Research Projects

by George Muncaster

With the exception of machinery and lighting at or near the shaft the colliery was intended to be a ‘compressed air’ one when it was sunk.

The main roadways in the Busty seam in 1942, employed endless rope haulage. The shaft bottom hauler (electric) had two drums; one serving the West Drift, the other the Main South engine plane as far as 1st East clutch house.

The clutch engine had three drums with dog clutches; the centre one fixed to the shaft was driven by the rope from the shaft bottom hauler; the others being able to slide on the shaft. One of the outer drums had the rope for 1st East on it and the other had the Main South rope, which went as far as 3rd East. On the 3rd West and 3rd East engine planes there were compressed air haulers.

Another two-drum electric hauler at Charley North, about half a mile from the shaft, served the East Engine Plane and Charley North Cross cut.

2nd East was finished before 1942 but the roadway was kept in good condition because a connection had been made with the Busty seam at Craghead Colliery, via 2nd East, in order to serve as an emergency exit for both pits.

Apart from a trunk conveyor, a mothergate conveyor, two face conveyors and two coal cutters in 3rd West, production in the Busty seam was by the use of compressed air picks – normally referred to as ‘windy’ or ‘digger’ picks and the men who won coal with them were called ‘diggers’. The distinction between hewers and diggers was that the former used hand picks. No coal hewing was done at the Morrison Busty.

Compressed air conveyors and coal cutters had to be seen and heard to be believed. Haulers were noisy enough - they were piston engines and the noise was mainly from the exhaust air. Conveyors and cutters worked on the turbine principle, compressed air driving rotor blades at high speed, and a compressed air conveyor gearhead literally screamed. Working at one of these was like working alongside a siren and if the district was wet, as 3rd West was, it meant working in a fog.

But, as we now know, the worst aspect of compressed air machinery was the coal dust atmosphere the miners had to work in. Often the two men working at opposite ends of a coal cutter could not see each other’s lights because of the dust created by the coal cutter picks stirred up by the exhaust air from the machine. The ‘scuffler’ – the man shovelling the ‘scufflings’ (small coal produced by the cutter picks) got the worst of it.

It is a bitter irony that when planning the Morrison Busty Colliery the decision to use compressed air was made on the grounds of safety. South Moor Colliery Company had electric coal cutters and conveyors in the upper seams at their other pits, but knowing the Busty and Brockwell were gassy seams, they considered the risk of explosion would be lessened if they used compressed air rather than electricity.

It was known at the time that certain types of stone dust would cause silicosis but coal dust was not thought to be injurious.

The following is taken from an article on Miners’ Diseases in a magazine “Mining Educator” published in 1924 [11] and it shows the current opinion. The introduction is: “We are privileged to publish the following Special Article from the pen of Dr. Lister Llewellyn, whose researches on the question of Miners Diseases have received world-wide attention.”

Under the heading of Respiratory Diseases is the following. “Dust. The miner often works in a dusty atmosphere, and the lungs of a coal miner may become black through the deposition of coal dust in the lung tissue. Most inhaled dust is thrown out by the action of the cells lining the upper air passages, the rest is engulfed by the cells of the lining membrane of the lung, which cast themselves free and form the “black spit” of colliers. Dr Haldane says that men exposed to dust develop a special capacity for getting rid of dust, and he attributes the comparative freedom of miners from respiratory disease to this cause: “To my mind there is as yet no evidence that coal miners as a class suffer in any way whatever from the inhalation of dust.””

The dust referred to is clearly coal dust because the article then goes on to talk about the dangers of dust containing free silica.

Unfortunately these men were mistaken and in the 1950s many miners were found to have pneumoconiosis. When the National Coal Board researched the problem of pneumoconiosis and introduced “The Twenty Pit Scheme”, in 1952 [12], the Morrison Busty was included. This scheme involved a mobile X-ray unit visiting each of the 20 pits yearly to give chest X-rays to as many of the workforce as volunteered to take part, in order to compile statistics. A large number of men at the Morrison Busty were found to be suffering from the disease and I believe the incidence of it at the Morrison Busty was well above the national average.

About ten years after leaving the industry and moving to a different address I was contacted and asked to go to Maiden Law hospital for a chest X-ray and physical examination. It was a “follow-up” involving as many people who took part in the scheme as possible.

In the West Pit, which worked the Brockwell seam, one hauler, two pumps (the sump was at the West Pit), one creeper, and lighting - all at the shaft bottom, were electric. Apart from these, conveyors, coal cutters, drilling machines and picks and other haulers were all compressed air driven prior to 1942.

Electric power and lighting was used inbye for the first time in late 1941 or early 1942 - in 1st East District in the Brockwell. Two coal cutters, two face conveyors, a mothergate conveyor and a trunk conveyor, were installed, together with electric lighting at and around the tub loading point, all of which used electrical apparatus that was flameproof. These had been installed before I started working there but a circuit diagram for the trunk belt gate-end-box, which I still have, is dated 21st November 1941.

In 1942 a second trunk belt was installed, in tandem with the first, and a second mothergate with two faces was started. Eventually third and fourth tandem belts were installed when the first and second mothergates were finished. These trunk belt conveyors employed sequence control in which starting the first conveyor automatically started the second after a short time delay – and so on down the line. It was an early form of sequence control and had the disadvantage that each gate end box carried not only it own current but that of the conveyors in tandem with it as well.

From then onwards only flameproof electric motors, switchgear and lighting, were installed underground and it was not long before compressed air machines were replaced.

‘Compressed air lamps’ were used at several places inbye; for example where tubs were loaded from a conveyor, at pumps, hauler houses and ‘offtakes’ (where tubs had to be taken off one rope and ‘hung’ onto another).

Compressed air lamps were lighting units in which compressed air was used to rotate permanent magnets within a stator winding and generate enough current to supply a 60-watt bulb. They were safe lights because the exhaust air was arranged to blow down the outside of the well glass so that if there should happen to be any gas in the atmosphere it would be blown away from the lamp. Even when electric lights were commonly used underground there was still a role for compressed air lamps. They had a hook attached for hanging them up, they could be used anywhere with a compressed air supply for picks and connection to the air supply was the same as a pick. Stonemen driving roadways in advance of the face liked to use them.

About 1945, in the East Pit a drift was driven from the top of the Busty West Drift to the Towneley seam and the Towneley , about 2 feet thick was opened. At the top of the Towneley Drift a main and tail hauler was installed to haul tubs out of the south and east engine planes.

Production in the Towneley was by longwall faces only and all conveyors and coal cutters were electric but compressed air drilling machines were still used to drill the shot holes and pneumatic picks still used for driving roadways.

Not long after the Towneley was opened, 5th West in the Busty seam was started and it too was worked with electric conveyors and coal cutters on longwall faces with compressed air drills and picks being retained.

Like other pits in Britain the Morrison Busty was taken over by the National Coal Board in 1947 and very soon changes were made underground.

Two 48HP, Ruston Hornsby diesel locomotives and man-riding carriages were installed in the main south return airway of the Busty seam in 1947 to carry men working in the south side of the pit in the Busty seam. At first the loco only went as far as 3rd East, but later the loco road was extended to the top of 5th West. These locomotives may not have been a result of Nationalisation because five similar locomotives had been introduced in the Louisa Colliery for hauling coal in 1946.

Digitised by George Muncaster

This is part of a series of projects, others are listed below:

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 1) - mainly memories

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 2 ) - ‘the baths’, ‘the heapstead’, and ‘the dry cleaner’

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 3 ) - power supply and power station

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 5 ) - the coal cutting machines

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 6 ) - modernisation on the surface

Morrison Busty Colliery ( Part 7 ) - references

Note: The views that are expressed on the website are the contributors own and not necessarily those of Durham County Council. This is a community website so no guarantee can be given of the historical accuracy of individual contributions