Third Machine Face at Denaby

September 1965

South Yorkshire Times, September 11, 1965

Third Machine Face at Denaby

Denaby Main colliery is to have a 365 yards long coalface, almost double the length of the average coalface and among the longest in Yorkshire coalfield.

This new face – N.W.67’s unit and associated equipment – conveyors, etc.-will cost upwards of £200,000 to install and will bring mechanisation at the pit to 90%, is due in operation this month and will be in the Haigh Moor seam, where there are already two mechanised faces.

It is displacing the Barnsley seam, which is now nearly worked out and where the “tub and stall” method of coal getting is still used. It will have a 150 h.p trepan shearer, backed up by Dobson five leg hydraulic supports, and a ripping machine in the roadway will provide greater speed and efficiency in advancing the face.

Working progress is reported directly to the office of the manager, Mr. Desmond McTighe, through radio contact equipment, believed to be the only such equipment used in the coalfield.

The two present mechanised faces – 4’s and 5’s – each produce about 3,500 tonnes of the pits weekly output of 9,500 tonnes. Both faces operate 100 h.p. trepan shearers with hydraulic supports. Coal is taken by conveyors and main cast to the pit bottom.

To sustain its increasing mechanisation, the pit needs a further 50 trained face men – ex-miners included – to join its present 1150 labour force.