RIGHT LINES

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 6th Year

Issue

Issue No.

6

Date Released

Feb 1953

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1NEW YEAR HONOURS
2. 2RIGHT LINES
3. 3PRIVATE EYE
4. 4JIM’S GYM

Story

Story No. within this Issue

2 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: a new mechanised pit bottom and handling at Shilbottle colliery.
NCB Commentary - At Shilbottle Colliery in Northumberland has been built a brand new pit bottom, complete with electric railway and the most up-to-date handling equipment.
As a full train of 24 cars comes out of the two mile road from inbye, driver Norman Biddell leaves the setting of points and arresting gear to these pneumatic switches. He uncouples the loco from the train and backs his engine off onto the other line to pick up a set of waiting empties. He’ll take them back the two miles to the loading point.
Now the full mine cars are rammed automatically forward towards their next stop. Each car holds 2 1/2 tons of coal and weighs a ton and a quarter. Tommy Arnott is the weighman, and controls their passage down as far as a further set of stops. Another ram comes into action, and one by one the cars pass onto the weighbridge.
After weighing, Tommy uncouples them, and the cars are free to drift on down to the shaft. Here again they come under automatic control. All through the day a line of cars rolls down to be taken up to the surface.
Pneumatic rams push them into the cages. Everything is controlled from desks at either side of the shaft. For Bill Headley, onsetter, it’s a push-bottom job; even his signalling to the banksman and engineman on the surface has been electrified.
On the far side of the shaft, empty cars from the surface are rammed out. They coast down an incline which suddenly starts rising as they pass over catch points. As they reverse and coast back, the cars head towards a by-pass road and are picked up on an electric creeper.
80 feet farther on they reach the top of the climb, and continue by gravity back into the main roadway to make up a fresh train of empties. The cars couple together automatically as they hit one another.
Only 3 men are needed to look after the whole system: the engine driver, back and forth all day: the weighman, at the halfway control point: and the onsetter, loading the cages. The three of them handle all the 1200 tons of coal coming out of Shilbottle every day - and that’s nearly 4 times more than came out before this reorganisation of underground transport.

Researcher Comments

BFI sources suggest that this story was researched by Somner on the 16th April 1952 and then filmed from the 7th to the 10th October 1952. The budget was £519 1s 8d. Footage from this story was used for ‘Plan For Coal’ (1953). Commentary recorded 5 January 1953.

Keywords

Mining; Engineering

Locations

England; Northumberland

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.8 No.87 January 1954, p32.
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Support services

Eric Pask

Director

Francis Gysin

Camera

John Gunn

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Camera

Wolfgang Suschitzky