouldn't even though he was 100% in the wrong.
There was a time when they were trying to bring in "work orders", both the fitters and elecs refused to co operate. I'm sure the mongrels had me singled out as I was one of the most "bolshy" members of the elec staff!! I'd already refused one by "Foxy" Fowler, the mines Mech Engineer near pit bottom one day shift, he handed it to me, I looked at it and ripped it up into confetti, he threw a big "wobbly" over it on the spot, I laughed at him. He started to write another one until I said it's going to end up the same way, he went off in a huff!!
Next I was in the East district, the district mining supervisor was Bernie Walker, he came in the bait room and made a work order out for me to work on a machine, I refused the work order, he refused to allow me to work on the machine without it. So it was a stand off! He said I had to leave the district unless I accept the order, "So Bernie, you're after a walk out of everyone, are you"? He relented on that score. Next my foreman arrives at the bait cabin, finds a "situation" going off and asks what's wrong, Keith told me to stay put and he was going down to the control room to make an outside phone call to Dave Horner the elec engineer, he said he had orders to send any electrician home if they didn't accept the work orders. "I'm damned if I'm going to be the instigator of an all out walk out, eff it, let Horner take the wrap for this" he said. I made a couple of discrete phone calls to the other elecs to let them know and the other fitters underground. Our elec shop steward was on our shift too, Fred Fletcher, he got me on the tannoy from the control room, stay put until I shout you he told me. One of the miners union reps came up to me and asked what was going on, after I explained, he said, you walk, we walk!! This was already getting out of hand. I got a call to go to the control room, my foreman was still trying to get our boss at home. Fred, was saying if I was sent home all elecs and fitters would be walking too, I told him the miners would follow us, so the company were in a spot. Work orders other than from ones own senior staff were dropped after that incident and nothing more was heard of them! They backed down over a threat of strike action. Never did get much done that shift... ;D
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Post by tonyrich on May 15, 2010 20:22:37 GMT -5
Haha, work orders were few and far between when I started. So unfortunately I never got one handed to me. Most of our work was planned, I was on the face line maintenance crew and apart from breakdowns they would shut a district down for us if we had to do maintenance on the equipment. There used to be three teams set up for face line equipment, FART squad (fast action response team) who dealt with breakdowns, The Maintenance crew who maintained and carried out planned repairs and the Build Up Crew who carried out overhauls and prepared new machines. Just before I started they merged them all together into one Maintenance crew. I remember one shift me and a fitter called Bri Gatenby were sent to do maintenance on a new road heading machine we had. A Vorst Alpine road header, similar to a Dosco but this thing was huge and all computer programed and laser directed. It was mining a new access road for the south of the mine. When we got there the machine was still on the face so we needed to tram it back away from the face so we could work on it. After a good 30 minutes and a lot of button pressing we managed to get it started and moved it back into a safe work area. It had only been down the mine for a few weeks and we hadn't really had much to do with it. When the machine was in operation the miner driver would program all the heading details for heights and directions into it and just let it go and away it mined.... or so it was supposed to! Anyway because we were not too familiar with it we ran into a little snag when trying to lift the boom. We had disabled the cutting motor and we wanted to lift the cutting boom so we could inspect the gathering head and boom pins. Once again after patiently trying to figure out how to lift the boom and pressing more buttons the boom started to lift up, but in a strange side to side cutting profile way. We tried to stop it but it kept going, and going in it's programmed cutting profile closer to the roof. There was no stopping it and by the time we hit the emergency stop button the boom had ploughed into the roof ripping down the ventilation ducting, both the 2" water and air supply lines and a shuttle car cable before coming to creaking stop! haha. It turned out that the machine was still programed for advancing the heading from it's previous location on the face line where we had just trammed it back from. Not knowing of it's location (which was now in a lower section of the road way) when we started it up to lift the boom we obviously pressed something we shouldn't of and away it went. Luckily we had the cutting motor disabled. We couldn't help but laugh when the overseer walked onto the district and his face just dropped, needless to say we got our hands slapped for that one. As for the Vorst Alpine it wasn't down there long, a 1060 heliminer was trammed down there and the Vorst couldn't keep up with it.
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Post by tonyrich on May 15, 2010 20:34:21 GMT -5
Replying to one of your earliest posts about 'how to they get a 60 ton machine down the shaft' It is one hell of a sight to see a full new shuttle car appearing slowly at pit bottom slung under the skip, especially when you see the size of a new shuttle car. Then all we did is fill it up with oil, plug in a cable and drove it out of the pit bottom area and parked it up and wait for an eimco front end loader to hook onto it and drag it away to it's new home. It's also a sight to see a full ford transit pickup van appearing upside down under the skip when they slung one of them down the shaft. You see them every day out and about on the roads but you never imagined seeing one hung upside down nearly a mile underground.
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Post by John on May 15, 2010 22:27:01 GMT -5
Up until late 1975, we were still developing the mine and all the maintenance staff on shifts just went were there was a breakdown, we started from the old north workshops up the rise to the west of No2 shaft, not much of a workshop, but it was "base station" for us. There was a fitter by the name of Eddie Calender, he had a long beard and longish hair, was thin and pretty tall, he used to carry a long wooden pole, so got the nickname of JC. (Jesus Christ) He didn't like it, but it stuck. When production started towards late 75, I was assigned the East and south east districts to cover. I had three sets of machines in the east, and one set in the south east to cover. Eddie was south east fitter and Peter ?? was the east fitter. One day shift the undermanager decided to inspect the south east side. Eddie was in the bait room doing the newspaper crossword when he showed up. WTF are you doing?? he said to Eddie. WTF does it look like I'm doing, said Eddie. I asked you what you're doing!! Im doing the effing crossword are you effin blind! Haven;t you any work to do??
Yeh tons, but can't do anything while they are using the machines said Eddie. Get the effin hell out of the baitroom and get some work done then said the undermanager!!
Yeh right!! Eddie danger tagged every machine in his district and started working.
The district super was an ex NCB Overman with an Undermanagers ticket in coal mining, pretty highly qualified, he was also "C" shifts assistant shift superviser when the shift super was off, he carried out his duties. He wasn't a happy camper and told the undermanager to get the hell out of his district and don't come back again!! He then went to Eddie, gave him his newspaper, and asked him to take every danger tag off of the machines and go back to the bait cabin until HE shouted him.
Same Undermanager in No1 pit bottom waiting for a ride out. Blower and myself were working on No1 conveyor gate end boxes, I nudged him and whispered "lets have a row", "you big stupid effin Geordie C..... Can't you get anything right, I shouted, he came back to me, we were almost in tears!! We heard the shaft signals ringing off, so we burst out laughing. Onsetter came around and he too was laughing, he said the U/M asked him if we always had fights and couldn't get on the cage fast enough so as not to be a witness to a fight.
There was a junior elec engineer on our staff, straight from Uni, all theory and no practice. He hated Blower and myself, we used to make him look the fool he was and really gave him a hard time.
Great days, made many friends at that mine!
Talking about machinery, you'd have been impressed with modern longwalls in coal mining. I was longwall electrician at Angus Place Colliery in NSW for a few years both on nights, maintenance, and swingshift production. Latest equipment and roof supports. My shift engineer used to bring visitors down during the shift, as it was safer on swingshift with very little rail traffic and only the faces operating. Most visitors jaws dropped when they saw how we won coal, they still had it in their minds we used picks and shovels. There's some photos here I took underground of old longwall7 before it finished. The shearer and chockshields.
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Post by tonyrich on May 16, 2010 19:18:13 GMT -5
Part of my apprenticeship included me going to a local university to do a HNC, the course they put me on had nothing to do with being a fitter or the mining industry so I complained. The Uni came back to me and said for my final two years instead of following the course structure I was to do a presentation on differences between modern day coal mining and miscellaneous mining, Including the history of UK coal mining from the 70's to present. That was me happy as a pig in muck! since I started research into coal mining I've been stuck on it since especially how coal was won and the equipment used. I was lucky enough to take a visit down both Rossington Colliery and down Ellington Colliery in Northumberland before both mines sadly closed. It was an eye opener to actually see a longwall face and shearer in operation. I also worked with a couple of guys who came from Riccall when the Selby complex shut down so it was good getting loads of information and past stories of those guys. Plus a couple of my Dads mates worked at Selby driving the two drifts at Gascoigne wood. I'm just a sucker for anything to do with mining haha.
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Post by John on May 16, 2010 19:42:59 GMT -5
You might want to take a look at my web site, I'm in the process of rebuilding it, hopefully won't be long before I remove the material there and upload what I have of the new site. coalcollieryandmining.110mb.com/
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Post by philipford734 on Jun 5, 2010 4:46:49 GMT -5
I was lucky to visit Boulby when the shafts where being sunk. We went down one shaft and visited a drivage that was going out to sea. We where told that this was to be a water tunnel to be connected to the sea. I cannot remember the machine that being used to drive the level. It was the first time that I had seen a Laser being used for the center line.
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Post by John on Jun 5, 2010 6:38:02 GMT -5
I was lucky to visit Boulby when the shafts where being sunk. We went down one shaft and visited a drivage that was going out to sea. We where told that this was to be a water tunnel to be connected to the sea. I cannot remember the machine that being used to drive the level. It was the first time that I had seen a Laser being used for the center line. That was "the tailings shaft" Phil, was being used to pump the tailings out around a mile and a half to where the pipes vented on the sea floor. I gather they don't pump raw tailings out to sea anymore, even though there was no damage caused to the environment. It's now used as backfill underground. I never had the opportunity to go down there, that was covered by the process plant crew. Laser centering was introduced into the main mining operations after heliminers were introduced shortly before I left in 79. I don't know what they used to drive the tailings shaft road, never really thought of it as we didn't cover the maintenance of it. First laser I saw was in the West Links driveage, large flameproof unit. We had to work with the mine surveyor when he had set the unit to the roof, I or one of my fellow elecs would cable it up to the lighting transformer. Signs were erected outbye the laser giving warnings to never look back into the beam. First time I saw lasers I walked to the working face to seek it's spot beam of light, a grainy red spot!
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Post by John on Jun 5, 2010 9:42:34 GMT -5
A bit of trivia regarding the tailings shaft, this was related to me by my foreman at the time. The tailings shaft winding engine is a converted haulage engine. No idea of the depth of the shaft, but has to be over 600 feet deep as it sits back from the cliffs in a farmers field. It's clearly visible from Google Earth as a small building almost opposite Cleveland Potash's main entrance. The building had to meet special approval, so was built from local stone to match most of the local farm buildings, and one wouldn't know what the purpose of the stone building is unless was told. It blends in perfect.
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Post by John on Jun 11, 2010 12:00:25 GMT -5
Another story for you Tony, I was on day shift, been told to expect police cadet visitors in the East District where I was shift electrician before taking central area on. I'd done my inspections and had been called to a drill rig with some problem I don't recall now. It was about mid morning and I said to my labourer I'm dying for a pee, well didn't quite say it like that, but we respect our guests here!! He said well have one, yeah right, and what happens when the visitors turn up half way through my pee??? Including several young lady PC's?? It got the better of me, I looked up the heading, no signs of lights so settled in for a good long pee, yes you guest it, a load of lights coming down the road!!!!! I turned my back on them, and just put the old man away just in time.....
Another day shift, we had a new electrician started, he hadn't come from a mining background either. At that time there were two recognised travelling roads into the East District, the East Conveyor road, which was a safe well maintained road, and a back road to the south of that road. It was a mess, with several bad roof spots. OK if you were used to bad mining conditions, but certainly not for new starters to travel.
I'd had a message the new starter was being sent up to me for the day to be shown the ropes. Sometime later he hadn't arrived, I'd assumed someone would be accompanying him for safety, but no, my own shop steward had given him directions on how to get to the East District, pointed the way and left him alone!!! To say I was a bit peed off was an understatement, I was on the phone tannoy and shouting obscenities at every Tom Dick and Harry who had been involved!! He'd only been sent up the road in poor condition. He did arrive safely, more by the grace of God than a stupid Shop Steward who should have known better.
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Post by shaunmg on Dec 2, 2010 6:04:19 GMT -5
John, as I mentioned on another subject I did a few shifts down Boulby clearing a big hang up in the underground bins and introducing our binwhip system
The bins are not to far from the pit bottom. It was like hell, I couldn't stand the heat.
I wonder how is it possible to work in that kind of heat day in and day out. I have been down many mines that are hot in parts, but never anything like Boulby. Its an oven as soon as you get out of the cage. I dread to think what it's like further inbye
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Post by John on Dec 2, 2010 8:05:38 GMT -5
John, as I mentioned on another subject I did a few shifts down Boulby clearing a big hang up in the underground bins and introducing our binwhip system The bins are not to far from the pit bottom. It was like hell, I couldn't stand the heat. I wonder how is it possible to work in that kind of heat day in and day out. I have been down many mines that are hot in parts, but never anything like Boulby. Its an oven as soon as you get out of the cage. I dread to think what it's like further inbye We got used to it, in my time there, early 1975 to 1979, I think it was hotter in 75 until both main vent fans had been installed. When I started the one 1350hp fan was on the surface forcing air down 4x4ft vent tubes in the No2 shaft, return air went up the shaft heating the vent tubes. After the first fan was installed, No1 in it's fan chamber to the south of the shafts it started "cooling down a little. I was underground when we shut the ventilation down, reversed all the air doors and started No1 fan up. Wasn't much longer before No2 fan on the north side of the shafts was installed and started. I can't recall what water gauge readings we operated on, but was pretty high. From what I gather now, they are ventilated from one fan on the surface forcing air down No2 shaft. Both the original fans were mounted on heavy rigid steelwork on a few inches of reinforced concrete floor. On my inspections one day I noticed brass coloured particles in the grease coming out of one of the main fan bearings. Turned out, floor lift was distorting the main underframe of the No2 fan. It had to be realigned and new bearings fitted in situ. I recall when those bins were being driven, they initially had a raise borer drill up from the bottom, the bins were then drilled and fired and the "muck" dropped through the raise bore hole and loaded out from the bottom by eimco compressed air shovels. The contractors were stripped to their underwear who worked in the bins, temps were well over 120F!!!! I hated the north side those days. The plus side was humidity was single digits to zero most of the time.
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 1, 2011 19:03:34 GMT -5
I took a party of nurses underground and one of them asked about the fascilities - i pointed out a manhole ahead with the "bucket" in it, pulled open the brattice cloth to reveal a man with his trousers around his ankles, imagine the shock of cap lamped nurses looking in on him!!
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Post by Sam from Kent on Jan 9, 2011 14:54:03 GMT -5
Your story about the man stuck between the air doors brings back memories. We had a new Undermanager straight from university, very clever man, but found him trapped between the doors in pit bottom because his 5'2" 8 stone frame was not big or strong enough to open the doors!
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