Category: North Selby Mine

List of coal faces at North Selby Mine.

North Selby Mine.

The faces worked at North Selby Mine at the North and South West of the mine.

As you can see from the plan, the faces marked were taken when North Selby was a stand alone mine before the merger with Stillingfleet Mine. Nine faces were mined at North Selby in this area. Four coal faces are shown, but not marked, as they were developed at a later date working from Stillingfleet Mine.

The faces taken at North Selby Mine at the South East of the mine.

As you can see from the plan seven faces were mined at North Selby in this area. One face is unmarked as it was worked from Stillingfleet Mine at a later date. This area of the mine was very hot with heat exhaustion being a major problem due to the working depth of 1100m.

North Selby Mine and Stillingfleet Mine merged in July 1997 but in its short life of 7 years, 16 coal faces were mined. The first face started in November 1990 at North Selby which was H801s.

North Selby H801s face.

It was the first face in the country to have a remote face support pump system and supplied the face at 4,500 psi. North Selby Mine was also the first mine in the UK to both develop and use load centres instead of individual gate end boxes to supply the coalface equipment.

On the nightshift of 6th December 1992, North Selby H903s coalface, using an AM 500 DERDS coal cutter sheared 5055m of coal (3.14 miles). This was a European record and along with Thoresby Mine the first time 3 miles of cutting was achieved in a single shift.

The face headings were developed using Lee Norse LN800 Continuous miner. The lateral roadways were developed using Dosco LH 1300 roadheader machines with a Dosco MK3 roadheader driving the west connection to Stillingfleet Mine. As happened at Whitemoor Mine, the heading developments were taken by mining contractors with British Coal/ RJB Mining teams working the coalfaces from 1993.

The faces were equipped with Anderson Strathclyde 375 kw AM500 DERDS or 375kw Joy 4LS DERDS shearers. The face equipment was initially Gullick Dobson and Dowty Meco. Due to mergers of mining equipment suppliers in 1994, Longwall International equipment was used.

North Selby Mine Conveyor System.

Line drawing of the North Selby Mine Conveyor System.

Drawing and information kindly provided Dave Free, S.C.E. (systems) North Selby Mine.

Due to the sheer size and expense of developing the Selby Coalfield, plans were revised, not only for costs, but to overcome mining problems. The original plan was to drive the Gascoigne Wood spine tunnels to 14,930m so that Stillingfleet and North Selby Mine had a direct connection to the spine tunnels through two, 2000 tonne, 70m bunkers. The complex was planned to have 11 bunkers. This did not happen. To overcome this change of plan a connection was to made with Stillingfleet Mine for the coal clearance of the North Selby Mine via the Stillingfleet bunker onto the Gascoigne Wood spine tunnels.

The tunnel connecting Stillingfleet Mine with North Selby Mine was 3600m long. The tunnel was driven from both ends and was completed in July 1989. The North Selby drivage used a Dosco MK3 roadheader.

Dosco Mk3 Roadheader.

The face main gate conveyors were standard 1100v twin drives with automated loop take up which were PIAB load cell controlled. H801s and H802s, the first two faces, loaded onto a conveyor which delivered onto the H801s slit conveyor to the South West Transport Road Conveyor. This was a complex, one off, conveyor. It was downhill 1 in 20 incline with a jib loop tension take up. It had a standard loop take up at the rear of the drive with retarding structure to keep tension during start up due to the incline. This was achieved by using two PIAB load cells to control the tension during start up.

PIAB load cell.

The PIAB load cells were used throughout the Selby Coalfield and were used as part of all conveyor tension control systems.

The South West Transport Road conveyor delivered coal onto the Bunker Slit Conveyor. This conveyor also had coal loading from the South East coal faces starting with H901s in Nov 1990.

During the development of the South West Transport Road the heading hit a fault. Water was issuing into the heading which was tested for chemical constituents and was found to be 5 times saltier than sea water and was as warm as a hot shower. The surrounding rock was also very warm to touch. 

The Bunker Slit Conveyor was a 120 kw single drive conveyor which loaded onto the 1 in 4 Drift Conveyor. The North Conveyor also loaded onto this conveyor which delivered coal from the North West faces, H851s and H852s. The 1 in 4 drift was created to give North Selby Mine a 70m, 2000 tonne bunker to allow for problems in the coal clearance. The Bunker Infeed conveyor was 1 x 750 kw Gullick Dobson drive fitted with torque responsive disc brakes operated by a load cell placed under the gearbox superstructure due to the incline. This conveyor took the entire production of the pit and delivered it into the Staple Bunker.

The Staple Bunker had a twin Westerland hydraulic speed control feed onto the West 1 Conveyor which was a 1×750 kw Gullick Dobson steel cord conveyor. This delivered coal onto West 2 Conveyor, a 2×750 kw Gullick Dobson steel cord drive which loaded onto the Stillingfleet East Conveyor.