Location

Allerton Bywater Colliery is in the North Yorkshire Area of the National Coal Board and is situated north of Castleford and within a few kilometres of A1 trunk road and the M62 Lancashire-Yorkshire motorway.

This was typed by K.Churm

Introduction

Allerton Bywater has been an area of coal mining for over two hundred years. Records show that the coal pits where in operation at Kippax, 2 km away to the north in the 16th century.

The present colliery was sunk to the Haigh Moor Seam in the early 19th century and further shafts sunk in 1875 to Silkstone, and in 1910 to Beeston Seam.

The surface drift scheme was completed in 1079 at a cost of £7 million, which will allow continuous transportation of coal from the pit at a rate of 750 tonnes per hour

This was typed by Nicholas Eames

Economics

Results

Below are the results for 3 years between 1976 and 1979. Here you will see how it started off well on the economic front but between 1977/78 and 1978/79 there was a profits change of £2,540,000, and for the worse. In 1978/79 the Allerton Bywater the pit ended up losing over £1,300,000!!!

Below is another table showing the output type for 1978/79

Their biggest output market is the industrial market, with over 400,000 tons, or 68.5% of their whole output.

Development

The main access roadways and those in the thicker Middleton Little Seam are developed by using roadway cutter loader machines .In thinner seams the roadways for the retreat panels of coal are developed by dintheader machines .Both of these machines give fully mechanised methods of developing roadways.

This page was typed in by Emma Dobbin

Production

An annual saleable output of over 800,000 tonnes will be produced from the colliery this year.

Three seams are worked, Flockton Thin (1.07m), Haigh Moor (1.12m) and the Middleton Little (2.44m) thickness.

The output will come from three will come from three retreat faces and

one advancing face.

In the thinner extractions on the retreat faces single drum shearer machines cut and load the coal, whilst in the seams a double drum shearer

is used. On the type face a thin seam is used (floor -based shearer).

All faces are equipped with powered roof supports.

A heavy duty face has just been installed in the Middleton Little Seam, using chock shield type supports and heavy duty armoured face conveyor. The supports , will enable the extraction to be increased to 2.59m.

By Aditya Chowdhury.

Surface

Extent

The colliery surface site occupies 15.5 hectares and comprisies coal preperation, industrial buildings and offices, together with landsale facilities, railway sidings and a stockyard.

Shafts

There are two shafts at the colliery, No. 2, the downcast shaft, is 5.5 m in diameter and 367 m deep, and No. 1, the upcast shaft, 4.3 m indiameter and 274 m deep.

The No. 1 upcast shaft is used for the convayance of men . It is equiped with two cages, each wound by an electric-driven single parrallel drum winder. Each cage has two decks, with seating in the bottom deck, and carries 12 men on the top deck and 10 men on the bottom deck.

The No. 2 downcast shaft is used for the conveyance of men and materials. It is equiped with two cages wound by an electric-driven single parrallel drum winder. Each cage has two decks, carrying one materials car per deck, or 22 men.

All mineral is conveyed up a surface drift 1050 m in length, driven on 5.64 m x 3.73m arch girders to a 1 in 4 gradient. The 1.2 m convayor belt is driven by 3 x 224 kW electric motors and is capable of delivering 750 tonnes per hour.

Work is being carred out at the moment to enable materials to be taken down the drift

Ventilation

the ventilation fans at No 1 shaft handle 123 m cubed/s of air which enters the mine via the No 2. downcast shaft and the surface drift.

In addition to the main fans, and to ensure sufficient ventilation in the Haigh Moor and Flockton . Thick seams, a booster fan has been installed in the Lidgett Headings which handles an air quantity of 40 m cubed / s.

Coal Preparation

Screening and coal stocking facilities are available close to No. 2 shaft, which provides a facility to smooth out the flow to the coal preperation plant.

The coal preperation plant has a rated capacity of 250 tph and produces coal in acceptable qualities and sizes for the industrial and domestic markets.

Dirt Disposal

The mineral discard from the colliery is transported by sideloading wagons along a mineral railway to the Newton Ings tipping site which is a low lying area situated adjacent to the River Aire some 2 km to the south east of the colliery.

This tipping site is shared by Fryston Colliery, but due to the limited capacity rematinig, plans are being prepared to transport the discard by self-loading barges from a colliery staithe to an off loading bunker 2.3Km upstream and then by conveyor into a void to be created by opencast mining.

This scheme has many environmental advantages and the capacity provided in the void is expected to cater for Colliery tipping beyond the year 2000.

New land formations will be introduced and unlimately the whole site will be restored to beneficial use.

By Neil M. Finlayson

Coal Clearance

Mineral is transported from the faces to the surface by a conveyor system. This system has replaced the 3 tonne mine cars and locomotive system and also the mineral winding shaft.

Underground bunkerage is provided at strategic points to cope with peak loads. the largest present bunker is a 450 tonne vertical strata bunker which involved sinking a 6m diameter underground shaft.

Further developments include construction of vertical strata bunkers which will increase bunkerage by 1500 tonnes and two 1.2m diameter boreholes to enable the mineral to have access to those bunkers.

by Orrin Ward.

Workforce

The colliery employs some 1,175 men who live locally and have a traditional history of mining.

Welfare

Jointly with the coal industrial social welfare organisation and district council the workforce enjoy welfare facilities at Allerton Bywater and kippax for cricket, football, bowls, and tennis and children's recreational facilities.

The Future

Present reserves are adequate for over twenty years' life. Further reserves are being proved and the new surface drift scheme will allow increased extraction rates together with a reduction in operating skills.

By Jamie Jones

Men and Materials Transport

Men and materials are transported by high-powered rope haulges and 75kw locomotives for distances of up to the main working areas.

Subsidiary ropehaulages distribute materials to the working areas.

By Francesca Hope.

Telemetering and Telemonitering

Allerton Bywater Colliery was the first of many pits to have remote control schemes installed.

This utilities two mini computers working as a master and slave, to monitor information coming from and sends commands to out stations controlling the conveyors and other equipment on both surface and underground.

In the control room the operator sits at a desk on which are mounted three televisions type Visual Display Units (VDU's) Which together with a closed circuit television, present him with the overall survey of the coal transporting system. Requests for more detailed information and commands to the equipment are entered by a keyboard which is part of the VDU.

In addition to its prime function of controlling and monitoring the coal clearance system, the computers make available to the operator information concerning the surface and underground pumps, the state of the main electric cables supplying all underground power, and comprehensive monitoring all of the underground booster fan installation which ventilates two of the working districts.

Because of major reconstruction work taking place both underground and on the surface at the time of writing, the ultimate number of drives is not being controlled. However within a few months it is anticipated with twenty underground conveyors and a further thirty on the surface associated with the new dryscreening plant will all be controlled from the surface control room.

By Nicholas Eames

Geology and Reserves

Allerton Bywater Colliery lies on the boundary between the exposed and concealed portions of the Yorkshire Coafield. Limestones and marls of Permain age dip gently towards the south.this structural arrangement means that successively lower coal seams incrop against the water bearing permain strata.

Due to the relatively well known nature of the measures within the colliery take exploration is reduced to risk reductions boreholes for individual panels or groups of panels.however a small number of surface and underground boreholes have been drilled to prove reserves.There are severn workable seams in the Allerton Bywater reserves. the principal seames are the Haigh Moor and the Middleton Little seams which together contains 9,600,000 tonnes of classified reserves. The Haigh Moorseam is consistent over the area of the colliery take with an average section of 1.50m The Middleton Little seam varies from 2.18m to 2.95m with the thinner sections bieng fond in the east where the seam has a sandstone roof and is susceptible to washouts.

Workable reserves in Warren House Lidgett Flockton Thick and Flockton Thin amount to6,700,000 tonnes of classified reserves.Of these the Flockton Thick Seam is the most consistent.

There are 1,000,000 tonnes of unclassified reserves in the Beeston Seam.

By Orrin Ward

Introduction

Geography, Geology and Seams Worked

Allerton Bywater Colliery is situated about 2 kilometres North of Castleford 1/2 kilometre west of the A656 Roman Ridge Road (Ermine Street) and close to the River Aire, in the parish of Garforth and the Metropolitan District of Leeds. its closure will bring to an end deep mine activity in the Leeds area and it is the last colliery on the Aire and Calder Navigation upstream of Knottingley.

The shafts were sunk close to the up throw side of the massive Methley Junction Fault which runs from Stanley Ferry in the south-west to Sherburn in the north-east and throws the seam 120 meters down to the south-east. During the life of the colliery it has been the 'norm' to gain access to seams on the up throw side. The shafts are situated in the exposed coalfield, however, as the Permian outcrop is only one kilometre to the east, most of the Colliery take is in the concealed coalfield. As the seams rise generally towards the base of the Permian, the Haigh Moor Seam and, to a lesser extent, the Flocton Thick (Firthfield) Seam have been limited by the vertical cover to the base of these water bearing measures.