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Post by garryo on Dec 21, 2011 9:34:44 GMT -5
I wonder if anyone else has come across or knew of this experimental shearer with a capital EX!
This was an attempt to try and mechanise thin seams, after the war big strides were made with mechanisation especially in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. First was the Meco-Moore, then Huwood Slicer then the Trepanner and finally the daddy of then all the Anderton or just straight Shearer. This machine coupled with the German Panzer revolutionised longwall mining, but hey what about the low seams, well the NCB had the ultimate answer THE PLOUGH. After many trials and tribulations it was found that the plough was not the answer to all vagrancies of low faces especially with hard coal.
So what next, take an AB12 or 15inch coal cutter, mount it on a panzer conveyor and fit a vertical rotating cutting head about 2 foot diameter and about 20 inches high driven by the jib onto it and call it a vertical shearer.
These machines 3 or 4 of them , were tried at selected colliries in the old No 5/6 area of County Durham, including Beamish Mary and Handen Hold
After great cost and numerous nasty accidents including at least one loss of life they were quickly retired to the scrapyard.
Called by the facemen "flying pigs" and a lot worse by many others including fitters and electricians.
Anybody else heard or come across similar machines
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Post by dazbt on Dec 21, 2011 13:14:36 GMT -5
I wonder if anyone else has come across or knew of this experimental shearer with a capital EX! This was an attempt to try and mechanise thin seams, after the war big strides were made with mechanisation especially in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. First was the Meco-Moore, then Huwood Slicer then the Trepanner and finally the daddy of then all the Anderton or just straight Shearer. This machine coupled with the German Panzer revolutionised longwall mining, but hey what about the low seams, well the NCB had the ultimate answer THE PLOUGH. After many trials and tribulations it was found that the plough was not the answer to all vagrancies of low faces especially with hard coal. So what next, take an AB12 or 15inch coal cutter, mount it on a panzer conveyor and fit a vertical rotating cutting head about 2 foot diameter and about 20 inches high driven by the jib onto it and call it a vertical shearer. These machines 3 or 4 of them , were tried at selected colliries in the old No 5/6 area of County Durham, including Beamish Mary and Handen Hold After great cost and numerous nasty accidents including at least one loss of life they were quickly retired to the scrapyard. Called by the facemen "flying pigs" and a lot worse by many others including fitters and electricians. Anybody else heard or come across similar machines Just a bit before my time and probably yours garryo, but I think the concept of what you are describing, was used (or attempted to be used) long before the Trepanner or Anderton Loader (so called), a low seam application of a vertical pillar type shearer attachment was added to the return end sprocket of the AB 15 / 16" cutter jib. I have absolutely no idea where it was trialled/used/tested or indeed just how its application fared, but I do have a downloaded pic of one such animal somewhere. |
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Post by dazbt on Dec 22, 2011 9:34:47 GMT -5
Was it anything like this Garry ?  |
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Post by John on Dec 22, 2011 9:57:45 GMT -5
Was it anything like this Garry ? That's one mean looking machine Daz!! |
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Post by dazbt on Dec 22, 2011 10:03:59 GMT -5
Was it anything like this Garry ? That's one mean looking machine Daz!! I can't help but shudder when I think about the load that would have been put onto the jibend sprocket bearing, I'll be they didn't last very long. |
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Post by John on Dec 22, 2011 10:21:01 GMT -5
That's one mean looking machine Daz!! I can't help but shudder when I think about the load that would have been put onto the jibend sprocket bearing, I'll be they didn't last very long. Probably also put a lot of load on the main drive sprocket too Daz. Just noticed the haulage rope over the top of the machine, that's scares the living daylights out of me, kind of nasty if it broke!! One driver decapitated! |
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Post by dazbt on Dec 23, 2011 3:49:44 GMT -5
When you look at the 1930s pic of the undercutter with the turret and see that the concept of a plough blade had already been "invented", it wouldn't have taken a great deal of genius to evolve the plough principle to the original AB Disc Shearer pictured here;  The 1960's addition of a powered blade fitted onto the face side of the SERDS came later ........... the so called "Yorkshire Door". |
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Post by John on Dec 23, 2011 7:51:51 GMT -5
When you look at the 1930s pic of the undercutter with the turret and see that the concept of a plough blade had already been "invented", it wouldn't have taken a great deal of genius to evolve the plough principle to the original AB Disc Shearer pictured here; The 1960's addition of a powered blade fitted onto the face side of the SERDS came later ........... the so called "Yorkshire Door". That must have been the machine John Anderton and his team were working with and modifying to produce the power loader. First time I've seen a photo of it. When did AB introduce the hydraulic engine gearcase Daz?? |
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Mick
Shotfirer.
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Post by Mick on Dec 23, 2011 13:24:59 GMT -5
Was it anything like this Garry ? I could be way out here,but i remember the Dad's Army team from Gomersal going to Lofthouse to salvage a AB15 with a drum on it. There may have been 2 of them because i think the idea was to try and make one good one out of 2. Mick. |
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Post by garryo on Dec 24, 2011 3:40:06 GMT -5
Yes Dazbt, looks familiar but from what I can remember, the jib had a "swan neck kink" to allow the machine to ride on a AFC, the drum was a little larger in diameter and haulage was by chain (I think).
So obviously the philosiphy was the same, Some NCB engineer must have browsing through some old mining books in the 60s and thought "hey this is a good idea"!.
One fitter in particular didn't think so after a couple of shifts working on the machine he said to the Deputy, "I can understand the Germans giving us a hard time after the war with the Plough, but you would hope our own people would know better" or words to that effect with plenty of Fs***ect.
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Post by dazbt on Dec 25, 2011 16:16:24 GMT -5
I can't help but shudder when I think about the load that would have been put onto the jibend sprocket bearing, I'll be they didn't last very long. Probably also put a lot of load on the main drive sprocket too Daz. Just noticed the haulage rope over the top of the machine, that's scares the living daylights out of me, kind of nasty if it broke!! One driver decapitated! Yep rope haulage systems on face cutters were a pretty frightening prospect, even more so the rope hauled shearers, a fitter's nightmare to tension, it needed a good machine driver to judge the maximum tension before stall and a very brave fitter to thread the banjo clamping arrangement .... a lot more exciting than the sequence of dropping the 'frog' onto the chain spring tensioner systems. Even later, Pitcraft's pioneering work in introducing chainless haulage systems was a major step forward, despite the fact that their prototype horizontal pin "Rack a Track" system trialled at Nostel Colliery was actually more dangerous than either rope or chain hauled systems. |
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Post by John on Dec 25, 2011 19:55:21 GMT -5
Probably also put a lot of load on the main drive sprocket too Daz. Just noticed the haulage rope over the top of the machine, that's scares the living daylights out of me, kind of nasty if it broke!! One driver decapitated! Yep rope haulage systems on face cutters were a pretty frightening prospect, even more so the rope hauled shearers, a fitter's nightmare to tension, it needed a good machine driver to judge the maximum tension before stall and a very brave fitter to thread the banjo clamping arrangement .... a lot more exciting than the sequence of dropping the 'frog' onto the chain spring tensioner systems. Even later, Pitcraft's pioneering work in introducing chainless haulage systems was a major step forward, despite the fact that their prototype horizontal pin "Rack a Track" system trialled at Nostel Colliery was actually more dangerous than either rope or chain hauled systems. I thank my lucky stars I never worked on a face using a haulage rope for the shearer Daz, and having served my apprenticeship under a pit still on the Mech/Elec scheme, tensioning the haulage chain always made me cringe, those springs were scary and a stalled shearer was scarier still, "would them sprags hold"?? They always did.......  I did see a few haulage chains break, I do recall most of us learned the warning signs and hit the deck before a flying chain would wrap itself around a front leg of a chock. Thank God and good design engineers for the end of haulage chains. Scary places those old mechanised longwall faces!! How can you explain going under a ripping lip to newcomers to mining Daz?  "Am I alright to come out" " Aye lad, but bloody hurry".. |
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