Goofs!

[John]

OK, we tradesmen cockup now and again, would never admit it to the boss though!

I was on nights, dead tired because of the shift rotation system when I got a call on the phone, main trunk belts wouldn't run, it was one of the inbye belts but all the districts were stood because of it.
Seems the pre start alarm was operationg, but the belt refused to start. After about 15 minutes or so of fault finding I decided there was a major problem on the chassis of the Huwood MK1A belt control unit so told the mining shift supervisor that I'd have to nip back to the workshops, pick up a spare and bring it back down. About 3/4 of an hour round trip.
When I arrived back on site I shoved the spare chassis in, checked all the links, closed the door and bolted it up. Errr same problem when I tried it! The Super asked me what was wrong, so I opened it up, put some links in the safety circuits and tried it again, worked OK this time, so I pulled the links one by one and kept trying the belt. I found it, pre start alarm monitor had failed. Whoops, now I had to come up with some BS. Meantime I could leave the belt running, get me a spare monitor from the underground stores, get back and fit it without anyone being the wiser. ;D
I put down on my report I'd repaired a fault on the chassis I'd returned to the workshops.
Nobody was any the wiser until I posted this. ;D ;D

[John]

Not really a goof, and wasn't me, but I arrived to work for an afternoon shift, the Elec Superintendant told me to get changed right away and to get underground as quick as possible as all the main belts were down and the pit was standing.
I came out the changing rooms ready, stopped by the foremans window to see if there was anything new, no, so picked my lamp and rescuer up and went to pit bank for a ride down.
About 15 minutes later I arrived on site, there was one of the day shift electricians he was lost. Everytime I start the belts, the whole area power goes off he said.
I found a belt sequence/run roller had failed, so I put a diode across it.
Ahhhhhhhhh, I know whats wrong, pull that diode off and lets change the roller.
What he didn't know was we had anti freeze protection, ie if a contactor froze in when the belts should be stopped, it would trip the power off a main transformer. This was to stop a belt from pouring mineral all over the place and probably causing a fire.
After we'd changed the roller I went through it with him so he wouldn't fall into the same trap again.

[Clive]

I used to change the worn sleepers at Grimebridge on a saturday morning , it was a lousy job. The drift was only 3'6" and the floor was a muddy soup and sometimes the rails were under water. The rails were angle iron and the only way to loosen them was bray them with the big hammer untill the nails (not dogs) came up a bit to get the claw on it..This was a lot of fun spraying water and very *friendly* personch everywhere

After a few hours my humour had usualy totaly vanished and was about ready for home and maybe...just maybe i wasn't paying enough attention to the haulage rope in the middle of the road, but when its submerged you dont always notice that you have laid a sleeper over the top of it and nailed down a 24' section.

the haulage driver noticed it on monday morning when the first run came to an abrupt hault in the wet part of the drift ;D

still got the job next week though as nobody eles wanted it.

[John]

I was "mucking in" with the team and took on chocking, I noticed the shearer cable was sticking out a little at the M/G side of the face, but thought it was safe, yeh right, I advanced the next set of chocks and flash bang, lights went out, AFC stopped! I knew what had happened right away! Coaling finished on our shift! Replacement shearer cable needed, strip the damaged section out and get it down to rail end in the M/G ready to go to the surface.

If it had been a year or two earlier, I'd have "Scotch jointed" it, but the Mines Department had banned Scotch joints in hazardous zones. And only a proper vulcanised repair was now allowed.

[spartacus]

Not a goof really...But a lot of years ago Thermos came out with stainless flasks that they reckoned were unbreakable. Wonderfull idea, I lost count of the number of times I got my flask out of my bag to hear the tinkle of broken glass....

But they were expensive, about £20 a go which was a lot of money back then, But this lad Greg had one, kept throwing it at the floor and stuff just to prove how strong it was.

One shift, out chock fitter Mally says to him "Just how strong is it then?" Greg says "Guaranteed can't be broken, Have a go if you want". Mally promptly shoves it above a 6 leg chock and blows it up...You should have seen Gregs face!

Thermos exchanged it too...