South Yorkshire Times March 19, 1949

Haigh Moor Seam Developments

Explained by Agent

“Considerable Life ” Still In Parkgate Seam

Plans for the development of the Haigh Moor seam of Kilnhurst Colliery include the driving of two drifts from No. 2 shaft level respectively 16ft. by 10ft. finish and 14ft. by 10ft. finish.

This was announced by Mr F. Darley, Agent of Manvers Main and Kilnhurst Collieries, on Saturday, when he addressed the Yorkshire branch of the National Association of Colliery Managers at Doncaster

Mr. Darley had this to say about the future development of the three seams at Kilnhurst:

Parkgate. — This seam has a considerable life in the areas and which is at present being worked, no major re-organisation will required in this seam to maintain or increase the present output.

Silkstone.—It will be necessary before long to replace the output from the Denaby area of the Silkstone seam as this becomes worked out to an arbitrary boundary against Denaby Main Colliery. There is a very large area of coal in the Silkstone Seam lying in the southern half of the take which has not yet been touched, and it ‘was first intended to replace the Denaby district output by developing the Silkstone seam in this area. As the coal in the upper seams is also virgin, this was. however, abandoned in favour of working the upper seams first.

Haigh Moor.-In view of the above, it was decided to develop the Haigh Moor seam in the southern half of the take.                The existing Haigh Moor workings on the south- east side of the shafts had an extremely complicated haulage system, and were consequently useless for development purposes if modern haulage was to be installed.

It was, therefore, decided, Mr. Darley said, to drive two drifts from No. 2 Shaft level starting from inbye the Parkgate loading point at the top of Hart’s Drift, respectively 16ft. by 10ft finish and 14ft. by 10ft. finish. Advantage was to be taken of the steeply dipping measures to drive the former on a suitable grade for locomotive haulage on the horizon mining principle.

“The total length of drivage in this drift,” Mr. Darley explained, “is to be 680 yards, 84 yards on a grade of one in 80 and 596 yards on a grade of one in 200. The 16ft. by 10ft. internal measurements—arches are made in three pieces, and the ground has been excavated, whether supports are set or not, so as to allow for the setting of arches, it it should become necessary in the future, without further excavation.

Mr. Darley was addressing his fellow mining executives on “Some Problems and Projects in Connection with Steep Workings at Kilnhurst Colliery.” In this interesting paper he devoted much of his talk to describing the methods adopted and the ‘progress obtained in driving this 16ft. by 10ft. drift.

He stated that now that further experience had been obtained with the gate belt, the number of feet excavated in one week of five working days had been increased to 93 feet.

This, the “South Yorkshire Times” understand, is a phenomenal distance in British mining today.

As a result of the work at Kilnhurst Colliery, Mr. Darley told the Association that from the problems facing the would-be high speed drifter, the following conclusions might be classified broadly:

Choosing and obtaining the most suitable equipment, particularly the latter, as much of it had to be imported from hard currency regions;

Obtaining the necessary permissions and relaxations from the Inspectorate; and

Choosing and training the right type of men for the work. It was strongly recommended that drifting teams should be organised for a group of collieries; men who were part machine operator, part mechanic were the ideal when they could be found. Those teams, Mr, Darley said, could devote their working lives solely to drifting work.  When the speeds which could be obtained were considered, it might be seen that a drift could be driven by an experienced team in the time which would be taken to train raw men while only completed a quarter of the work to be done.