Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 08 May 1920
Deep Seam Coal
Denaby Main’s £50,000 Scheme for Facilitating Output
A scheme, which is estimated to cost nearly £50,000, and will possibly find employment for a thousand more underground workers, is being undertaken at the Denaby Main Colliery.
At the present time, the coal from the deep seam is first drawn to the Barnsley, and, before it can be wound to the surface, it has to be conveyed to the No. 1 shaft. This system involves a great deal of delay and extra work; and with the object of avoiding this alterations are being made to the No. 2 shaft fat present used soley for “riding” men) which will make it possible for the coal to be wound from the deep seam direct to the surface.
The scheme involves the alteration of the No. 2 shaft by substituting for the present guide ropes a system of rigid conductors and the erection on the surface of a much stronger headgear and a large and powerful winding engine.
When the scheme is completed, the newly-equipped shaft will be capable of drawing 12,000 tons a week, and will deal with all the coal from the deep seam, which operation, being at present carried out in No 1 shaft, entails considerable congestion and extra manipulation.
The Denaby Main deep seam has only been worked for about eight years, and the secondary shaft was sunk from the Barnsley bed to enable the seam to be temporarily developed. It is now ready to be fully worked, and, so far as output is concerned, it, will in time constitute the primary seam at this colliery. It has been decided not to disturb the secondary shaft, but to leave it as a “standby.”, The number of men at present employed at the Denaby Colliery is in the neighbourhood of 1,300.