ANOTHER CENTURY

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

10

Date Released

Jun 1956

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1UP TO DATE
2. 2Ten YEARS ON: ROOF CONTROL
3. 3ANOTHER CENTURY
4. 4KNOCKED ‘EM IN THE OLD FORD ROAD

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: reconstruction and new sinking at Valleyfield Colliery in Fife
NCB Commentary - From under the waters of the Firth of Forth vast coal riches wait to be exploited by the newly remodelled Valleyfield colliery.
Near the ancient village of Culross and facing the great towers of the new Kinneil colliery across the Forth, Valleyfield stands in an area where coal mining has been carried out for 500 years.
Today Valleyfield pit is being radically reorganised to face an expanding future. Existing shafts are being deepened and a new colliery surface is taking shape.
Next door to Valleyfield is the Terry Drift Mine, a short-term drift to augment output while Valleyfield is being re-constructed.
From Terry, a level drift leeds out into the open air, across the Terry Burn and under cover again to Valleyfield itself, where the joint output of both mines is handled.
A coal Tippler which itself traverses from track to track is another innovation which has been installed as part of the modernisation.
Small coal from both mines fuels the efficient automatically fed colliery boilers.
Current big job at Valleyfield is the sinking of No. 3 shaft. Under the new pre-stressed concrete headgear, men are working 400 ft. down, with another 1800 ft. to go.
Operations in No. 3 are speeded by the use of a mechanical mucker - a giant cactus grab which bites up the broken rock in hungry gulps.
In this 22 ft. diameter shaft, concrete lined, will go two skips for winding coal, 10 1/2 tons at a time.
Reserves at the deepened Valleyfield colliery are estimated at 114 million tons - enough for 100 years.
For the Shaft sinkers there’s still a long way to go until the re-constructed Valleyfield is ready to start turning out its estimated 4,000 tons a day.
In anticipation of that day stands the partly completed new head frame, first of its kind in Scotland, symbol of a promising future.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 7th May 1956.

Keywords

Mining; Fuels; Energy resources; Town and country planning

Locations

Scotland; Fife

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.11 No.123 January 1957, p29.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board