FIELDS OF COAL

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 10th Year

Issue

Issue No.

10

Date Released

Jun 1957

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1SONGS OF THE COALFIELDS: '16 Tons’
2. 2FIELDS OF COAL
3. 3TEACHERS TOUR

Story

Story No. within this Issue

2 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: open-cast mining summarised from start to restoration of land in Northumbria
NCB Commentary - Bigger and faster machines are the keys to the striking increases in production which have been achieved n British opencast mining over the past few years.
Sites previously considered to be uneconomical have been opened up.
Among the biggest of these is the Acorn Bank site near Bedlington in Northumberland.
The first step in open-cast mining operations is to skin off the precious 12-inch layer of top soil. This is stored so that it can be replaced later.
At all open-cast sites it’s a condition of contract that the land shall be put back in good shape.
Next, three feet of the underlying sub-soil is removed. Once again the earth is stored for restoration to the site later on.
Now the way is clear for power shovels holding five cubic yards each bite to move in and break down the rock formation. This process the open-cast engineers call top reduction.
With top reduction finished, the remaining overburden at Acorn Bank is removed by two giant drag-lines. This bucket weighs eighteen tons. At each bite it removes thirty tons of rock and soil which cover the coal.
Once again everything is carefully stored for replacement later on.
One operator in the cabin controls every move of this three-quarter of a million pound walking drag-line.
It’s still cheaper to win open-cast coal where conditions make it possible then to sink a deep colliery.
Without open-cast work there would have been little or no coal exported in recent years.
Today, if the annual output from Britain’s open-cast sites had to be replaced by imported coal, it would cost the nation some 75 million pounds a year.
Drilling and blasting have to take place at Acorn Bank to further break up the rock before the coal winning machinery can move in.
Here’s the box cut, the grand canyon of Northumberland. Down there, 230 feet down, the power shovels dig in to the 14 feet seam of coal.
These one and a half cubic yard shovels load direct into 10-ton skips - big boxes which can be hauled straight up to the surface.
Here goes one of them. Hauled up by a high speed crane - ground floor next stop.
Inside the skip is 10-tons of high quality coal destined for the retail market of maybe for one of London’s power stations.
At the top level, four such skips are loaded into gigantic 40-ton coal haulers. These goliaths run a non-stop service along a specially constructed roadway to the screening plant.
With 40-tons aboard each trip, the new road takes a pounding. It crosses the River Blyth and two public highways by means of Army-style Bailey bridges. Along the road roll sixteen and a half thousand tons of coal a week.
At the screening plant, bottom doors open on the 40-ton trailers and the coal falls straight down on to conveyors for processing.
But that’s not the end of the story. The land has to be put back in good heart.
Final stages of the restoration are carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Often this gives an opportunity to improve the contours and the drainage of the soil.
To check that the restoration can, in fact, improve the land, here’s a word with some of the members of the Witby Bay Golf Club.
A few years ago, open-cast coal was being won here. Today they’ll tell you that they’ve got a championship course that plays better than it did before.
The golfers are happy and Britain should be too. Nearly 10/- [illegible] profit is shown on open-cast coal production. This is good business for the nation as a whole.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 6th May 1957.

Keywords

Environment; Mining; Energy resources

Locations

Northumberland; Crathie

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.12 No.137 March 1958, p118.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board