Learning on ScreenPersonal Call: 1. We Visit Donisthorpe
Series
- Series Name
- Mining Review 4th Year
Issue
Story
- Story No. within this Issue
- 4 / 4
- Section Title
- Personal Call
- Summary
- NCB Commentary - So Donisthorpe Colliery has won the News of the World coal competition - a thousand guineas and a challenge cup. I talked Mining Review into letting me go down and take a look.
On the way, I was thinking about what they’d told me - about Donisthorpe’s output records - three quarters of a million tons a year, three times the prewar output - and of the American continuous miner they’re using in one of the seams. I’d seen one on the surface, but I wasn’t sure about what it did and why.
Anyway, I soon found out. Down I went, and got myself properly searched at pit bottom. Safety officer Cyril Harris was there to keep an eye on me and show me around. Identity card? What, me? Right away, one thing became clear - the reason they can use this machine at Donisthorpe is because they’ve got plenty of room - high seams. There aren’t more than a dozen pits in the country where they could fit it in.
To get to the face I thumbed a ride on the diesel. They told me it would take me two thirds of the way I wanted to go. Anyway, it was all new to me, so perhaps that’s why I looked a bit eager.
But I seen lost that silly grin when I found out that there was still a thousand yards to walk after the end of the train ride. And then, in a board and pillar seam, we came face to face with the monster. Len Cranham, who drives it, gave me the drill. Because the machine is self-propelled the crew who work it set props and pack while it’s running. No back shift needed at all. So that’s what they mean by a continuous miner. They let me take her over. The controls were simple enough, but for all that she’s quite a handful. £25,000 worth of machinery - and 20 tons output per man per shift per ten man team.
The cutting jib moves up and down as well as sideways, and just flays into the coal. The cut coal falls onto a conveyor which is part of the machine and travels back through a hopper and into a shuttle car. Three tons at a time they hold, and bump and lurch their way through the dark to the main conveyor. Then back for more. And this goes on day and night, mind you.
But don’t let’s kid ourselves that this is the answer to coal getting. It’s just one of the answers to one of the problems, and as I said before, you can only use it in a very few pits over here. So I hope to take a look soon at some of the other systems for continuous mining, and see how they match up with what the boys are doing at Donisthorpe. - Researcher Comments
- Commentary recorded 6 July 1951.
- Keywords
- Mining
- Locations
- England; Leicestershire
- Written sources
- The National Archives COAL 32 /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956
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