British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

SPACE SAVER

Series

Series Name
Mining Review 18th Year

Issue

Issue No.
5
Date Released
Jan 1965
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1HEAT SERVICE
  2. 2KINETICS
  3. 3SPACE SAVER
  4. 4TOKYO GOLD

Story

Story No. within this Issue
3 / 4
Summary
BFI synopsis: hydraulic motors underground save space.
NCB Commentary - With increased mechanisation underground, it’s hard to keep a coal-face tidy - there’s so much essential equipment in use.
Men and machines compete for space in a coal-face that’s the height of a kitchen table.
One way to save valuable space is to replace bulky electric motors driving conveyors with hydraulic motos, only a fraction the size.
Hydraulic power presses out new car bodies - and when their day is done - squeezes them down to scrap.
Hydraulic power drives the self-advancing chocks, which support the new, remotely-operated coal-faces.
Hydraulic motors are driven by oil pumped under pressure from a power pack, safely away from the face. The motors are relatively simple in design and very tough.
The high pressure oil is pumped to the face through pipes which lie protected alongside protected alongside the conveyor.
There’s more space left on the face, and unlike electric motors, they stop almost instantly, without over-run.
Motors like this are being used at either end of the coal-face to haul ploughs back and forth.
Now it is possible to power an entire coal-face hydraulically, and to get that power from a single source placed safey in the roadway, which can serve a whole range of modern mining machinery.
Keywords
Mining; Engineering
Written sources
British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963
Credits:
Sponsor
National Coal Board
Production Co.
National Coal Board Film Unit

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