I was walking up to the musem and all i heard was THUMP!

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Dunder Mifflin, the people persons paper people.

Ok, someones going to have to draw me a picture.

It looks to me that the bucket/ arm swings back over the top to the machine and dumps into a buggy being towed behind. If that is the case it would take a fairly tall roof, I'm guessing 9 to 10 feet minimum.

Will the bucket scrape the rail head? Or is it mostly loaded by hand shoveling?

I'm also guessing this is mostly for maintenance work and not moving coal.

some places use it to load coal. its mainly used in advancement. what you do, is get your face of the tunnel ready to blast. lay rail up to the face. fire the shot and it all will fall onto the rail. bring in the mucker, and drive it into the pile with the bucket down. back up to the mine car and dump..... rinse and repeat till the buggys full and/or your mess is cleaned up. the swing height is 7 and a half feet from top or rail head. the bucket will dig between the rail and will swing side to side. idea is to eliminate the shoveling! have you seen the dirty jobs at rs&w anthracite mine? perfect example of how it works. i think shana has a link to it here somewhere, i guess ill go look for it.

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ok, wonderful shana has it on her myspace!

http://www.myspace.com/pacoalminers

its the coal miner episode 3.

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Great Video, Thanks for the link.

I had not pictured them as being that agile.

The air drill they showed in the last half of that segment. I assume that is typical for the Anty mines.

Also what mine was that shot at?

they do pretty good, they're just looouuud! That drill, or hammer, as they're usually called is typical for drilling rock. Thats what we used at Harmony drilling holes in the top for roof bolts, and thats what Alfred Brown's rock tunnel is being drilled with by Chris and Mike A. (I haven't done any rock drilling at Brownies yet..) The coal drills are a lot different. Thats basically a jackhammer.

Thats RS&W in Pottsville.

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This ain't longwall... this is long hole!

yep thats the drill we use, and for the pic above, thats the same mine like banks said...... but they have put the steel on the opening when the bank collapsed above. so it looks different on dirty jobs.

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That is a neat , as in tidy, operation.

They even ballasted the track.

Of course I hate people that can work like that. I'm packrat, with messy tendencies. I have pilling systems, and tons of unfinished projects.

I was just thinking that it looked different than when I saw it on Dirty jobs and when I passed by there a while back.

yea that was directly after they finished the opening. i mean around a day or 2. so it doesnt look so neat now.

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I liked the timbered opening better...

Miner Greg

Yeah the timber was way cool...... this one has its own neatness too it, but if i had my choise i'd stick with the timber for old times sake

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This ain't longwall... this is long hole!

yea for looks timber is better, for maintenance the steel is better. for some reason i think these guys could care less what it looks like

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How far did they steel set this one? From what I remember on Dirty Jobs, it was a pretty long tunnel.....

Miner Greg

they're somewhere between 2500 and 3000 feet in as far as i know...

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This ain't longwall... this is long hole!