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  #81  
Old 01-10-2013, 09:03 PM
Northern Light Northern Light is offline
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British Geological Survey web site has a viewer that shows boreholes. Some are restricted, but alot can be accessed.
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  #82  
Old 02-10-2013, 07:07 AM
phil phil is offline
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Default whittle colliery

the building ? at newton colliery I remember seeing was circle shaped , made of brick with what looked like a manhole on top. wonder if this was a capped shaft ?.
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  #83  
Old 02-10-2013, 12:18 PM
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the building ? at newton colliery I remember seeing was circle shaped , made of brick with what looked like a manhole on top. wonder if this was a capped shaft ?.
That will be what it is [was] Phil. There are similar descriptions of abandoned shafts around the Shillbottle area.
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  #84  
Old 27-01-2014, 08:56 PM
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Default whittle colliery

I saw the photo's from woodhorn , good photo's . the photo of whittle were you put ; not sure what happening here 1964 ; , is this not where the loco wagons dropped the coal out of the bottom into this hole onto a scrapper whitch took the coal up into the screens. I remember the bad winter at whittle , we were in the manrider going down the drift when it was lifted off the way by ice the steps were straight the same angle as the drift with ice ,some pulled the stop wire it froze on they made us walk down but half of it was slid down ,to be met at the bottom by men trying to get up to tell us not to come down , do you remember 45 gallen drums cut in half filled with burning coal at the drift top to get warm air down the drift to see if it willmelt the ice also they had burning coal on the tracks at the screens under the loco wagons to thore out the coal to get it out of the wagons
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  #85  
Old 28-01-2014, 12:39 PM
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I thought it looked like it was more over towards the pit gates. So that was under the screens.

(picture again) 1964 Whittle Colliery


I can remember the fires at the drift top. Desperate measures. All the fumes and smoke were sucked down the drift as well!
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  #86  
Old 28-01-2014, 12:42 PM
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(picture again) 1964 Whittle Colliery
Is that looking north then Phil? is the row of houses at Hampeth behind the hill on the top right?
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  #87  
Old 28-01-2014, 02:59 PM
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The number of times I went up the screens you could count on the fingers of one hand. What a god-forsaken place that was. I'd rather be underground on the face hand filling. (I did do a month of hand filling on y62, I believe with a chap called John Dickinson.)

Regarding hand filling, I remember one day the guy next to us "the Hopper" he was called got his toecap caught in a joint on the face belt. Dragged him about 70 yards. He took out a dozen timber props with his body as he went down the face. Everyone screaming "STOP THE BELT!#"!"

We did manage to stop it before he reached the box end. He crawled off the face into the tailgate and just dusted himself off as if nothing was the matter. Hard gits.
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  #88  
Old 28-01-2014, 03:01 PM
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What was the length of face allocated to a filler, was it 10 yards? or 8? I can't remember. and a hand filling face length? 180 yards, 18 men was it??
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  #89  
Old 28-01-2014, 03:10 PM
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Hey I can remember setting 'steel planks' on the face - you had to balance this thing,a corrugated heavy steel plank about 6 foot long on your shoulder then arch your back up against the roof so the plank was forced up against it, then somehow in this position you had to get a timber prop and an axe/mel and hammer the prop up tight between the floor and the plank forcing it tight against the roof. Fun and games at the start and a laugh for the old hands but you soon got the hang of it.

I (we) must be among the youngest people around that have done this 'old' type mining. It was pretty much finished at Whittle and Shilbottle straight after this as they mechanised. I'm glad in a sense I did get the chance to do it as I feel I have a better understanding of what went at the old collieries we mention.
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  #90  
Old 28-01-2014, 03:33 PM
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Can anyone remember the sequence of the cycle on a hand filling face?
3.45am shift was the cutting shift for the cutter men? - jib / cut depth what was that?

Shot firers? they were on the face at the same time as the fillers? Explosives? I can remember carrying explosives every day, and helping out with the charging and stemming of the holes, and that feeling of being way way too close to shots being fired, and of course getting half gassed with the fumes afterwards. Also the twisted shot-firer that would get everything ready then shout the standard "H-E-R-E'S F-I-R-E!" then put in the evil three second pause before he pressed the button, just to keep you cruelly hanging on that moment of extreme anticipation!
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  #91  
Old 28-01-2014, 07:13 PM
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here's the rest of those images copied out of the other thread. There are more but the database they are in is slow and bloats my computer until it stops functioning!

Whittle Colliery Dec. 1961 image / image / Whittle Shaft image / screens? 1962 image / drift construction?? image / ooh! this is a nice one! image / image / Drift Winning image / image / Screens image / Brand new Drift man riding set cars 1963 image /not sure what's going on here 1964 image
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  #92  
Old 28-01-2014, 07:21 PM
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The Drift winnings is a nice one.

This must be still near the top as the girders are close together. I think they went to normal separation after a few tens of metres down, although there is a wider gap left in one place the photo, I assume for a refuge hole.
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  #93  
Old 28-01-2014, 08:28 PM
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Default whittle colliery

if you look at photo a brick building in front of craine can't remember this but in front of that is the n.u.m offices , I never worked on the coal face.
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  #94  
Old 28-01-2014, 08:56 PM
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Angry Steel Planks

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Originally Posted by Coquet View Post
Hey I can remember setting 'steel planks' on the face - you had to balance this thing,a corrugated heavy steel plank about 6 foot long on your shoulder then arch your back up against the roof so the plank was forced up against it, then somehow in this position you had to get a timber prop and an axe/mel and hammer the prop up tight between the floor and the plank forcing it tight against the roof. Fun and games at the start and a laugh for the old hands but you soon got the hang of it.

I (we) must be among the youngest people around that have done this 'old' type mining. It was pretty much finished at Whittle and Shilbottle straight after this as they mechanised. I'm glad in a sense I did get the chance to do it as I feel I have a better understanding of what went at the old collieries we mention.
I was a timber laddie at Broomhill Colliery. The title says it all - every support, props, planks and caps, were all wood. Reading your update on Whittle Coquet I am delighted that I didn't have to throw steel planks around. I worked with ponies and they were a godsend but often the rails on the tramway in the tailgate ended some 25 yds short of the face. I could throw wood but I think steel would be a different matter. The times I cursed coming back to the mouth of the tailgate for another tram load, dripping with sweat, and see timber I had just thrown onto the face conveyor for the fillers going past me on the maingate conveyor on a journey back to bank!!! Like everyone else I spoke fluent Pitmatic!
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  #95  
Old 29-01-2014, 07:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Derilda View Post


I was a timber laddie at Broomhill Colliery. The title says it all - every support, props, planks and caps, were all wood. Reading your update on Whittle Coquet I am delighted that I didn't have to throw steel planks around. I worked with ponies and they were a godsend but often the rails on the tramway in the tailgate ended some 25 yds short of the face. I could throw wood but I think steel would be a different matter. The times I cursed coming back to the mouth of the tailgate for another tram load, dripping with sweat, and see timber I had just thrown onto the face conveyor for the fillers going past me on the maingate conveyor on a journey back to bank!!! Like everyone else I spoke fluent Pitmatic!

Very tough job on the supplies for a face. Especially when the rope men failed to advance that return wheel two weeks in a row! And those poor souls humping girders ('hoops' at Shilbottle) by hand up into the headings. Oh dear!
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  #96  
Old 21-02-2014, 01:26 PM
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What was the length of face allocated to a filler, was it 10 yards? or 8? I can't remember. and a hand filling face length? 180 yards, 18 men was it??
I'm sure it was 10 yards per filler, also I think the AB cutters we used had a 6 foot jib.
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  #97  
Old 21-02-2014, 04:16 PM
Alan J. Alan J. is offline
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Default Sequence of events on a handfiling face.

Hauxley and Shilbottle, Faces cut at 12 mn for filling in backshift, H=945, S=830.
Nightsift H=515, S=445, stonemen advanced roadways, bumpers/ drawers moved up face conveyor and drew chocks.( H= face drilled also, S= face drilled in filling shift as bumpers didn't want the noise of the driller for listening to roof movements.) Shilbottle drillers in 2hrs behind main set of fillers.
Sequence repeated again starting 12mn.
To maintain continuity half of the faces were in the opposite shift so there was coal production on in both back and fore shifts at any one time.
At Hauxley there were duffers in 3hrs behind cuttermen as, in the Brockwell, there was a 4'' stone band beneath the coal and cut was in this band. This stone duff had to be filled into the goaf.
Shilbottle on the other hand cut in the coal and the duff was filled off by a set of fillers who were an hour or so in front of the main set of fillers.
It was generally accepted that a length was 10 yds/ man
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  #98  
Old 20-03-2014, 09:51 PM
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Many thanks for that Alan.
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  #99  
Old 20-03-2014, 09:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phil View Post
y64 m/g used as tail gate for y65 supplys went up the gate on a peice of belt fixed on a hauler rope, passed all the middler prop's keeping the roof up.

found this photo on line; an Ashington Coal Company photo, but y64 mothergate was much worse and soaking wet, down to crawling through small gaps in some parts!

The weight coming on a roadway:

http://www3.northumberland.gov.uk/ca...%206976-16.jpg


Old workings end up like that and are barriered off and nature is left to take its course, but y65/4 was a modern mechanised face that ended in a worse state than that during its operational phase.
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  #100  
Old 16-05-2014, 10:42 AM
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Just reading the details of the Shilbottle explosion (1940). The source of the gas was a fault or slip near the caunch.

Can anyone remember the area of Whittle that was left to flood during the '84 strike? When this area was pumped out a slip in the roof shed some stone and started to leak methane. I don't think it ever stopped and it was cemented up with methane drainage pipes put in.

I can remember when this was discovered and being with a deputy one weekend shift when he put his safety lamp probe* up into that hole and aspirated some of the gas down to his lamp. - Most interesting.


[* The deputy's flame safety lamp has a nipple on the side to which a rubber tube can be fit- this tube would connect to a aspirator bulb and a probe, or long tube, that the deputy could reach into awkward or difficult to reach places. Pumping the aspirator bulb would suck in a sample of mine air and pass it into the flame safety lamp. The expert eye of the deputy would then assess the behaviour of the flame. You can accurately judge quarter percent increments of methane in the air by this method.]

Below: a flame safety lamp from Lynemouth Colliery with a gas sampling nipple attached.


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