Learning on ScreenAt the Coalface. British Movietone News Descends 700ft. Below Ground
Series
- Series Name
- British Movietone News
Issue
Story
- Summary
- MOVIETONE CARD TITLE: Coal Special. South Wales Colliers Go Down the Mine. SHOTLIST: The first sound pictures of a British Coalmine exclusive to British Movietone News. GV Pan over pithead. MS Mass of miners collecting lamps. AT THE PITHEAD OF THE POWELL DUFFRYN PENALLTA COLLIERY. MS Minors leaving lift gate then shut with miners on lift. GV Man working steam winding equipment. CU Piston wheel turning. CU Machinery working. GV & MS Pithead wheel turning. GV Lift descends out of picture. MS Line of Miners have lamps checked. AT THE COAL FACE UNDERGROUND IN THE POWELL DUFFRYN CO. COLLIERY AT PENALLTA. MS Miner explains to camera "We are now 765 yards below the earth and about 1/4 mile from the pit bottom working what is known as a 4 feet seam". He moves away to show two men loading large chunks of coal onto a truck. MODERN PNEUMATIC PICKS GOUGE OUT MASSIVE LUMPS OF COAL. MCU Miner using pneumatic pick (x2 ). CU pick head into coal. MS Two miners piling up coal. MS Truck of coal, it is marked with chalk. MS Coal trucks move through picture. GV Truck onto lift. GV Truck arriving at pithead. GV Truck out of lift. GV Miner explaining "This is the Screen Tippler House, the trams of coal after leaving the pit top and coal having been weighed are now being unloaded. All the small coal below 3" mesh is taken out, and is further cleaned by a special plant. The large coal over 3" mesh passes onto a travelling table or picking belt, here any stone or inferior coal is removed, and the cleaned large coal is then loaded in the railway wagons". GV machines sorting coal. MS Truck onto machine is turned full circle. GV Large chunks of coal. Voice says "Leaving the Screen Tippler House we are now able to see the process of cleaning the large coal. The large coal is carried by the travelling table or picking belt and during its travel from the Tippler end to the railway wagon loading end all stone or foreign matter is removed. This picking belt is capable of dealing with nearly 150 tonnes per hour. The cleaning of the small coal which you will notice have been removed and which is being cleaned in a special plant." CU Coal being sorted. MS Coal elevator. Voice "We are now viewing the special plant for cleaning the coal below 3" mesh. On the left is the raw coal elevator. The coal and shale is fed into the primary wash box. This box separates the coal and the shale by the upward pulsation of the water in the box. This pulsation is caused by these valves that you see on the opposite side allowing air to pulsate the water upwards and downwards. The bed of coal and shale is raised up, the shale being heavier than coal sinks to the bottom onto the perforated plate and the coal is carried forward by the flow of the water. The shale being sunk to the bottom is elevated by the shale elevator to the storage tanker and is now ready to be taken away to the waste head. The coal leaves the end of the primary box for the sizing screen". Various shots of the process described. GV Tank engine pulls away with line of trucks.
- Local distribution only
- Whole reel on Powell Duffryn Mine, items 2-5 dropped.
- Keywords
- Vehicles; Environment; Industry and manufacture; Mining; Engineering
- Footage sources
- Movietone
- Card file number
- 587A
- Length of story (in feet)
- 149
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Film clip
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- AP Archive
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- Web
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