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Post by rhonddalad on Oct 10, 2008 11:02:25 GMT -5
Coal Reserves- Manchester Area
In the Manchester at Nationalisation there were 22 operating pits in the Area, six of which later (1950) transferred to the Wigan Area. In this part of the coalfield were sixteen workable seams with an average thickness of 70 feet: not all collieries were sunk to a depth sufficient to allow working of the lower seams. The impending exhaustion of collieries in the area caused the N.C.B to look for replacement capacity and an extensive boring programme was carried out between 1951 and 1953. This proved workable reserves of 80 million tons beyond the Irwell Fault in the Prestwich and Pendlebury Area. In July 1953 work on the reconstruction of Agecroft Colliery, situated at Pendlebury, commenced and was substantially completed by December 1960. Three collieries were closed in order to provide manpower for Agecroft. The colliery closed in 1990.
The largest Colliery in the Manchester Area was MOSLEY COMMON No's 1,2 and 3, Boothstown, Manchester and was connected underground with Astley Green Colliery. Mosley Common was sunk in the 1860's and at its peak had produced almost one million tonnes of coal per year. Mosley Common with a Manpower of 2,050, was closed in 1968 for economic reasons and resulted in the loss of 130 million tonnes of coal reserves.
The above is taken from a paper issued by N.C.B Public Relations Department in May 1977.
Britain is still to a large extent an Island built on coal with vst reserves of workable reserves.
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Post by John on Oct 10, 2008 11:26:50 GMT -5
Most of the coal in what was established coalfields is now "sterilized" due to every pit being full of water. Water damages the strata, plus to operate east, (whichever side of the Pennines your on) or south of most abandoned collieries, you'd have to pump all that water out, as it has a knack of working its way to the lowest level, ie the new pits.
Read the paper I posted a link to the other day, it's pretty interesting and was written during the NCB/British Coal days. Yes, it was written about water in the Notts coalfield, but it's just as applicable in Durham, Wales, Derbyshire, Staffs, Lancs, Yorks and any other coalfields dipping west or east.
There are hundreds of old pits under Manchester and Wigan, I was surprised when I did a search a couple of months back, it's a wonder Manchester hasn't sunk several feet over the last century from all the old workings under it!
Lancashire was worked from 1700's until mass closures of BC and probably has more old pits than any other coalfield.
I hate to say this, but Maggie screwed up big time!
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Post by dazbt on Oct 10, 2008 14:18:15 GMT -5
"In this part of the coalfield were sixteen workable seams with an average thickness of 70 feet:"
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is there any more detail relating to these seams?
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Post by dazbt on Oct 10, 2008 14:21:31 GMT -5
Most of the coal in what was established coalfields is now "sterilized" due to every pit being full of water. Water damages the strata, plus to operate east, (whichever side of the Pennines your on) or south of most abandoned collieries, you'd have to pump all that water out, as it has a knack of working its way to the lowest level, ie the new pits. Read the paper I posted a link to the other day, it's pretty interesting and was written during the NCB/British Coal days. Yes, it was written about water in the Notts coalfield, but it's just as applicable in Durham, Wales, Derbyshire, Staffs, Lancs, Yorks and any other coalfields dipping west or east. There are hundreds of old pits under Manchester and Wigan, I was surprised when I did a search a couple of months back, it's a wonder Manchester hasn't sunk several feet over the last century from all the old workings under it! Lancashire was worked from 1700's until mass closures of BC and probably has more old pits than any other coalfield. I hate to say this, but Maggie screwed up big time! It's a pity the Channel tunnel didn't start in Nottingham, then, as the price of coal rose we could have used it as a primary drainage adit. |
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Post by John on Oct 10, 2008 14:57:39 GMT -5
Most of the coal in what was established coalfields is now "sterilized" due to every pit being full of water. Water damages the strata, plus to operate east, (whichever side of the Pennines your on) or south of most abandoned collieries, you'd have to pump all that water out, as it has a knack of working its way to the lowest level, ie the new pits. Read the paper I posted a link to the other day, it's pretty interesting and was written during the NCB/British Coal days. Yes, it was written about water in the Notts coalfield, but it's just as applicable in Durham, Wales, Derbyshire, Staffs, Lancs, Yorks and any other coalfields dipping west or east. There are hundreds of old pits under Manchester and Wigan, I was surprised when I did a search a couple of months back, it's a wonder Manchester hasn't sunk several feet over the last century from all the old workings under it! Lancashire was worked from 1700's until mass closures of BC and probably has more old pits than any other coalfield. I hate to say this, but Maggie screwed up big time! It's a pity the Channel tunnel didn't start in Nottingham, then, as the price of coal rose we could have used it as a primary drainage adit. Hmmm, the chunnel slough! ;D You reckon it would empty the Yorkshire pits too??? |
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Post by John on Oct 10, 2008 14:58:37 GMT -5
"In this part of the coalfield were sixteen workable seams with an average thickness of 70 feet:"WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is there any more detail relating to these seams? I think he means either average thickness 7 ft or totals 70 feet.  |
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Post by John on Oct 10, 2008 15:02:23 GMT -5
There's over a dozen working seams in North Notts.
The Lancs coalfield is an extension of the Yorkshire coalfield, the Pennines pushed up between the two isolating them, so anyone in Barnsley who worked underground would have worked in the same seams under different names, rhondalad.
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Post by dazbt on Oct 10, 2008 15:44:10 GMT -5
Within the Barnsley area there are more than 30 coal seams that have at some time been worked.
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Post by John on Oct 11, 2008 7:47:47 GMT -5
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Post by dazbt on Oct 11, 2008 10:54:06 GMT -5
Here's my 'guestimate' for some of the Barnsley seams;
Listed in order of depth, starting with shallowest,
SHAFTON (Billingley)
CUDWORTH (Sharlston,) a good example of a seam that split, then named Top and Low Sharlston but owing to the depth of separation were both worked by the some mines, Royston Drift and Ferrymoor Riddings for example)
SWINTON POTTERY
NEWHILL
MELTON FIELD (Wath Wood)
TWO FOOT
WINTER (Winter Bed and Abdy)
BEAMSHAW (Furnace)
KENT’S THICK (High Hazel)
BARNSLEY BED (Warren House)
DUNSIL to the East of Barnsley the Dunsil and Barnsley were extracted as one seam, eg Rossington.
SWALLOW WOOD (Haigh Moor) split seam worked as Top and Bottom
LIDGETT
JOAN (Mitchell)
FLOCKTON THICK
FLOCKTON THIN split and both being worked at the same mine simultaneously, eg Parkmill
CANNEL
FENTON
PARKGATE
THORNCLIFFE
SWILLEY (New Hards)
SILKSTONE FOURFOOT (Wheatley Lime)
SILKSTONE
BLACK BAND
WHINMOOR
CHARLTON BROOK (Sandstone Coal)
PENISTONE COAL
UPPER BAND COAL
HARD BED COAL
HALIFAZ HARDS (Gannister)
HALIFAX
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Post by John on Oct 11, 2008 12:03:44 GMT -5
We had a Dunsil seam at Clifton, haven't heard of it anywhere else in Notts, although I doubt it was peculiar to Clifton!
It was a fairly thin seam, about 36 inches with a fireclay band in the middle.
The seam was sandwiched in the sandstone half way down the Stone Head drift, probably around 1000 feet below the surface.
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Post by dazbt on Oct 11, 2008 13:34:23 GMT -5
The Dunsil faces (I think) I recall best were 37s and 38s at South Kirkby Colliery around 1967. I believe the Dunsil seam was at around 600yards depth, about a yard extraction, but the later DECMT faces (Double ended conveyor mounted trepanner cutter loader), were an absolute nightmare to work in with regards to the available crawling height .............. a good example of having to take your belt and battery off to get through. A lasting memory of the last South Kirkby Dunsil installation that I worked, on we used a pit pony to pull the the DECMT machine sections onto the faceline, comparatively it would have been a bit like using a Model T Ford to transport the space shuttle Endeavour to the launch pad I suppose.
At Rossington Colliery, Doncaster the Dunsil seam was separated from the upper Barnsly Bed seam by about a twelve inch(ish) muck band, but taken together in a single14foot single pass extraction on 101s face, using a double ended 22inch AB16Servo Mk1 as main machine and two other 22inch AB16 Servo Mk1 single ended as face end machines all on a single chain haulage system ……… God only knows how !!……….. happy days.
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Post by John on Oct 11, 2008 14:37:21 GMT -5
Talk about tug of war!! ;D ;D
Didn't I recall an AB machine that had a special maingate pan used for driving the face??? Came out into the maingate for service etc, then went under the ripping lip around a curved pan and cut the face out ready for installation?? I'm sure I had a brochure at one time on such an animal.
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Post by dazbt on Oct 11, 2008 15:11:00 GMT -5
Tug of war is just about what it was ............ when T1 =T2 nowt happened, so it ended up with seperate haulage chains and passover points if I remember.
The 'round the houses' stable eliminating machine I remember vaguely, I'll have a sleep on it.
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Post by John on Oct 11, 2008 16:16:43 GMT -5
This was actually a face heading shearer Daz, I don't know what happened to the brochure, I may be mistaken, but it may have been a BJD too??
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Post by rhonddalad on Oct 12, 2008 5:22:39 GMT -5
John, You were quite right about Maggie Screwing up.
What Thatcher, Major and Heseltine did to the Coal Industry, the Collieries and more importantly the Coal Mining Communities was nothing short of 'Industrial Vandalism'.
The former South Wales and Yorkshire Mining communities have still not recovered from the destruction caused, firstly, by Thatcher's hatred of the Union Movement and secondly, Major's 'Dash for Gas' / 'Privatisation', policies, the latter, of course lining the pockets of Tory Government's 'friends' in the city'.
A former colleague of mine in the N.C.B. (a non political animal) said to me in the early eighties, that he could not understand anyone in the Coal Industry voting/supporting a Thatcher Government as it was like 'turkeys voting for Christmas'. How right he was.
Look at how the UDM and the Nottinghamshire Coalfield was treated after the strike by successive Tory Governments.
Unfortunately, the Coal Industry always suffered by Government interference, but even more so since 1979.
Of course by its very nature as an extraction industry, collieries will close, but there was a far better and human way to approach the problem. Contrast Thatcher's policies with those of the French and German Governments faced with the decline of their Coal Mining Industries.
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Post by John on Oct 12, 2008 8:25:43 GMT -5
Didn't the French just start closing there's enmasse??
There's links to a couple of papers regarding the closures of British pits on this site, interesting and eye opening. It was all planned years before the Tories came to power! Wasn't even Thatchers idea either!
If you read some of the stuff thats been released in the last few years, you will see Thatcher came very close to caving in a couple of times and throwing the towel in. Scargill made some really bad judgements that left the old bird wringing her hands and kissing her hubby!
IF, Nacods had walked off the job, the strike would have been over within hours, simple as that, and the NUM would still have been the most powerful union in the UK still feared by governments.
Although the Tories had planned the dispute way back in the mid 1970's, they hadn't a full energy policy in hand, sure some power stations converted to dual fuel after the elections with oil being the fuel to keep them going in a prolonged strike, they made sure coal stocks were built up to record levels, but they knew if NACODS followed the NUM out the gates, the pits were in serious trouble on a return to work.
They knew there was no way scabs could work without Deputies, the law forbid it, they knew they couldn't drive a wedge between the miners as they did in the Midlands, because there would be no Deputies.
NACODS was the killer for both sides, had they followed their fellow mineworkers out the gates, they'd still be in work today too.
Can't for the life of me see why they didn't.
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Post by dazbt on Oct 12, 2008 9:36:19 GMT -5
This was actually a face heading shearer Daz, I don't know what happened to the brochure, I may be mistaken, but it may have been a BJD too?? Can't think of anything John, it would have to have been a short shearer an the one configuration that comes to mind was Dowty concept made in conjuction with Anderson that was little more than a motor and a ranging arm gearbox. There were a couple of variations of single entry face shearers, short units designed to operate in blind end 'shortwalls' used in the extraction of 'pillars' left between longwalls. If BJD made one and it worked, then Anderson would have made one before it  ;D |
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Post by John on Oct 12, 2008 10:33:09 GMT -5
I don't know what ever happened to the two page brochure on it, but it showed a full sized shearer on the front, mounted on an AFC curving under a ripping lip. The shearer had a different front end configuration designed for cutting a face heading. Thats all I can recall, as it's years since I last saw it.
From recollection the front page asked why undercut a face fire it when a shearer can take all the hard work out. At the same time the face was advancing it could be installed with the final chocks instead of wood props and bars.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Oct 14, 2008 2:52:53 GMT -5
I don't know what ever happened to the two page brochure on it, but it showed a full sized shearer on the front, mounted on an AFC curving under a ripping lip. The shearer had a different front end configuration designed for cutting a face heading. Thats all I can recall, as it's years since I last saw it. I don't know if anyone's ever built such a thing, but it sounds almost like an AFC-mounted continuous miner, if you see what I mean. |
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Post by jeromeowen on Dec 17, 2008 0:21:52 GMT -5
POST REMOVED.
Has no bearing on the subject and although is not blatant advertising comes very close.
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;D