My Few Months At Cotgrave Colliery.

[John]

I was transferred to Cotgrave in early 1968 after Clifton had closed. I had a few months to complete my apprenticeship and a couple of months following that until I left for outside industry.
I recall finishing "drawing off" of the last equipment from the North Side in the Deep Soft seam, just some conveyors and their signalling equipment.
Then I was on main roads and spent a few shifts in one or the other of the five working longwall faces or development districts in the south side of the pit, all at the end of the main loco road.
From memory, all gate end boxes were Baldwin and Francis SM2/2X's in the faces and a few Whecol P45 and 50's outbye with mostly B&F's.

I'll add more later.

[John]

Cotgrave was one of the newer Collieries sunk by the NCB during the 1950's and started production during the early 1960's.
Three main roads were driven roughly north south, main loco road, 20 foot diameter arched both directions.
Main conveyor road to the west and parallel, and the main return road parallel to the loco and conveyor roads.

During it's short life, two seams were worked, initially the deep soft seam, then the deep hard seam was worked and finally development was carried out to the Parkgate seam, but no faces or production was carried out in that seam.

All coal was transported via a closed loop rail system called a "Merry Go Round" from the pit to the Ratcliffe on Soar power station.
Cotgrave was supposed to be one of the "super pits" and a "gem in the crown" of the National Coal Board, but it was plagued with problems from it's outset.

[John]

Although a modern Colliery, it had problems, major one was the turnover in labour!
There were men who had transferred from closed collieries from all over the UK, most were from the Scottish coalfields, and the north east of England, mainly Northumberland and Newcastle areas, and not to mention several collieries around Nottingham.
Many of the fellers whio were transferred from Clifton with me didn't stay long.
So what caused the large turnover in labour?
Most of us had worked at collieries where families worked together, ie brothers, Fathers and Sons, Nephews, Uncles etc, so those old pits tended to be close knit communities where a lot of things tended to be overlooked. At Cotgrave, everything went by the book rigidly!
Sure, coal mining has it's dangers, and regulations were pretty strict, but many years of common sense prevailed in the older mines and things were only tightened up prior to an Inspectors visit. I'm not for one moment saying we flouted safety, on the contrary, we operated safely and applied common sense to the rules and regs, we didn't do stupid things that would endanger others.
As electricians our main job was to make sure our equipment we were responsible for was examined during our working shifts and kept in a safe working order.
That only takes a certain amount of time up in a shift though!
At our old pits, to pass time, we'd help the fitter if he was pushed, or give the face crew a hand, say pushing over or advancing the roof supports.
At Cotgrave during the late 60's we'd get our rear ends kicked by our engineer of we made it known we were doing those jobs! I know, I got mine kicked!
Industrial relations wasn't the best either, mostly Management "trying it on" I didn't believe some of the things told me by other members of the staff until one dayshift!
We were changed, been to the deployment centre, lamp room etc and were waiting with plenty of time at pit bank waiting for our turn to descend the pit.
We had about ten minutes until "last draw" when the Banksmans phone rang, after that he started single decking, ir loading only one deck of the two deck cages with men. Now we'd be late! Then the rule "Miss your ride, miss your shift" rule came into effect, didn't matter too much to us at the time, day off work would be a welcome change to being in the dark all shift. LOL
Our union rep was with us, so he made a call down the pit to our fellow electricians and fitters, who promptly made their way to pit bottom and demanded a ride out! Refused! Now that's illegal in the UK! False imprisonment is the charge!
Next thing we knew as we were making our way to the lamproom, "OK, go to work and we'll just dock you half an hour pay"
Being Brit workers the replay was "Eff off and get out our way, we are on our way home now we are on our own time"
We'd hung our lamps and self rescuers up and now in the bathroom starting to get undressed when our Engineer walked in,"cap in hand" pleading with us to go to pit bank where the cage was waiting and we wouldn't lose any pay!
We had a bit of a chat, taking our time! Of course!! And decided to go to work.

You see, with no electricians and fitters, they wouldn't be allowed to cut coal, nobody to do all the statutary examinations of the equipment!
Somebody never though about that!
That was the last time that stunt was pulled on any shift at Cotgrave.
I left there in Novemeber of 68, I'd had a gutfull of that place.
I'd assume things did alter a lot as the mine "matured"

[John]

Not too much more I can add here as it was a long time ago and I was only there a few months.

I do recall the terrible floor lift problems the pit had, one day I was taken down the old north conveyor road on our way to do some drawing off down there. There was sections of the "full circular rings" "growing" out of the floor in the middle of the road!

All supplies from the emd of the loco road were transported into the main and tail gates of the districts via monorail rope haulage from the roof supports.

Every gate road had full time repair men dinting the floors out to keep the roads open.
There was one development I remember where the roads were being driven with Dosco Roadheaders for Cotgraves first retreat face, probably an experiment to see if it could cut down on road maintenance as looking at the abandonment plans, all faces until the end look like advancing longwalls.
Anyone who worked at Cotgrave to the end might comment?
Again looking at the plans for the Deep Hard seam, some faces finshed pretty close to Clifton's old 41's face and old 8's face.

Another "snippet" I think all five faces used two shearers, a main one on the M/G side and a "sumping" shearer for the T/G side to eliminate the T/G stable hole. Some BJD Magnamatics were in use at Cotgrave, but the rest were standard AB 16/200 horsepower 550 volt units back then.

Probably these days they'd have used larger horsepower 1100 volt bi di shearer's.

Due to floor lift problems, the M/G switchgear was all mounted on a monorail pantech with the transformer at the inbye end of the pantech and a heavy shotfiring plate in front of it! First and last time I ever saw that combo!
Usually, the M/G transformer was rail mounted outbye a safe distance from the face.
Due to the transformer being mounted on the pantech, an HT circuit breaker was located at the last conveyor tandem point in case of emergency.

[John]

The two towers and coal prep plant at Cotgrave Colliery.








Photo used by kind permission of Russel Blythe.

[John]

Setting a "ring", looks like a development heading, note how close the rings are set together!!! Normal was 3ft 6ins.
My guess by the date, 1984 and the seam thickness that this was the Parkgate seam being developed.








Photo used by kind permission of Russell Blythe.

[pauline]

i enjoyed reading some of these memories. mygrandfather George Henry Boultby, transfered from another pit, it could have been cinderhill, bestwood or clifton he worked at all three. does any body know of him. I have been researching his family and know he lived at forest close, cotgrave when he retired, he died in 1979. his wife was called lily. he was a small man. he used to volunteer at the miners welfare at cotgrave. if any body remembers him can you get in touch. at edited, contact me if anyone has any info, I will give you Paulines email address. Admin

[John]

Mar 22, 2009 14:39:32 GMT -5 pauline said:

i enjoyed reading some of these memories. mygrandfather George Henry Boultby, transfered from another pit, it could have been cinderhill, bestwood or clifton he worked at all three. does any body know of him. I have been researching his family and know he lived at forest close, cotgrave when he retired, he died in 1979. his wife was called lily. he was a small man. he used to volunteer at the miners welfare at cotgrave. if any body remembers him can you get in touch. at

Pauline, I'm going to remove your email address from your post. Google/Yahoo and other spiders will pick it up and you will be inundated with spam emails.

Anyone leaving a message, then I will email you and let you know, or anyone wanting to contact you, I will give them your email address.
John.

[smshogun]

Cotgrave eventually went for high speed rail underground and replaced the diesel loco's with salvaged electric units from Kent, we went down and split them and salvaged them, they went back to the manufacturers for refurbishment and then we assembled them at Cotgrave.

We constructed a special charging station and installed electric hoists to remove the heavy battery packs, but it was too much trouble for the loco drivers to press a button and lift them off and connect them for charging so they were frought with problems, namely going flat.

[eleceng]

Mar 22, 2009 14:39:32 GMT -5 pauline said:

i enjoyed reading some of these memories. mygrandfather George Henry Boultby, transfered from another pit, it could have been cinderhill, bestwood or clifton he worked at all three. does any body know of him. I have been researching his family and know he lived at forest close, cotgrave when he retired, he died in 1979. his wife was called lily. he was a small man. he used to volunteer at the miners welfare at cotgrave. if any body remembers him can you get in touch. at edited, contact me if anyone has any info, I will give you Paulines email address. Admin

I remember George Boultby, he was at Bestwood & was a pal of my dad's. I knew him there & at Cotgrave. His grandson married my daughter.

[John]

The five faces working when I arrived there were 7's, 9's, 54's, 57's, and 59's. I had to look up what faces were cutting back then..

I also found an accident a Stuart Martin, 2/9/89 was electrocuted, seems he slipped up on the ring main feeders.

[eleceng]

Stuart Martin took my shift team over when I left. It was very sad to hear of his death. He was on a 3.3kv job, which was put on ad-hoc contract. Something I was always against, for obvious safety reasons. i.e rushing the job for money & mistakes being made. Apparently he didn't lake care to isolate B&F (I think SF6, not sure), properly. The flit plug was pulled out but left a live phase pin behind in the switch socket. He grabbed it !!!!!!

[John]

May 30, 2015 7:30:30 GMT -5 eleceng said:

Stuart Martin took my shift team over when I left. It was very sad to hear of his death. He was on a 3.3kv job, which was put on ad-hoc contract. Something I was always against, for obvious safety reasons. i.e rushing the job for money & mistakes being made. Apparently he didn't lake care to isolate B&F (I think SF6, not sure), properly. The flit plug was pulled out but left a live phase pin behind in the switch socket. He grabbed it !!!!!!

Very sad Mick, high voltage circuits don't say sorry when we make mistakes, that's what always made me nervous on 11Kv circuits. I worked with one feller when I was an apprentice who'd been "bitten" by 3.3Kv and lived.

On nightshift I got a telephone call from a Deputy in a development, one of my lads had been sent out the pit with burns to his hands and face, and requested me to go down to the sight to secure it.

First thing I did was to call the last shifts Under Manager, as I knew he'd still be writing shift reports, he informed me my electrician was on his way to hospital, but was in satisfactory condition.
That was that, we had to follow the book, I asked him to notify the Elec Eng in charge and the Manager, he said he'd already done that, and I was to proceed to the accident sight and make it safe, get the Deputy to fence it off, and investigate what happened for the morning, PLUS, not to disturb the sight!!

The job my young elec was doing was PPM's on the 1.1Kv side of a transformer, we had contactors in a none FLP chamber, Australian rules only require FLP equipment in hazardous zones as laid down in the Coal Mines Regulation Act..(CMRA)
His job was to test the outgoing cables for insulation and conductivity.
For some reason unknown to us, he hadn't isolated the circuits!!! He'd opened the access door, removed the plastic safety covers from in front of the contactors, placed his earth megger lead to the main earthing terminal, and was in the process of clipping the other lead to a phase..
Nothing left of the meggers crocodile clip, it vaporized when he got close to the terminal.
The transformer E/L protection circuit tripped the main 11Kv sec side of the transformer and showed locked out.

I used to go out the pit about an hour early to make out my reports, fill in the time sheets and hand the shift over to day shift, Kerry our Engineer walked in and requested I go to his office with him to make a verbal report, he was satisfied with my explanation and gave me three sheets of paper with carbon paper and asked me to make out an accident report for the Inspector.

Outcome was the Inspector wanted the young elec sacked and was prepared to go to court to get a conviction based on the evidence, ie not following standard safety procedures laid down by the Manager and Elec Engineer.

I knew the elec had home problems, his Father had left years back and his Mother had brought the kids up herself, she now was in an advanced state of cancer, leaving the young elec a burden of looking after his younger siblings. So in essence he was totally tired when he got to work. When asked what possessed him to work on live HV equipment with power on, he stated he had no idea nor could he remember what happened.

Kerry our Eng, talked the Inspector out of disciplinary actions and requested he dropped legal sanctions, the Inspector obliged him, BUT, he wanted safety procedures tightened up to prevent another occurrence like that one.

Prior to the accident, we were required after isolation and before working on ANY circuit above 25 volts AC to test the circuit with a none contact voltade detector, one was kept at each district crib room, (meal room) underground together with a megger. The ones we used were EZSCANs, small hand held IS certified, it had a multi led array on the front that lit up when a circuit was alive and in proximity to the circuit. I'll dig mine out and take a photo later.

After the accident, Kerry came out with some new rules, all printed out and we had to sign for them. He also lectured all his electricians, shift elec eng's and leading hands, (Chargehands). We were now issued with our own Ezyscans, complete with belt pouch, we were instructed we must have it with us at all times while working, and to USE it for our own safety before working on ANY circuit.

For working on pre planned 11Kv jobs, we had a high voltage contact type tester, it consisted of a three foot insulated wand with a voltmeter near the handle, and it was placed on the circuit in question, we also had a 10Kv insulation tester that only electricians were authorized to have in their possession. That was a heavy instrument!!!

I have a fair few papers I hung onto regarding working practices I might scan and post from Angus Place. I'm a bit of a pack rat...LOL Ironically I never hung onto much when I left the UK, I could kick myself, but never thought I'd need much of that stuff again. Lots of NCB training manuals, M&Q Act, haven't a clue what happened to authorizations, just got lost I assume.

[eleceng]

I had a similar incident on surface. One afters shift I was in surface elec shop writing a report on some new equipment, Gordon Williamson was shift electrician who came to me to say he was going over to No.1 point, where coal was discharged from skips in No.1 shaft. I asked if there was a problem. He said no, just a little job dayshift foreman had asked him to do. About 20 mins later, all the lights in the workshop went out. It was October so it was dark, about 8.30pm. Fortunately the fitter had a cap lamp. Went outside & realised most of pit top had lost power. Made way to main surface sub. Saw both 3.3 & 11kv for surface had tripped. This affected the fans. As I was assessing what had happened a phone call came through. Gordon was in First Aid with severe burns. The undermanager had arrived just then. I told the exchange man to phone the manager & Eric Drury or Selwyn Murfitt that there had been an electrical incident on the surface, stress that, & I wanted them out. I would go to First Aid to see how Gordon was. The undermanager started playing up about the fan being off. I told him to put standing orders & clear the pit, as power would remain off while I investigated.

When I got to First Aid, Gordon was a mess. His face burnt & his eyelids like Ping-Pong balls & muttering incoherent nonsense. Ambulance had arrived so I sent my U/G chargeman with him to hospital.

By this time Selwyn had arrived. We went over to No.1 point to find An MG200 & an AVO in a mess. Manager, Ken Butt, & Eric Drury had arrived. Manager asked if we could get power on & fan running & leaving site undisturbed for Inspectorate to examine. I said I could switching to alternative ring main feed & switches. Eric told me he wanted a full report on his desk in the morning in preparation for Inspectors. This kept me there till 3am.

The job Gordon had been sent to do was to disconnect an elbow adaptor on the MG200, one was needed for a job U/G. He was assured it was not connected electrically & was "dead". He took the AVO to check if this was so. He put the probes into the outgoing side of the adaptor. It was "live".

Next morning I thought I would be sent for but I wasn't. I went to work an hour or so early on Afters. Eric complemented my report & passed on the same from inspectors & they didn't want to see me at this stage.

Gordon's sight was saved. The medics said if he had been taller he would have been blinded but spent a few days in hospital recovering. 

Back at the pit a few days later, Eric said Gordon would be demoted to Reg. 11. I protested saying he had suffered enough. Eric said inspectors wanted him sacking, but to give Eric his due he resisted & so Gordon came back to work when he recovered. He later was re-instated & eventually became one of my U/G chargemen. He was a good electrician.

The shop foreman always denied any responsibility for the incident. 

[John]

I don't know whether it was outside industry or private enterprise, but I never took anyone's word when it came to anything over 120 volts, I had to check for myself before I worked on any circuit.

When I worked for CPL's Boulby Mine, I was instrumental in getting the permit to work system introduced, didn't take a lot as all management were ex NCB. I could see the possibilities of accidents arising. We already had personal danger tags, "scissors" and personal and general lock system in place, but some didn't use them, mostly the fitters.
Once the permit to work scheme was installed, it was left to the electricians to isolate GEB's for conveyors to be worked on by the fitters.

The incident I posted was my first and last, cost me a couple of hours in paperwork.
In NSW coal mines there was a statutory book, nicknamed "Arcs and Sparks" In the event of an open sparking, arcing or electric shock from electrical equipment, it had to be entered in that book by the district Deputy where the incident occurred.

Something I really liked about NSW elec practice, the main circuit breakers for U/G power had to be interlocked with the main vent fan. If the vent fan tripped, for whatever reason, it tripped all power off for underground.
During thunderstorm season, this happened a few times a month. Ground strike would take out the remote diode for the control circuit. Once rectified, the surface elec had to get permission from the shift U/M to restore the fans power, then wait until all Deputy's had phoned in before restoring U/G power.

[John]

Can't find my EZ Scan, always the same, want something and they go into hiding... Anyway, there is a photo of one on the page I'm linking. They used to cost $60, or $120 for the IS labeled scan. They are about 6 inches long, the battery cover is retained by a cap head allen screw which is recessed for sealing with wax. They are the electricians best friend.

Ez Scan web page.