LONGANNET

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 18th Year

Issue

Issue No.

10

Date Released

Jun 1965

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1LONGANNET
2. 2CLUBMEN
3. 3THE WATCHED POT
4. 4TEAMWORK

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: Longannet Power Station, Scotland, will be opened in 1968 and use six million tons of coal a year, brought by underground conveyor from neighbouring mines
NCB Commentary - Up the Firth of Forth, opposite Grangemouth and its oil refineries and petro-chemical plant, a mile or two down from the Kincardine Power Station something big is going on at Longannet point.
Another oil refinery? No, it’s the site for the new Longannet Power Station, which will use up to 18 thousand tons of coal a day.
Manor Powis, near Stirling, will send 1,000 tons a day.
From far down the Forth, Seafield Colliery will send another 5,000 tons a day.
But 10 to 12 thousand tons a day will come straight up out of the ground here, on a conveyor.
To Alloa Area General Manager William Rowell fell the job of figuring exactly how to supply the vast needs of the Longannet Station.
Underneath all this area is the Hirst Seam - enough coal to supply Longannet for twenty-five years.
But it’s not quite so easy as it looks.
Over millions of years, the Hirst seam has been faulted by movement of the earth until today it is broken up into different levels - sometimes by as much as a thousand feet.
On one level an area of coal is already being worked by Dollar mine which has quite a few output records to its credit.
Another stretch of coal is being worked by Bogside also a record-breaking colliery.
The idea is to put down a new mine near Dollar at Bolsgirth, and to drive on, connecting with another new mine at Castlehill, and on again past Bogside where yet another new mine is being put down up and out of the ground at Longannet.
A 5 1/2 mile long tunnel - with a conveyor from end to end.
And Dollar will join in too so that there will be four collieries, each taking coal from an area between two of the great faults, and all served by the same underground conveyor.
The first thing is to get the new mines down.
Sosgirth is well ahead it looked like this April 1965. Casltlehill the new Bogside Mine and Longannet. There’s an awlful lot of dirt to shift to get these mines down to the coal.
Once the new mines are down, they will start driving out tunnels simultaneously, to right and to left.
A big job for the surveyors - to make all the ends meet.
AGM Rowell is quietly confident. Not so long ago the whole thing was a dream. The Longannet Power Station is due to be working in 1968, and will need around six million tons of coal a year.
6mm tons, pouring along that underground conveyor to Longannet - to become more coal by wire, to boost Britain’s power-hungry electricity grid.

Keywords

Mining; Fuels

Locations

Scotland

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