Betweeen 345 and 280 million years ago, much of the earth was covered with a vast swampland full of vegetation. Many of these plants were types of ferns, some as large as trees. This vegetations finally died and became submerged under water, where it graduall decomposed. As a result of this decomposition, peat bogs were created. As time passed, layers of sand and mud settled from the water covering some of these peat deposits. The pressure of these overlying layers movements from the earth's crust, and sometimes- volcanic heat acted to harden and compress these deopsits, thus producing coal.

Various types of coal are recognised, by the amount of carbon that they contain. Peat being the first level in the formation of coal because of its low fixed carbon content and its high moisture content. Lignite has a higher content of carbon than peat, but is still the lowest rank of coal. The next with a higher rank of carbon content is the Bituminous coal. But the highest heating output and also carbon content comes from Anthracite coal, which is mined at Tower Colliery.

Tower Colliery is situated on the side of the Rhigos Mountain, near Hirwaun. Tower itself is split into three different sectors. The first being the "Tower No. 4" area. Where the main shaft is situated, the fan house, bathhouse, lamp room, stores, fitting shop, electrical workshops and main car park are sighted. Then the second sector is called "Tower No. 3 Drift". From where fresh air is pulled down through heavier and larger supplies are kept before being tranpsorted underground. This area is also where the main conveyor system starts from and to where all of Tower's coal is sent up the mine. The third part of Tower Colliery's surface sectors is the "Washery" where all of the mines coal products are washed clean and prepared, ready to be sold and transported to it's different customers.

Underground Mining :

In the United Kingdom underground coal mining was the major mining sector for the latter half of the 19th Century and all the 20th Century until recently. Int the early days of mining methods involved - drilling and then blasting with explosives. Since about 1950, these methods have not been used, except in a few very small private coal mine's. In the formerely British Coal run colliers, mining has been performed almost exclusively by Longwall Retreat mining methods.

Longwall Retreat Mining :

With this method, two tunnels called, "Gate Road" and "Tail or Supply Road" are driven in the coal seam parallel to each other, about 100 to 300 metres wide and 1,000 to 3,000 metres long. A connecting tunnel is driven between them and then, one side becomes the production coalface. The face is equipped with very powerful hydraulic support systems called, "chocks". Which create a protective shielding, around the heads of the men and machinery while supporting the strata above. At the front of these supports is an Armoured Flexible Conveyor (A.F.C), which supports the "Cutter" or "Shearer", this cuts the coal seam.

The face cutter has two cylindrical drums, one at each end of the machine, with picks mounted on them. These drums rotate against the coalface. The first drum undercut's the coal, while the second cuts the remaining height of the seam. The pieces of coal fall onto the chain conveyor, which transports it to gate end of the lonwall face. It then goes through a mechanical crusher, which breaks any large lumps of coal, stone or muck to a suitable size. The coal is then transported by a conveyor belt system directly out of the mine. When one full cut has been achieved, the whole support system is moved forward and the cutter operates in the opposite direction, taking another slice of coal off the face. Behind the hydraulic chock support's the remaining strata collapses and caves in.

Driveages :

Before a longwall face can be worked two parallel roads have to be driven into the coal seam. A Road Heading Machine called "a DOSCO LH1300", cuts the tunnel or road in front of it. This machine is sort of a big mechanical mole, but instead of it having claws to dig its tunnels, this machine uses a small metal arm with a steel nose cone, at the end of it.

When the Dosco has cut the required distance. A steel support must be erected, first the roof bar is lifted up against the strata and then the legs of this support, has to be bolted on to each side of the road. After this has been done the machine, starts cutting again.

Fresh air has to be forced into these roadways by means of a fan. The fan pushes clean air into the front of the Driveage through a series of flexible tubes (36 inches in diameter). This clean air disperses any build up of explosive or toxic gas and also any dust that has been produced from the road-heading machine.

Transportation of Materials (Supplies) :

There are two main systems for transportation of materials in Tower Colliery. The Drift Haulage is the first of these, where materials are taken from the surface to the loading bay underground by means of a train. This is powered, by a steel rope haulage system.

Supplies from the loading bay are loaded onto a diesel powered F.S.V. (Free Steering Vehicle). These machines can be described as rough terrain, forklifts, capable of carrying 13 Tons of weight anywhere around the Colliery.

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The T.E.B.O

History of Tower Colliery 1864 - The 1995 Buyout

History In The Making - The Story So Far...

Tower Products