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Post by erichall on Oct 5, 2010 10:23:47 GMT -5
Shows the difference in ages - in so short a time. I was fortunate in that I went into mining at the very start of the introduction of mechanised mining. My first experience of Drifting came when I started work in the survey office at Barrow Colliery, near Barnsley in late 1958. Before starting my coal face training, which incidently I did on the last production hand filled face at Barrow, I spent some time with the Surveyors. At the time we were introducing into the Fenton Seam, a couple fully mechanised (for the time )faces. Each consisted of conventional Stable-holes with AB 15 cutter loaders at either end, Standard Rips (hand fired) at either end, and AB floor-mounted Double ended trepanners. Pneumatic supports at the time consisted of newly designed Dobson DoubleTwo chocks. In fact I helped to draw up the face support Plans for these faces. (Every chock had to be hand-drawn) Meanwhile, we were driving a 'New Scheme' which was a new pit bottom scheme which would use the natural gradients to allow minecars to gravitate to the pit bottom, and be brought back round on spotting creepers. We were also driving from the Fenton up through the Lidgett seam and up into the Swallow Wood Seam (this was a new seam for us to work) along cross measure drifts that had to be driven at specific gradients(1 in 40) to allow diesel Haulage to run. This eventually fell through when it was decided to use the more efficient Cable belts that were later installed. Yes, it was very much like Hard Rock mining, but we hadn't got the tracked Eimcos or MC3 s of later. The Eimco 21 was a wheeled vehicle and required rails laying as it advanced. It also required a switch back to remove the filled tub and replace it with an empty tub. As I have travelled the world, being of a mining bent, mining museums attract me whether they be coal or other, and I have found that the thing that attracts most is the sight of an old Eimco 21 Rocker Shovel on display at its entrance. It is almost the equivalent of the many old mining villages whose pits have closed, but have a display of flowers in an old pit tub in some prominent place.
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Post by John on Oct 5, 2010 11:59:29 GMT -5
You weren't that far ahead of me Eric, I started in early 1964, Clifton had three mechanised faces then, with AB16/125 shearers, two faces with Dowty Roofmasters, one still had the hydraulic oil powered chocks!! the other soluble oil and one face with German Westphalia chocks. The newest face had the first electronics introduced into mining at that time, the Winster WICAS face signalling system. I think the old M&C 3 loader we had was borrowed from Noah after he'd landed the Ark. ;D Hadn't they been introduced prior to WW2? In competition to imported Joy loaders???
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Post by erichall on Oct 6, 2010 5:24:44 GMT -5
Only 6 years , John, but at that time, 6 years could well have been an eternity. It was actually a great time to be in Mining , in that Mechanisation was just starting in the late 50's and continued apace. You had only to blink and some new machine had been introduced. As I said, I was at Barrow, where our faces were equipped with AB Trepanners, and Double 2 chocks, and we thought we were leaders. Imagine my surprise when I was called into the Area Staff Manager's office and told that I was being moved to the neighbouring Rockingham Colliery "for further face experience, with the emphasis on Mechanisation!". I was soon to learn that Rock' as we called it, was classed as the poor relation to Barrow, which was near the Area Offices in Worsborough village, and often termed , sometimes not to its advantage, t'Golden Pulley Pit . Rockingham, was a different proposition. Damp rather than wet, in other words nuisance water, with not enough to warrant large pumping schemes , but enough to make conditions unfavourable. We were working at the time the Low Fenton Seam. The Fenton Seam around the area, was up to 6 feet thick, but often split into two seams. It depended on the thickness of the split,as to whether you could work 1 seam, with quite a large dirt band, or , as in the case at Rock' 2 distinct seams split by up to 4 feet of shale and ironstone nodules. hey had worked the better Top Fenton seam, and left a thin coal roof which became thetop of the gate height when working the Low Fenton. Woe betide you if you went through this because it went into the Top Fenton goaf, and ill placed top shots in the rip could bring down this goaf. This oftenled to the roof caving in to a height of '2 lamp shines, gaffer'. It seemed to be Area policy, however, that if a new machine came on the market, one would be purchased and placed in position at Rock', where conditions were often far from ideal. If it could be made to work there, it was then removed and put in one of the 'better' pits. This was rather annoying for the general workforce, who naturally resented being used as Guinea-Pigs. It suited me down to the ground, however, since I always seemed to have a new 'toy' to play with. Our usual faces were equipped with AB16 shearers, usually rope hauled, but the seam had a 6inch band of dirt just above panzer level, and this was cut using an AB15 coal cutter with a 3feet jib and an attached gumflinger. which went in front of the shearer, on the same haulage rope, and pre-cut the coal, throwing the dirt into the waste. This prohibitted the use of hydraulic chocks, and support was by either Dobson, or Dowt (depending on availability) hydraulic props. The prop keys were an adaptation of a comined Dobson Key and Dowty Key, since both props used different keys to lower and raise. These were topped with corrugated bars, and the Gob line was held ( and the AFC advanced) by Bonser 'Mushroom' chocks. Rather a 'Heath Robinson' system, but extremely effective. The stable holes, whilst usually being cut and fired, were occasionally filled with a new stable-hole machine, one of which i remember was a Joy (by name if not by nature) none of which seemed to work as well as the AB cutter in the stable, which after undercutting the stable was positioned immediately behind the stage loader and left with its chain running whilst the colliers simply 'scuffed the coal' into the path of the whirling picks, and hence onto the stage loader.. It was amazing how efective this was and it was eventually 'perfected to be mounted on the SL. and became the first type of waffler.
more later
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Post by John on Oct 6, 2010 7:16:48 GMT -5
Those times were certainly "changing" in coal mining Eric, the changeover from standard earth leakage systems to "free neutral" sensitive E/L more aptly called "multi point earthing", Sensitive restricted E/L systems, manless conveyor systems, my first being the Winster. That company got away with murder until equipment purchasing changed from pit office to Area HQ. Then due to modern face equipment, power increases with larger gate transformers, higher operating voltages, from the old NCB standards of 550/3.3KV to 1100/6.6KV. I also worked on systems as high as 11KV but not in the UK industry. Davis "SIVAD face signalling system, and still around too!! Double ended ranging drum shearers, conveyor mounted trepanners. Some of the innovations should have been thought of and introduced in the 50's and 60's, they were so obvious!! Like advanced headings to eliminate stableholes, heavier load supporting chocks, most were inadequate for conditions prevailing in a fast advancing face. Maybe, I don't know, the geology department wasn't aware of what we are these days of pressure arcs etc in fast advancing or retreat faces. You'd have dealt with what was known in your studies, we weren't taught any of that side.
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Post by erichall on Oct 6, 2010 7:43:11 GMT -5
I know there were a lot of advances on the electrical side as well, john. that's obviously more your line than mine. I can remember the advent of 'lock-out' signals on faces, separate from the pull chord system that we employed at first. I also remember the installation of the first tannoy system throughout the face. Talk about modern day karaoke. We often didn't rate it since we had a system of ringing the bells to tell the SL driver where we were on the face with the machine, and a code for telling of any troubles encountered. It was amazing what information the SL operator had about what was going on on the face, often without him knowingwhat the face even looked like. I think that the Early to mid 60's was a time of discovery and invention. The Mining Machinery firms were feeling their way, and often bringing out machines that were not suitable for purpose. It was often a case of trial and error on both sides, with a lot depending on the outlook of the current AGM. I remember that during my early years, Doncaster Area were using, to some degree of success, the Meco-Moore, even to the extent of forming their own wages agreement, the 'Meco-moore agreement, which obviously workedwell for them. We in S.Barnsley, were more Trepanner/Shearer based, enjoying considerable success. Myself, having used Trepanners, both floor and conveyor mounted, trepan Shearers, Shearers of many types including the BJD Magnamatic, even the Trepan Shearer ( a superb shearer, once the Trepan gearbox went down and it could be used as a conventional shearer) I always erred towards shearers, being a big believer in the principle of the simpler the better. I often felt in the earlier days that the fault with many of the inventions that appeared was the over-complication of much equipment.
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Post by John on Oct 6, 2010 8:44:36 GMT -5
Shearers got pretty complicated, the last ones I worked with were in Australia, the Anderson Strathclyde AM400 and the last one being the AM500. During the introduction of the machine we were given a seven hour lecture by both the electrical engineer of Strathclyde Australia and Alex Downey, the mechanical bod for Andersons Australia. Alex was a gentleman and knew his machines inside out, a pleasure to work with, which I did on many instances. The other feller I only met once and found pig ignorant. Anyway I digress, he was giving us the run through on the electronics, which consisted of three power packs, all mounted at the rear of the switch chamber!!! System diagnostics, and the two amplifiers that operate the swash plate pump for haulage of the machine. My question when it was question time was "Why on earth are the power packs mounted right at the back of the switch chamber as they are bound to be the first things to fail"?? Hmmm, that got his back up, he came out with something like these are super duper heavy duty power supplies and will never fail. "Ahhh but Murphy's Law says different said I, with being mounted right at the back will cost us a shift of downtime when one fails". "They won't fail!!" snapped he! Anyway, this went on for a while longer until the workshop leading hand could see it was leading knowhere and changed the subject, much to the Strathclydes engineer's relief.
Yep it happened, my job that nightshift was to change out a failed power pack!!!!!! Half way through the shift I could have gladly strangled that arrogant bastards neck! Took me all shift to strip the switch chamber down, remove the burnt out power pack and re assemble everything and test the machine. That wasn't the only poer pack we lost in my time with the AM500 either. We never saw that elec engineer ever again, Alex had to take the flak for the coward.
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Post by erichall on Oct 6, 2010 11:51:30 GMT -5
Proves my point, John. In the early days of the old AB16, we had an AGM whose thoughts on the matter were simple. Put the machine on the face, only allow fitters to fill with oils, and grease round, Elecs to do the basic checks, run the shearer till it dropped, then 'Gob it' Meanwhile, there would be a second shearer, in its basic three pieces, in the tail gate ready to exchange. Keep down time to a minimum, and the machine would pay for itself in no time. I was trying to remember the different machines I worked on through my early career. This included face machines, stable hole machines , ripping machines, and eventually roadheaders. It proves my point in that a lot of experimentation was going on, and manufacturers were trying many ideas. had the same thing happen when I was at High Moor Colliery and we were developing free Steered vehicles. We tried numerous single and multi purpose vehicles, untril we came up with the Eimco 913 LHD. We then took a different tack and started to adapt this one vehicle with a detachable bucket, which could be quickly replaced by a manriding car, a flat bed for load bearing (rings,chocks etc.) and finally came up with a 'standard' fleet which allowed us to concentrate on the one machine.
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Post by John on Oct 6, 2010 15:01:26 GMT -5
They adapted LHD's with cable carriers for armoured cables and conveyor belt carriers in place of the bucket in NSW collieries. Transport in both pits I worked in down under was via electric or diesel loco hauled man riding cars and both battery and diesel personnel carriers, track mounted capable of carrying 12 men including the driver. Rope haulages aren't common in NSW collieries like they were in UK pits, the only one we had at Wongawilli was from the lamp room up the escarpment to the offices/workshops and manriding station. At Angus Place it was just the DC driven dolley car down the drift. It could lower in excess of 30 tonnes both manually and on auto.
My first pit wasn't level enough for loco haulage, so had endless rope haulages around the pit. Cotgrave had loco haulage and monorail haulage strung from the roof, as it had very poor floor conditions in the gate roads.
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Post by erichall on Oct 7, 2010 7:15:42 GMT -5
Will post a reply in a different section , probably in the Collieries ? under High Moor Colliery. This can contain much of the FSV discussion. Eric.
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Post by John on Oct 7, 2010 7:26:59 GMT -5
Will post a reply in a different section , probably in the Collieries ? under High Moor Colliery. This can contain much of the FSV discussion. Eric. High Moor Colliery added Eric.
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Post by John on Oct 11, 2010 7:20:47 GMT -5
I put a couple of Youtube videos on the board, should bring back memories for you Eric, hope all good ones!!
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