PITS OF THE FUTURE: 1 - Bevercotes

Series

Series Name
Mining Review 7th Year

Issue

Issue No.
5
Date Released
Jan 1954
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1PITS OF THE FUTURE: 1 - Bevercotes
  2. 2EFFICIENCY SHOW
  3. 3BELT SHOP
  4. 4NYSTAGMUS: 3. The Conquest of a disease

Story

Story No. within this Issue
1 / 4
Section Title
PITS OF THE FUTURE
Summary
BFI synopsis: Bevercotes, shaft sinking with freezing and successful unorthodox methods
NCB Commentary - A year and a half ago, Bevercotes didn’t mean a thing, except to a few planning engineers. Today, on the same ground, a new colliery is coming to life. Already it looks less like a wilderness. Today there are workshops, offices and a canteen so that men can eat protected from the weather.
Before shafts can be sunk, the waterlogged ground at Bevercotes has to be frozen. That means drilling holes all round where each shaft is going to be, and putting down pipes. At first, the boring was done by the usual method of banging drills into the earth. But the holes kept going yards out of true. Then a bold decision was made, to switch over to using rotating drill bits, which had always been though to be no use in such conditions. But results were an eyeopener, and from being three months behind schedule, the job was soon way out ahead.
All these freezing pipes will have to stand high pressures. So, as they’re installed round where the shafts will be, the pipes are tested with compressed air. One faulty pipe would endanger the whole freezing operation.
Inside each pipe goes another, to complete a circuit round which freezing solution will be pumped, just like in a domestic fridge. When the ground has frozen solid all the way down, sinking will start, and then it won’t seem so long till the day when coal will start to come up from the rich seams below, three years from now in 1957.
Researcher Comments
According to bfi records, this story was filmed in October 1953 at a cost of £102 15s 4d. Commentary recorded 7 December 1953.
Keywords
Weather; Science and technology; Mining
Locations
England; Nottinghamshire; Bevercotes
Written sources
British Film Institute Databases   Used for Synopsis
Film User   Vol.8 No.95 September 1954, p436.
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956
Credits:
Production Co.
Documentary Technicians Alliance
Camera
John Reid
Sponsor
National Coal Board

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