CLEANER

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 12th Year

Issue

Issue No.

7

Date Released

Mar 1959

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1CLEANER
2. 2ON THE SPOT
3. 3BIG SHOT
4. 4RAKE’S PROGRESS

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

NoS synopsis: A 14-ton mobile vacuum cleaner, for cleaning out industrial boilers.
NCB Commentary - Steam and coal mining have always gone hand in hand, and research into greater boiler efficiency has resulted in great installations like the one at Llay Main Colliery near Wrexham. Bruning waste material hitherto regarded as unsaleable, it is fully automatic.
50,000 lbs. of steam an hour are turned out and it can be operated by one man - it is practically smokeless in operation.
But the older types of boilers still remain and tending them is hard and dirty work. Stoking is bad enough, but when it comes to cleaning out the ash, well Dick Reid, if you can see him through that mask, would probably tell you. It’s a long mucky business all right, with each bucketfull coming out by hand. Fred Archer, Dick’s mate, has had 50 years in boiler houses.
Now in the East Midlands, area 7, they have got the answer. It’s a British vacuum cleaning mobile unit, claimed to be the biggest of its type in the world. All Fred Archer has to do now is to connect the pipe and pass it down to Dick. The unit, made by the firm who produced the first vacuum cleaner ever, weighs 14 tons. Now Dick, freed of his mask, can do in one hour what once took him a whole shift, 5 tons of ash an hour can be removed - think of that in buckets.
Dirty work, money and a lot of dust are saved by this new device. Although similiar to units used in the steel industry, never before has one been built so completed mobile. It serves 17 collieries in the area, going from one to the other in the interests of efficiency, economy and health.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 2nd February 1959.

Keywords

Industry and manufacture; Mining

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.13 No.157 November 1959, p585.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board