TEN YEARS ON: WINDING

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

12

Date Released

Aug 1956

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1RUSSIAN VISIT
2. 2WET HEADING
3. 3SAMMY ROAN
4. 4TEN YEARS ON: WINDING

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Section Title

TEN YEARS ON

Summary

BFI synopsis: changes in winding techniques over the past ten years.
NCB Commentary - However much coal is won underground it all has to find its way to the surface up a shaft out of the mine. What changes in the technique of winding have taken place over the past ten years?
Traditional winding gear in British Collieries depended on the steam engine. There are still some antiques chugging away round the coalfields - some of them over 100 years old.
But today the trend is to switch over to electric winding, which is smoother, safer and easier to control. Even emergency winding gear, kept on call in the coalfields in case of trouble at a pit, is being electrified in this day and age. Automatic winding of coal has been introduced to speed up loading.
At many re-constructed collieries most noticeable swing-over on the surface is the introduction of the continental Koepe type of winder.
This is a balanced rope system which, because the two cages counterbalance each other, requires less power and less space in which to operate.
10 years ago most coal came out of British Mines in small tubs. The day of the tub is now over and large mine cars to hold more coal and filling the cage more completely have taken their place. Standard mine cars can carry upwards of 3-tons of coal. These giants hold 7.
At some collieries where output has risen steeply, even mines cars would be insufficient to wind the increased output. At a growing number of pits in Britain skips are being introduced - big containers which replace the old change and sweep up and down the shaft to discharge tons of coal at the surface on each wind.
At Rawdon colliery another method has been introduced: containers which are loaded at pit bottom, rammed off the shaft at the surface and their contents dumped, while an empty goes down for some more. In this way the capacity of a small shaf to load out more coal has been greatly increased.
But mineshafts carry men as well as coal. The new winding systems in British pits have been designed with safety in operation as a first priority. Traditional maintenance and inspection allied with the new developments in engineering mean that miners can have even more confidence in the equipment which takes them down to work, and in the men who operate it.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 27th June 1956.

Keywords

Science and technology; Mining; History and archaeology

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.11 No.123 January 1957, p30.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board