In late 1989 Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh were due to officially open the Selby Coalfield. As part of the royal visit they were to visit Riccall Mine and go underground onto H443s coalface. Changing facilities of a very high standard were expected for the royal visit and as the existing pit head baths were not quite up to royal standards a new facility was built. Due to the great expense of building a shower facility for one purpose the building was to have a second life as a sports pavilion and rugby pitch. A three month window was given to complete the new changing and showering area with totally separate areas for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Ron Bruce and the estates department had the building designed, drawings made and land made available adjacent to the main building at the mine. Needless to say it was completed on time. Sadly the Queen did not attend due to illness. The building was eventually used as a weight training gym, changing area and football pitch for the Riccall Miners.
Thank you to Ron for his memories of the event. It’s always good to speak with experts who contributed greatly to this amazing project and my sincere thanks go to Ron Bruce who contributed the information in this post. Without people like Ron being happy to speak with me, these memories are lost forever.
When the Selby coalfield was planned one of the first major issues to be raised was the East Coast Main Line running over the planned workings of Riccall Mine and Stillingfleet Mine. The concern was that a mile wide section of coal would have to be left to maintain the integrity of the railway. This would have cost the N.C.B. a huge amount of time and money due to lost available reserves and having to plan a mine around the mile wide pillar of coal. Thirty coal faces would have been affected had the line not been moved. As with most mining projects a solution was found. The solution was to move the railway line to the west of the Selby Coalfield. This was called the Selby Diversion. Below is an amazing insight into this marvel of engineering within a marvel of engineering.
The new 13.79 mile Selby Diversion line was built between 1980 and 1983 to the very latest specifications. In 1983 the old line was abandoned. A new section of the A19 road was built on the old railway from a new roundabout sited at the south of Barlby near to British Oil Cake Mills (BOCM) factory and pickle factory to the north of Riccall. This created a much needed bypass of the villages and was opened in October 1987. The abandoned railway at the north of Riccall became a part of the Trans Pennine Trail cycleway to York as part of the Sustrans scheme.
My thanks to Neil Rowley for providing all the information in this post. This is an article that Neil wrote for a mining history society a few years ago. He has kindly shared ‘A Day in the Life of the Selby Complex’ from when he was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine.
A Day in the Life of the Selby Complex
Wednesday 29th May 1996
Gascoigne Wood Mine 1996
Cable Belt Inspection
Underside of ASL conveyor showing spillage
Map 1
Approximate Location of Working Faces and Main Conveyors in May 1996 (Surface/Underground correlation is by personal estimate and is for general interest only)
Area covered by Planning permission approximately 100 square miles
Introduction
Whilst clearing out my garage recently I found a folder of reports dating from 1996. At the time I was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine. The reports relate to the daily operations of the Selby Coalfield as seen from the control room at Gascoigne Wood.
I feel that these reports give good insight into the day to day working of a huge industrial complex which is now quickly receding into history.
The complex was made up of five producing mines with one common coal clearance system which brought the coal to the surface at Gascoigne Wood. Map 1 is adapted from an early brochure illustration and shows the general layout. Note that this early base map shows the East Coast Main Line running north/south through the centre of the mining area. Before coal production commenced, the railway was rerouted to the west of the production area to avoid subsidence issues, an example of the grand scale of the project. When I commenced my employment at the complex in 1980 I was told that it should have a life of 25 years, a surprisingly accurate prediction as final closure occurred in 2005.
All coal production from the complex at this time was from the Barnsley seam and the mining system employed was mainly retreating longwall.
The Reports
Each individual mine in the complex would have its own detailed daily reports but as Gascoigne Wood was the point at which all coal came to the surface to be prepared and dispatched, the GW reports needed to contain some basic information from each of the producing mines in order to enable fair allocation back to the individual mines of tons produced. Their operating budgets depended on it!
I chose a date of 29.5.1996 at random to illustrate the operation and sheer size of the complex. At the time the complex was owned by RJB Mining. Privatisation of the industry having taken place in late 1994.
Report 1 is the Daily Production Record for this date.
Safety was taken very seriously and reports generally commenced with this aspect.
It can be seen that there had been one minor accident at Gascoigne Wood during the day. A man had received an injury to the roof of his mouth from a sharp object. This somewhat unusual incident would have been discussed in some detail at the Manager’s morning meeting.
Then on to the production reports.
Wistow Mine had three producing longwall faces on this date. H92s was at the deeper end of the Wistow take and was of conventional length. H74s was shallower and hence shorter to control subsidence to within agreed limits. H134s was very short. Hence H92 could achieve 15.8 strips in the day, 74 managed 17.4 but 134 amassed 30 very short strips.
Riccall Mine had two faces. H478s was successfully mining an area to the south of Riccall village. H504s had just come into production a couple of weeks earlier. This may account for the lower than expected number of strips. It was located to the east of the shafts under Skipwith common.
Stillingfleet Mine had two faces both performing well. H302s was mining the area to the west of Escrick Brick Works. H266s was mining the area to the South of Naburn Lock.
Whitemoor Mine was operating two faces. H641s was to the south of the Whitemoor shaft pillar and H632s was north of North Duffield village. The low number of strips combined with the high ash content that we see from other reports suggests that the faces were in faulted areas and suffering from roof control problems. Depth below the surface of these workings was approximately 900m.
North Selby Mine was the deepest of the Selby mines and was producing from two faces. H906s was to the East of the shafts working at a depth of over 1000m. H856s was near Deighton village. Both seem to have been performing pretty well on this date. As a rough estimate I would say that the coal from H906s face had an underground journey of over 20Km through the conveyor system of the complex before it reached the surface at Gascoigne Wood.
Total mineral transported to the surface via the Gascoigne Wood conveyors on this day was well over 60,000 tonnes. This was pretty much a normal daily total for this period.
Total saleable coal leaving in the trains was 50,641 tonnes
1996 was the 5th successive year where annual saleable output exceeded 10 million tonnes. Profit for the complex in 1996 was reported to be £24.464 million.
Sadly the good times were coming to an end and production was to gradually fall away in the coming years as the better mining areas became worked out.
Report 1
Report 2 –Delay analysis for coal clearance systems 29.05.96
The two spine tunnels coming to the surface at Gascoigne Wood each contained a different type of conveyor.
The South Spine contained the ASL – named after Anderson Strathclyde Ltd, the designer and manufacturer. It was a 12.2 Km long steel cord conveyor running at high speed and capable of over 2000tph.
The North Spine contained the Cable Belt. The cable belt consisted of a very flat profile carrying surface resting on two steel cables. It was slightly earlier technology than the ASL and the flat profile gave rise to quite a lot of spillage, especially if one of the pulleys supporting the cables had a bearing failure, in which case the vibration caused the coal to be shaken off the conveyor. It normally ran at 1000tph but when demand for coal clearance was not so great, it was shut down and the ASL was used alone.
South Spine Delays
The first group of delays with the prefix ROM (Run of Mine) relate to stoppages of surface conveyors downstream of the ASL which in turn cause the stoppage of the main spine conveyors. CO7c was a common offender in this respect. It was the oversize conveyor feeding the barrel washer infeed stockpile and prone to large pieces of stone or timber causing misalignment or blocked chute.
Many of the other delays refer to belt torn protection being operated at various locations. B2 being Wistow bunker, B6 Stillingfleet Bunker etc. The belt torn probe was a wire stretched from side to side beneath the belt. If a piece of rubber was trailing from the belt then it would hit the wire and stop the conveyor. The conveyor was running at high speed so would take a little while to stop and the bunker operator would have some distance to walk to find the offending piece and cut it off.
Rollers were changed by a belt patrol team who did their inspection from a train travelling alongside the conveyor. The inspector was pretty much lying down in the vehicle so that he could see the underside of the conveyor.
Later in the evening problems start to occur with a steel cord coming out of the belt. This would need to have been chopped off and its position within the 24Km of belting noted for later vulcanized repair.
North Spine Delays
This conveyor was affected by the surface conveyor stoppages in the same way as the South.
The report shows several pulley changes and a rope off pulleys incident which were speedily dealt with. The numbers following the entry refer to the stand number on the conveyor structure. The last entry of “portal bubble trip” refers to a detector which was looking to ensure that the rubber belt was lying flat down on the cables. This consisted of a wire stretched at right angles above the carrying surface which would stop the conveyor if it was hit by anything. The trip wire had probably been hit by a large lump of coal on the conveyor and did not indicate a problem with the conveyor belting itself.
Report 2
Report 3 Gascoigne Wood Manager’s Morning Report
This is the summary of the day’s activities that landed on the Manager’s desk the following morning and a summary would be reported on to the Group Director.
The information in the first section predominantly comes from the Westerland feeders delivering onto the spine conveyors from each of the bunkers that the producing mines fed into. The feeders were wide slow flat conveyors of known bed depth and controllable speed which gave a pretty accurate record of tonnage throughput. Mounted over each feeder was a sensor picking up natural gamma radiation from the material passing beneath. Shale gives off more gamma than coal and so with careful calibration the percentage ash could be determined.
Coal from Whitemoor had to pass through Riccall Mine before it reached the spine conveyors and similarly North Selby coal had to pass through Stillingfleet. The ash monitors and weighers for these mines were located on the boundary between the mines and so were not under neutral control. This was often a source of much dispute between the mine managers, each seeking to gain maximum tons and hence income for their mine.
As a check on these ash measurements the GW Deputy Manager regularly visited the individual mines to do a rough face survey, measuring thickness of coal cut, amount of stone falling from the roof and thickness of floor dirt taken. This was a part of the job which I always found very interesting. These findings could then be used to adjust the ash content should it be necessary.
Belt weighers can vary greatly in accuracy so tonnage arriving at surface was adjusted to bring it in line with known weight dispatched over the certified weighers on the railway and changes in stock levels.
To reduce ash levels to those acceptable to the power stations a proportion of the coal needed to be washed and then re mixed back in. At this time there were two washing plants operating – The barrel washers which treated the larger material and the dense medium cyclone and spiral plant which treated the medium sizes. The undersize went straight through to form the basis of the blend. Tonnages into each process can be seen on the sheet.
The ash level to the power stations was running at 17.1% and we would be looking to bring this down a little by the quarter end. The customer paid on calorific value rather than per ton so a slightly high ash content would result in a lower return per ton. A factor critical to the customer was the handleability of the product. The last thing they wanted was coal sticking in the wagons and holding up the discharge of trains. Poor handleability was related to some extent by moisture content, which on this day was nicely in spec at 10.7, but could be more significantly affected by the MRF content.
MRF stands for Multi Roll Filtercake. This was produced by squeezing the moisture out of the finer material in the barrel washer plant. MRF had a good coal content but also contained fine clay particles which could cause handleability problems. It was obviously in everyone’s interest to send as little of this material to the tip as possible but blending it into the product had to be done cautiously to avoid sticky trains. A very fine balancing act.
A small amount of house coal was also being produced.
Three trains of stone left site to be disposed with domestic waste in Wakefield, the rest of the discard was disposed of in a very carefully constructed tip facility on site, with MRF cake enclosed in cells of coarser material. HAU stands for High Ash Undersize, of which 183,000 tons were on stock waiting to be blended back into the product when ash content from the mine reduced.
Report 3
Conclusion
This has been a very brief view of the activities taking place on this fairly typical day in 1996. The sheer size of the operation is clear to see with over 60,000 tonnes of mineral being brought to the surface and over 50,000 tonnes being dispatched to power stations throughout the country in a single day.
As with many mining projects, the geology of the area proved to be not as straightforward as anticipated in the early planning stages causing production to slow in later years. The basic design of the complex required high throughput to achieve cost efficiency and falling tonnages resulted in a rising cost per ton, leading to eventual closure in 2005.
Hopefully these reports give a glimpse of the coalfield operating at its designed output level, as it did throughout much of the 1990s, and give some indication of the tremendous engineering achievements and degree of human endeavour that made up this very bold project.
***
Again, many thanks to Neil Rowley who was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine and who provided the information and memories in this post.
The official opening of the Selby Coalfield took place on December 7th 1989. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were due to visit Riccall and visit H443s, a working coal face at the mine. On the day however, HRH The Queen was ill and HRH Prince Phillip attended alone.
The visit was seen as a recognition of all the hard work that went in to the whole project. His Royal Highness was introduced to British Coal Directors and the Mine Manager, the late Stuart Sumnall. He was shown into the concourse where he met with local school children and members of the mining staff. He was taken into the lamp room, had a tour of the surface, and then went underground. Afterwards there was hospitality and speeches with officials, miners and their families. A successful event, and a lasting memory and endorsement of the success of the mine.
The British Film Institute has kindly allowed me to show this video of the Royal Visit on my blog and I am sure many of you will be very interested to see this.
Many thanks to the British Film Institute for their kind permission to use this video and for their agreement for me to show this in four parts because of the upload limitations of this site.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Copyright BFI / Courtesy of the BFI National Archive
My memories of the day;
The face was prepared with cover plates fitted over the pan side cable and hose brackets, to ensure that no accidents happened during the visit.
A roof bolting demonstration was given by Dennis Nichols and an Anderson Strathclyde AM500 shearer demonstration was given by Terry Armitage and Phil Matthews. The deputy in charge of the district for the visit was Snowy Varley. During the visit, only a skeleton staff were allowed underground. I remember that three electricians, from our team, were at strategic points to ensure electrical problems were quickly dealt with, one being in the pit bottom substation, one at the main gate end substation and myself as the electrician in charge of the face.
I was waiting in the tailgate when I got a call to say that the face A.F.C. would not start. A very concerned and agitated undermanager appeared in the tailgate to ask me to go and see what was wrong. I quickly went to the maingate to see what the problem was. A power supply fuse had blown in the BFS switchgear supplying the panzer and it would not start. I replaced the fuse quickly and thankfully the A.F.C. started. The visit went ahead as planned with no further problems.
The event was recorded in a souvenir issue of the Coal News.
and we were all given a pit check along with a Royal Visit mug to commemorate the visit.
Many thanks to my mate Ian Cawthorne who kindly provided me with the digitised version of the original VHS video of the visit.
Ian worked at Riccall Mine as an underground fitter and chargehand.
Below is a very interesting historical film called ‘Selby: the saving face for coal’ about the perception of the future of the industry in 1984 by the NCB and the NUM. In the film the Selby Coalfield is referred to as a big part of the future of the industry but the actual truth of what happened to Selby, and the rest of the UK mining industry, preceding the year long strike, was very different.
At the time, Wistow was the only mine producing coal in the complex and the film refers to the initial problems encountered on A1s, the first working face and the subsequent replanning of the pit.
The use of non intrinsically safe and non flameproof cameras and photographic equipment is illegal except in very controlled circumstances in UK coal mines. This is due to the occurrence of methane gas, which is an extremely explosive gas. All electrical equipment used in a mine is tested and certified for use in this environment.
Whilst working underground as a faceworker, heading man and later a deputy at Whitemoor Mine, Karl Jarrett sketched his underground environment and the jobs he worked on in his note book. You can see from the artworks below that he captured the very difficult, hot and dangerous conditions we all worked in.
Below are the memories of Karl when he worked at Fryston Colliery and Whitemoor Mine.
I started at Fryston Colliery in 1980 aged 16. My job was supplying materials to the coal faces and headings in the Beeston seam. In 1982, aged 18, I completed my coalface training. I then became part of a heading team developing the underground roadways.
Changing shearer cable on 33s. 1982.
Fryston Colliery snap time stopping the belts. 1982.
Holman Borer, Fryston Colliery 86s heading. 1982.
Making stub heading for area borers in 76s Tailgate. FrystonColliery. 1983.
During 1984-85 I was on strike with the N.U.M. and went picketing almost every day.
Our brave Boys in Blue. 1984.
In 1985 when the year long strike finished we all marched back to work behind the Fryston Branch Union Banner. In the same year the Beeston seam closed due to a fire on 76s face. Due to the loss of the Beeston seam I started working in an advanced heading on 25s coalface in the Flockton seam.
Carrying a Cruciform on 25s. 1985.
In 1986 Fryston Colliery closed and I was transferred to Gascoigne Wood on loan from Whitemoor Mine for 8 weeks.
When I transferred to Whitemoor Mine in 1986 I became a roadheader machine driver working as part of a heading team.
Holing through to Riccall Mine. 1986.
Tank slit at Whitemoor Mine. 1986.
Whitemoor/ Riccall Mine Connection. 1987.
Dalek at Riccall Bunker. 1988.
Whitemoor dragging beam. 1988.
In 1988 I completed my Rescue Training and became a part time Mines Rescue Brigadesman at Whitemoor Mine. In 1990 I started working on coal faces as a Shearer driver.
Whitemoor Mine H624s face salvaging hydraulic props. 1992.
Tailgate from Hell. Whitemoor Mine. 1995
I completed my command supervisors (deputies) qualification and worked as Deputy for about a year before retiring due to health problems in 1998.
All my mining drawings are real places where I’ve worked and events I’ve seen or been part of and have been drawn from memory and sketches I did at the time.
Karl
Many thanks to Karl for giving me his time, his memories and access to his amazing artworks.
When the Selby Coalfield was ready to be staffed a transfer system was created to ensure the smooth transition of skilled mining men from closing collieries in North Yorkshire. A phased closure programme of pits in Wakefield and Castleford created the first wave of men to move to the new Selby Coalfield started in 1979 and continued in the late 1980s. The men who were asked to stay in the industry from the closing collieries were given options to either travel or move house to the Selby area.
The first option at some of the closing Wakefield collieries was to travel by coach. This mode of transport to the pit had always been an option around mining areas for a very long time. We called it the Pit Paddy in the Barnsley area and it ran thousands of miners to work every day for decades on the Tracky buses (Yorkshire Traction).
The Selby Mines were a substantial distance from the closing collieries so privately contracted coaches were used instead of the public services buses used previously.
Another option for the transferring men was to travel in their own cars to the new coalfield. A payment was made for the extra travelling distance, in miles, between your existing Colliery or from your home which ever was the nearest to the new Selby Mine of your choice. This option was very popular due to the flexibility it gave you to work overtime especially on the night shifts. Many men used this option for the life of the coalfield.
The third option available was to up sticks and move house to the Selby area. The criterias were that you had to move to a home within a certain distance from your new pit and that the mortgage or rent at your new house was greater than the amount you were already paying for your old house. The amount you received was up to £48 per week with a further one off payment for resettlement which we called Carpet and Curtain Money. You were paid the mortgage assistance for 5 years. The money paid reduced by 25% for the next 3 years until year eight when it ceased. Some men I knew used this option to rent a house from the new housing association estates to see if they settled in the area. If they decided it wasn’t for them they could move back and restart the travelling allowance again. Hundreds of miners and families moved to Selby into the new houses being built in the villages near to the new mines. Selby, Thorpe Willoughby, Hambleton, Brayton, Barlby, North Duffield, Riccall and Hemingbrough had new housing developments and were all very popular with the mining families. Sherburn in Elmet, Cawood and Wistow were popular with miners transferring to Gascoigne Wood and Wistow Mines as they were sited west of the River Ouse.
One difference between the villages to the East and the West of the River Ouse was there was no mains gas supplies in the East but a big bonus was you had no Selby Toll bridge to contend with on afternoon shift on market day.
This video snippet shows the filling of North Selby mine shaft in October 2000 after the mine had ceased production. It shows the No1 winder house, No2 Winder house and Fan house.
Gascoigne Wood Mine and Selby Mines Rescue station.
This video snippet shows the Gascoigne Wood Drift control room, conveyor drive house with the drive systems visible and drift man riding haulage. It also shows the Mines Rescue station S.E.F.A. breathing apparatus and training galleries.
Stillingfleet Mine.
This video snippet shows the lamproom, No1 winder in operation and cage detaching gear, No2 Koepe 6 rope friction winder in operation and the Fan house.
Videos were filmed by IA Recordings who kindly gave me permission to embed the snippets.
Throughout the history of mining, methane, which is a highly explosive gas with an explosive range of 5% to 15% in air has always been a major problem to the people working underground. Ventilation is the primary requirement for keeping the methane levels below the safe level of 1.25%. Thousands of explosions have occurred due to badly planned or insufficient ventilation in coal mines. When planning a mine, the fresh air drawn through the pit has to be of sufficient pressure and flow to remove the gases produced underground and keep them within set safe limits. There are many parts of a mine ventilation system used to achieve this including, the main fan, auxiliary fans, booster fans, air doors, regulators and air crossings to name a few.
When a coal face is mining, billions of cubic litres of methane are produced which has to be safely managed. The main way of achieving this is to supply vast quantities of fresh air at sufficient pressure and flow to deliver the quantity to dilute the methane passing through the face. The Selby Coalfield main fans were very powerful at 2,100kw and could draw upto 360 cubic metres of air per second around the mine to achieve the quantities needed.
A further control measure is to stop the methane getting into the air flow in the first place by drawing the gas from the strata above and below the working coal faces and sending it to the surface in pipes. This process is called Methane Drainage. The Barnsley seam worked in the Selby Coalfield is famously very gassy so Methane Drainage was planned during the design of the complex.
Riccall Mine used the same system of Methane Drainage during the life of the pit. The tailgate of every face had a system of boreholes drilled into the gob at a minimum distance of 10m at the back of the face line. This distance allowed for the strata in the gob to fracture and settle. If the holes were drilled too close to the faceline the standpipes were prone to being sheared when the gob settled. The system described below was used on all faces at Riccall Mine with the exception of East side of the pit.
Methane borers drilling top holes with mini Hydrac Drill Rig.
The top drainage holes were drilled at 60 degrees towards the gob every 15m in the tailgate roadway. The holes were bored using 18 x 2 feet 6 inch drill rods. The 18 x 2 feet 6 inch drainage standpipes were then installed into the hole with denso tape on each joint to seal the pipe into the hole. A stuffing box was then installed on the last pipe. The next stage was to drill a 50mm hole up through the standpipe with a further 42 x 2 feet 6 inch drill rods added onto the length of the hole giving an overall drilled length of 150 feet. This was called the production length and passed through the next 2 seams above the Barnsley seam called the Dull and Kents seams. The standpipe end was then connected to the methane drainage pipe range using a flexible 2 inch rubber hose. A hole was manually drilled into the methane range for a threaded connector piece for the pipe connection.
The methane borers had to work at the back of the faceline so ventilation was very important. The tail gate end of the face had steel reinforce supports called Fibcrete chocks installed as the face retreated. An anti static sheet, was fixed to the Fibcrete chocks, which regulated and directed the ventilation into the area at the back of the faceline where the borers were working.
The bottom holes were drilled at 60 degrees downwards towards the face every 40m in the tailgate roadway. The hole was drilled as above but only 8 x 2 feet 6 inch standpipes were installed with a stuffing box on the last pipe. The pipes on the down holes were sealed with oil well cement to ensure there was no water ingress from the lower strata. The 50mm diameter, production length was then drilled to an overall length of 150 feet passing through the Dunsil and Swallow Wood seams. The same process as above was used to connect to the pipe range. The methane drainage pipes were called pipe “A” and “B” and were 8 inch in diameter. Pipe range “A” was the ex compressed air range used for the heading development. Pipe “B” installed by the methane borers just before the face started production. Both pipes were laid in the rib side as the face retreated.
Hydrac Drill Rig and Power Pack.
The machine used to drill the drainage holes was called an E.D.E.C.O. Hydrac Drill Rig. Hydrac rigs were designed to have a drill stroke of 2 feet 6 inch to accept the drill rods of that size. A mini Hydrac rig was designed to have a drill stroke of 1 foot 3 inch for very confined spaces and heavily weighted roadways. The rig was supplied by hydraulic hoses from a pump which was situated slightly outbye of the faceline.
The transition from arch girders as primary supports to full roof bolting made a huge difference to working conditions for borers. The tail gate area became very confined and difficult for the lads doing the boring especially when working in the east of the pit due to the depth of the seam.
H472s tailgate using arch supports.
H475s tailgate with roofbolt supports.
Due to the difficulty and confined work and having to man handle the hydraulic rig, a specially designed hydraulic portable rig was designed for use in the Stanley Main seam in 2002. It was obviously called “The Moon Buggy”.
E.D.E.C.O. portable Hydrac rig (Bigbird’s Moonbuggy) used on SM 501s.
The 2×10 inch pipes with the trouser leg adaptor pipe at H504s Tail Gate end.
Due to the huge amount of methane produced at the east side of Riccall Mine the system was upgraded by using larger, 3 inch diameter standpipes, 65mm diameter borehole production length and 2 x 10 inch diameter methane ranges. The 14 inch pipe used in the return roadway was also upgraded to a GRP pipe.
At the outbye end of the tailgate, the two methane pipes were connected to the main methane range via a connector called a trouser leg. This pipe was 14 inch in diameter with methane monitoring sample tubes, pressure gauge, and manometer for testing purposes. The 14 inch methane range was installed in the return roadway and delivered the gas to the surface methane plant via No2 upcast shaft.
The surface methane plant contained four, Nash Vacuum pumps. The pumps operated automatically due to demand and were initially designed to vent the methane gas into the atmosphere.
In the early 1990s, the methane was used to generate electricity. The gas was sent to a separate filtration unit and gas turbine generator, manufactured by Dale Engineering.
Information kindly provided by my mate, Glenn Bryan ( Big Bird ) who worked as a Methane Borer on every face at Riccall Mine.
When I started at Riccall Mine in 1986 the mine had a system of maintenance which was relatively new in the industry called the Routine Condition Monitoring or R.C.M. The team consisted of mechanical staff initially who carried out weekly monitoring of all equipment throughout the mine. Fans, machine gearboxes, motors, compressors, conveyor gear heads and rollers were all monitored. The system was based on testing an item of equipment, when brand new to set a baseline for the vibration profile for the item. The equipment was then analysed for vibration on a regular basis using a machine called a shock pulse monitor or S.P.M. Any irregular vibrations were picked up, investigated and monitored to ensure catastrophic failure didn’t occur during production. S.P.M. was the electronic device used in the development of this type of maintenance and it worked well in the early years of this technologies. The other major part of the system was gearbox oil debris analysis. Oil samples were taken on a regular basis from all gearcases. The oil was mixed with a solvent solution to remove the oil. The sample was then passed through a filter to gather any debris. The solvent was evaporated leaving a debris sample. This was analysed for types of metal particles or dirt. All the gathered information was inputted into the data monitoring system so that deterioration of internal bearings, rotating parts and oil deterioration due to ingress of dirt were picked up at an early stage.
As the system progressed extremely advanced, intrinsically safe, electronic equipment became available.This machine was called a Vibration Spectrum Analyser. At this point an electrical section of the R.C.M. department was created due to the extra workload.
All machinery had a list of specifications when manufactured. These included number and bearing types within the machine. All the specifications were inputted into the Spectrum Analyser software and all new machines such as fans, motors and gearboxes were tested for vibration oscillations and harmonics when brand new. This data was used as the baseline for future monitoring. Any faults in a machine were quickly found and investigated. This sophisticated system, along with oil debris analysis ensured almost no catastrophic failures of equipment and loss of production.
As automation progressed widely in the industry, all ventilation fans, compressors and conveyors were monitored constantly as part of the control and operating system, MINOS, to ensure safe operations.
Selby Superpit 