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Patherkhera PK 2
My second trip to work in the coalmines of India was initially based on a different set of parameters, firstly I was no longer a mere service engineer, I had been promoted to the role of Development Engineer, a little more salary for a lot more effort and responsibility, basically playing exactly the same role as I did as service engineer but more often, in more widespread places for a greater length of time and with far more of my arse exposed to the direct blows of not only the customers' henchmen but also to my own directors and their immediate peons acting as deflection agents, i.e. the customers barks, Anderson Directors throw a spear
 and the peon holds the shield at the appropriate angle of deflection
 to ensure the Development Engineer receives the prompt, thus ensuring the minimum of damage to useful employees.
The journey out to India was also different to my first trip, the flight left Heathrow on time and was a direct flight to Delhi taking only about five hours, rather than an eleven hour delay in take off and eight hours flying experience to Calcutta. Now being a well-seasoned traveller, (having flown once before) the amount of whiskey offset needed was vastly reduced and I arrived in Delhi quite sober.
On arrival at Delhi I was much more prepared for the climatic variation than I had been on my first trip to Calcutta, this time I was dressed a little more befittingly in light coloured slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, it was around four o'clock in the morning and it was freezing, would I ever get this arrival thing worked out?
Through the airport like an international athletic, dummied the customs threw a scribbled immigration entry form into the hands of a semi uniformed official, denying the fact that I had more than £250 with me and any cameras or tobacco or whiskey or explosives etc. and met the guy with the placard that showed my name, 
well nearly showed my name that is, Bettie is close enough to Beattie anywhere in the world, but especially in India. The skinny little guy with black-rimmed spectacles and wearing a suit was I.D. Dhadwhal, later to become a great personal friend of mine, one of the nicest and most of helpful guys, as well as being a true entrepreneur in his own right. I.D. at that time was employed by Anderson Strathclyde's agent and consultant in India as right hand man and dogsbody, when he in fact was the organiser of everything that mattered to his own boss, Anderson Strathclyde and Coal India. I.D. knew everybody, everywhere and had there been a king of India he alone could have arranged an audience for any International Representatives, whether selling coal cutting machinery or fur coats, such was his personal charm.
I.D. had a private car waiting and took me to the five star Ashoka hotel where a room was awaiting me, twenty minutes after my arrival I was comfortably asleep in the air conditioned palace of a room, with I might add included a mini bar, I drifted of to sleep with the intention of testing the new to me mini bar system in the morning, felt like The Six Million Dollar Man……….barely alive!!
Early morning call on the telephone, well hardly early at eleven o'clock in the morning, but near enough, breakfast in the room and The Hindustan Times all courtesy of I.D.'s fantastic organised mind, how did he know that I preferred scrambled egg on toast, orange juice and coffee to any of the other menu items such as devilled kidneys and kedgeree? The Hindustan Times was a fantastic paper written in a style of etiquette befitting a Main Gate Ripper in the language of Victorian England. The sports page containing such classic comments as "At the FAG END of the match the winning goal was scored by the Calcutta UNDER DOGS". The local news told of a country gentleman found dead beside the body of a King Cobra, which had provide him with a fatal bite at the time that he had attempted to feed the snake biscuits whilst he was on his way home after a drinking spree, the snake died as a result of a reciprocated bite from the country gentleman, such is life in India! (How the devil did they know that?). Another tragic story related to a fire engine answering an emergency call that struck and killed a teenage pedestrian, on stopping the crew were stoned by villagers and the police were called to the scene, result one youth dead, the fire engine impounded by the police and the five man fire crew were still absconding.
Fully refreshed, or nearly so I.D. briefed me as to what was really happening, not quite what had been described to me by Anderson Strathclyde, I.D. related the horror stories that I was about to face at the three collieries that I was due to visit.
Patherkhera Number Two Mine were complaining that the 200 hp. AB. Sixteen, Double Ended, Ranging Drum Shearer was simply underrated and could not cope with their coal cutting conditions, Singhareni voiced similar claims but the problems at Dhemomain were hardly the responsibility of Anderson Strathclyde, the face installation was not achieving production targets owing to the lack of baskets or basket carriers. The collaborators were having problems with the manufacture of stage loader pans claiming that the drawings and instruction methods supplied by Anderson were wrong, and this had put them twelve months behind schedule. Looked like the trip was going to be at least a diplomatic nightmare, another loophole in the Anderson Strathclyde educational training schemes, how to deal with customers whose promised targets had not been met.
A short explanation here of how a decision appeared to be reached when preparing a proposal for a coal face cutting package to suit a particular mines conditions, bearing in mind that these customers had no experience at all of Mechanised Longwall methods. A senior mining engineer often a director of Anderson Strathclyde would pay the mine site a one or two day visit, during which time high level meetings would be held at group or Area offices and then a flying underground visit to look at the transportation systems in place or intended, the geological conditions etc. A superb example of this type of examination, based upon which a series of A.M. 500 D.E.R.D.S. were tendered, accepted and installed with close to disastrous results at first, was at Singhareni where a mining engineering director had already made the decision as to which machine would be recommended, went underground with a very clever Indian Mechanical Engineer who was sufficiently astute to realise that the coal was harder than anything previously cut in any mine throughout the world, at least by shearer operation. He asked the mining engineer if the A.M 500 machine would cope with these really tough conditions, the director drew a penknife from his pocket and scratched the coal, "  Yes absolutely no problem with that". Over the next few years I heard this story told a thousand times in the context of, "Well if you are sure that it is the conditions and not the machine at fault, resulting in this low production, perhaps we need the gentleman with the penknife back here", or in lighter moments "Perhaps we should have bought everyone a penknife instead of two shearer's", and there is some thought that Indians like the Germans have little or no humour!
Two or three hours sightseeing time remained of my first day in Delhi, I booked a taxi and was provided with a tour of this beautiful city, in many ways a world apart from old colonial capitol of Calcutta, whilst I am sure that poverty was around every corner or behind the facades of all the grand buildings and parks, it was never as blatantly exposed as in The City Of Joy (Calcutta). No naked bodies sleeping under a single gunnysack on the pavements of the main streets, nowhere near the continuous assault of raggy beggars and mutilated children, with hands held out and teary pleading eyes, it may well have been a national holiday for beggars and itinerants on the particular day of my visit to Delhi. Please don't misunderstand my attempt at humour here, because I along with many hundreds of visitors new to India shed several sets of tears at the pitiful sights that one is forcibly subjected to, it does become easier after a time to resist the need to put money into the hands, particularly those of young children, some of whom have no doubt been purposely damaged in order to ensure not only their survival but that of their immediate families as well. Begging can be not only a way to earn a means of survival but also supports at least one other industry, that of small coinage dealers, there was at the time of my visits a very real shortage of small denomination coins, not really affecting the six fold rounded up prices paid by tourists and foreign visitors, but a real problem for the locals in everyday shopping, bearing in mind that the smallest coin that I saw was valued at two paise (cent), i.e. one fiftieth of six pence. At the rear of Calcutta's New Market was a series of about twenty little boxes on three-foot high stilt legs in which sat a cross-legged dealer exchanging one rupee notes for ninety cents of coins from the beggars or their runners, these would then no doubt be passed on to the market traders at the rate of eighty to the rupee, and the world goes round!
Back to the Ashoka and dinner, a few drinks in the cocktail bar and bed, never did get to open the minibar, well not for anything alcoholic. Up at first light and check out, "How much? Gordon Bennett, glad I didn't get my nose into the minibar after all"
Joined by I.D. and travelled together to the airport, my first experience of travelling on Indian Airlines internal flights, the word impressive hardly does justice to this organisation. Having suffered the rigours of security checking systems within the international circuit I mistakenly thought that this would be a breeze, just nipping down country from Delhi to Nagpur, err well not quite, got to the grey waxed moustached, classic figure of an elderly sergeant major type complete with shiny slashed peak deep over his eyes, immaculate in army uniform, who appeared from behind a plaster column bearing the single word SECURITY, like a giant shiny ogre, prodded me with his brass ended swagger stick and demanded "Open that" and tapped on my innocent plastic brief case, I was just about to ask "What for?" when I noticed the second row, two lance Jacks with 303's dangling in horizontal balance from their shoulders, "Ok" says I dropping to my haunches and clicking the case open, "Not here, on there" says he pointing to a counter nearby. Luckily no embarrassing Playboy magazine this time just pretentious rubbish of a would be engineer played by a pit fitter, stapler, notes on machine specifications, air mail envelopes, pens and a technical drawing kit not much else really. "What is that?" he asked, "A marker pen" I replied, "Open it" he demands, so I do. The whole point of this story is that I met this same guy year in and year out for about the next four years on basically a twice a year trip through Delhi airport, he always repeated the performance exactly to script, the same marker pen to be opened before him, until that is one day probably with hangover but definitely in the spirit of a true Cavalier I took his hand in mine and drew a love heart on the back of his hand with the indelible marker pen, he never even flinched and passed me through, the next time he still asked me to open the case but never spoke after that, a nod of his head indicating that I could pass, his hands never released from the clasped position at his back, I was a lot braver in those days !
Once on the aeroplane for my first internal flight to Nagpur I felt surprisingly comfortable, the passenger cabin was clean and tidy, I must admit different to what I expected, however when I came to fasten my seat belt and applied a certain amount of pressure against the double bank of seats with my feet on the floor in repositioning myself I found that the seat skewed around on a pivot, a glance to the floor revealed that at least two screws were missing, at the first opportunity, I caught the attention of the stewardess and politely asked if it would be possible to exchange seats as this one felt somewhat insecure, she equally politely replied "Of course sir, but you are likely to find that all the seats are loose", the thought of loose engine mountings, wing fasteners missing and aerolons tied up with bell wire suddenly invaded my pit orientated brain, too late we were taxiing.
Arriving at Nagpur and landing on a wing and several prayers, I was glad to feel the ground and rush through the remarkably empty airport, obviously the danger from exploding pens was common only to the capital of India, as there were no signs of security checks or moustachioed security personnel.
We taxied our way to Jackson's Hotel and had dinner at I.D.'s selection, brilliant choice evading any embarrassment as a result of my aversion to curries, all sorts of new dishes put before me mostly edible and some very nice, BUT the single chilli in a bowl of water puzzled me, why only one and why in water, at I.D.'s signal that it was ok to try I nibbled it cautiously, warm but not hot, so I munched the whole lot, I.D.'s grab at my arm coming too late, it was gone, not that bad I.D. what was the panic…….oh Jeez, latent reaction , latent heat, thermo nuclear reaction, this was it, four litres of freezing cold beer later I was able to tell I.D. through the tears what I thought of his choice in eating, this chilli brought us closer together, I made up my mind that we must remain friends, until I had at least the chance to get my own back.
The next morning we left the hotel and started out on the six-hour private car journey to PK 2, what a journey that was, a lifetime of sightseeing and education in a simple air-conditioned trip, through jungle, desert, over mountains by vast lakes, through villages, towns and cities on motorway quality roads and monsoon potholed dirt tracks, passed the friendliest of village people, and groups of gypsy like travellers called Banjaras I think, really colourful with the females wearing a million bangles on their arms and legs, marching in groups of a dozen or so with caravans very similar to the canvas covered wagon of England's yesterday gypsies. On the straighter sections of off beat roads it was common to suddenly be driving through stretches strewn with tons of straw, the driver (a stocky little fellah who answered to the name of Juggernaut, and drove accordingly) explained that it was harvest time and the farming villagers had found that the grain crops were easier to thresh with the advent of motorised assistance, modernisation at it most cost affective.
It was on this trip that I was introduced to the strangest fruit that I had ever the chance to taste, suddenly I.D.had screamed the car to a stop, I think that Juggernaut had been as alarmed as I was at this seemingly panic stricken call, I.D. leapt out of the car and dove into the road side scrub, equivalent of a farmers' Hawthorne hedge at home and surfaced clutching an armful of green hand grenades, "dolally tapped" sprang to mind, an expression used by my elderly mother to describe the inexplicable actions of a less than average intelligent type of person, albeit usually a close relative, I had known I.D. sufficiently long enough for him to fit this category. He clambered back on board and instructed Juggernaut to stop at the very next signs of habitation, which he did only a matter of yards around a corner, I.D. once again leapt out of the car and met a guy emerging from a mud hut at the side of the road, coinage changed hands, I.D. reboarded and away we went. What had we done, what were the hand grenades for? The "fruits" were eventually opened up and exposed a yellowish mango type flesh, "Here try it", "What is it though?" "A custard apple"," What is that?" "Try it and see", can't believe it, tastes just like apple with cold custard, well what did I expect? Apparently villagers grow these rare fruits for local markets, but the growers are not averse to accepting twice the price from a pick your own customer.
Driving down from the bamboo covered hillsides into the jungle levels suddenly a colliery village appeared, we had arrived at PK 2, I think I loved it at first sight sparkling white flat topped bungalows in a sudden clearing of solid green foliage. The European guesthouse was situated at the very edge of the officer's quarter, the last building before the jungle, a factor of significance to be revealed later to me during my stay. As we turned into the group of bungalows I noticed a group of men dragging a young goat into a tiny multi coloured building with a green painted dome, I was later to witness the complete scene of this religious sacrifice both here at this tiny "Temple" and also at the head of the mine drift where the ritual was repeated on Saturday morning, in a bid to keep the miners safe in the forthcoming week I was informed, well it worked for me thank goodness, although this might have been the basis of my dislike of the staple meat at the PK 2 guest house.
A pleasant sort of a guy ran the bungalow by the name of Charen Lal (translated as Red Legs, he was proud to tell me), he was supported by a lovely middle aged lady called Bi or Aunty Bi as she became to me, her husband had been killed underground a few years earlier and she had been given the job in order to be able to support her still young family of three. A miserable sort of a youth helped out in the kitchen on a shared work basis between our bungalow and my new neighbours the colliery accountant, his family and his longhaired Husky type dog, which also worked on the shared bungalow arrangement, turning up at the time of our return from a shift at the pit and leaving as soon as supper was finished. A great dog and despite his Arctic appearance managed to play a good game of football even in this near tropical climate, only pausing momentarily to slurp half a bottle of ice cold beer poured into his dish at half time, the rest of the football team were not quite as energetic, three other lads from Dowty Mining and one from Davis Of Derby, who just happened to be a Sikh from Nottingham called Marc. Marc born and bred in Notts. had never been to India before in his life and used to have everybody in stitches when he continuously made comment on his disbelief that the natives could live in these sort of primitive conditions, in his heavy North Notts. Accent, but looking more like a native than most of the people he referred to, I think he thought that he was just heavily suntanned.
A mid evening meeting with the colliery manager and his main engineers instantly confirmed I.D.'s pre-warning of what was to come, once the niceties of introduction was over and tea called for, the first words spoken were from the manager who said in a classic non bush assaulting Indian manner;"Why did Anderson provide us with a shearer that is so obviously underpowered for our coal conditions?" Gulp, where is that tea! " I don't believe that it is underpowered, this is a machine configuration that is working successfully all over the world, producing record tonnages in the thinner seams of England and America" I truthfully replied, well truthfully in respect of the tonnages and extensive use of this machine in many countries, but a little doubtfully in respect of my belief that the machine was adequate for the PK 2's particular conditions and this before I had even been underground. The younger and gentler spoken engineer then went on to batter me with known values of their coal hardness, compressive strength, cut-ability factors, frictional properties affecting coal loading, adverse effects of inclination relating to haulage effort and everything else that he could remember from his recent mining college education, I couldn't help but wonder where the man with the Anderson Strathclyde penknife was now. A suggestion that I should be allowed to visit the face and observe the machine in operation before I even attempted to answer any more questions was reluctantly accepted, the managements' game plan had been and became a sustained attempt to get some sort of a statement of submission from an Anderson Strathclyde employee of any standing in order to pursue some means of litigation, or at least have something to offset the pressure that was being put on them from Coal India hierarchy in not achieving the expected production tonnages.
Went underground with the following day shift, garbed in the oldest pair of jeans I had brought with me, a tee shirt and a pair of canvas and rubber steel toe capped pit boots provided by the guest house. That afternoon I was measured at the local tailors for a couple of sets of Khaki cotton shorts and trousers along with short sleeved shirts, these were delivered the following morning to the guest house ready for the next shift, at a tragic cost of about £5.00, certainly an improvement on March The Tailors.
PK 2 was a relatively shallow mine accessed by drifts driven at about 1 in 5, stepped from top to bottom in the main access drift which made it relatively easy going, well it would have been if the face had been about three kilometres nearer the mine entrance. Reaching the bottom of the main drift, a left turn and a short distance on a level cross gate then another drift this time back up at about 1 in 2, a short distance but a killer, "Cardiac Hill" as it became known to the British engineers. At the entrance to the drift a glass covered "Icon" of the goddess Kali was positioned to safeguard all miners, who as they entered put a fingertip kiss to this ladies feet, possibly in hope of a safe working day and a minimum of hard work. Travelling this downcast road was best achieved in between shifts owing to the fact that the troops on adjacent shifts met at mid distance, almost at the bottom of the first drift, which wouldn't have been so bad excepting for two major factors, i.e. the travelling track between the belt structure and the sides was about two feet nine inches, again not a major problem for two Indian sized colliers to pass, except for the fact that they all carried the tools of their trade in and out of the mine each day, the risk of being decapitated by a shovel or having a jugular pierced by a "Ringer Bar" was very real , not to mention the hazards of passing a gang carrying a forty five gallon oil drum, suspended by ropes from a twelve foot long bamboo batten, I was glad of the fact that there were no horses used underground. As a worthless point of interest I never saw a hand pick used in any pit in India, the preference being for giant ringer bars sharpened to a needle point at one end and a mini spade at the other, these were about twelve inches taller than the operator and probably weighed a lot more as well. But to watch one of these mini-miners handling these instruments borne on his shoulder and applying a constant rhythm in mode not dissimilar to that of a woodpecker, standing up to his knees in tiny chippings of the ironstone hard coal it was hard to imagine a machine that could punch out a manhole as neatly and as efficiently, and likely as inexpensively.
The coal being worked on this retreat Longwall was approximately sixty-six inches high, taken at a slight angle to the bord, but the coal showed little sign of cleating looking more likely to having been poured in than laid in strata formation. The roof although consistent in its smooth horizontal plane was a really grainy white sandstone, abrasive and hard. Both main and tail gates had been triple legged with wooden props set about a yard apart. (A short tale here, which might be of interest to woodworkers and wood turners; coming off the face one day I saw that three colliers were struggling to lift up a maingate prop that had been knocked out to facilitate the shearer landing on the next cut, I went across to help expecting to be able to lift this five and a half foot, seven inch diameter timber on my own and toss it into the blind side, I sort of muscled in between them and grabbed it about half way down its length, I did lift it using every ounce of strength that I had, but not clear of the floor, enough to drag it into the side and drop it. It turned out that every leg on the gates was reasonably fresh cut teak tree. I did in lighter times find the opportunity to suggest to the engineer that it would probably be more profitable to leave the coal and export the teak props to Europe).
The first visit underground was a waste of time with regard to observing the machine cutting, the face being stood down resultant of outbye belt problems, but it did facilitate my being able to look around the shearer, without real hindrance, but a minimal interference was provided by the young under manager, another tiny but noisy fresh out of mining school academic, but a grafter and conscientious guy who could not have been given a more suitable family name, that of Panikha (not sure of the spelling anymore but pronounced panicker, I thought it was some sort of nickname at first and was reluctant to call him by it). Mr Panicker introduced himself to me, gave me the same story of the machine being incapable of cutting the PK 2 coal, after I politely told him that I had heard that same statement elsewhere and did not need to hear it again many more times, he then changed tack and I must admit started a really constructive conversation telling me just about everything that I needed to know about the machine, cutting speeds, power consumption at any particular section of the face, how much oil it used, bits of ongoing mechanical problems and previous problems and methods of rectification, he was in fact a walking talking Longwall log book, disguised as a five stone rottweiler. Panickers' only real problem was that he became glued to me, barraging me with a continuous list of questions about the machine, a lot of which he really did not need to know, especially the ones that I couldn't answer! I started to clear the coal from the top of the machine and around the bundle of hoses and cables which seemed to be randomly tied everywhere along its goafside length, Mr. Panicker grabbed my arm in panic and said "No you must not do that, we have workmen to do that", sixty or so screamed words later saw men diving out of the chocks and flitting across the machine like an army of ants munching their way through all foreign bodies within their path, until the machine lay before me with hardly a spec of dust on it. My turn now, went around it as best I could with Mr Panicker managing to get his head in front of just about everything that I went to examine, machine section joints were a little gapped, slight oil leaks here and there, under-frame trapping shoes a good bit worn, boom trunnion showing signs of stress, all likely indications of real hard work. The main problem that I was able to identify was the cutting drums not only being full of blunt picks but also had about half he vane depth made up solid with a concrete of coal dust and the gritty particles from the roof, suggesting that not only would the coal cutting and clearing be a problem but that sometime prior the shearer had been used to cut the roof, or parts from it. (If I had ever been unsure of anything else I was positive that this roof would have failed even the Penknife Test).
The coal was charcoal grey, nothing like the black stuff of home, I will admit to thinking that it may have been better employed as a building material, rather than a power station fuel. But I did witness it being burnt and was grateful to be able to use the electricity that it generated. Indian coal fired power stations were something special utilising coal with up to forty percent ash content, if I recall correctly our UK power stations required between seventeen and twenty two per cent ash, I think that the Patherkhera fed station could have usefully burnt concrete footpath slabs.
The following day dressed in my more appropriate uniform I was able to witness the AB 16 DERDS at its best, ugh! Enough to bring tears to the eyes of the hardest hearted of Mechanical Engineers and possibly a thought of inadequacy from even a mining engineer, with or without penknife. The machine was travelling towards the Main gate against the gradient, the reverse of almost every other Longwall installation that I had worked on, however because of the minimal amount of coal being cut it was hardly likely to be affected, the machine was surging into the coal and tripping on haulage as soon as the drum became embedded beyond the depth of a cutter pick. I persuaded the machine driver, who incidentally was the tallest Indian that I ever met, at about six foot two inches and I think went by the name of Islam, to put the haulage into the slowest speed selection, hardly a creep compared to the twelve feet per minute selection that was resulting in the constant tripping, but the machine chewed its way into the maingate without a single trip or stoppage at about three feet per minute. The downhill cut was a little easier, and the machine managed to cut reasonably consistently at six feet per minute, the difficult task was in convincing Mr. Panicker and Islam that at these reduced speeds the machine was actually cutting more coal than if set at a much greater haulage speed than it was capable of cutting without tripping on haulage effort, and lost time in resetting the clutches of this mechanical haulage.
The design of the cutting drums was a in my opinion a very real mistake, they had been made as a two start and not the three or even four start that hard coal cutting requires, it certainly looked like the inefficiency of these cutting elements was playing a major part in restraining the shearers' performance. A second aspect was the fact that the haulage clutch (controlling the amount of force with which the machine could be pushed into the coal) was set at its lowest value configuration settings, which meant that the machine was not attempting to apply its optimum let alone maximum coal cutting effort. Possibly the only saving grace was that the electric motor appeared adequate even at the point that it was working at its hardest, scouring the coal with a cutting drum likened to using a blunt drill, it was the haulage that was the weakest link, the motor overloads not being reached. In order to upgrade the haulage clutch ratings it would be necessary to change a worm and wheel gearing assembly, not a job for underground application and it was unlikely to get the replacement parts from the UK in any reasonable time, i.e.six weeks to ship, or two days to air freight and then the dreaded Indian customs delay, reams and reams of paper work, thousands of rupees bribe money to all the officials and other office scribes involved in accelerating the flow of paperwork, a "massive tip" to be paid to the storekeepers assistant to handle the items, and even then an expected six week delay. This was an accepted business style throughout all Indian Bureaucratic Government Offices, a constant front page headline in most Indian Newspapers, government corruption and graft, usually naming names, but never with apparent results, I would guess that this still goes on and will forever.
At the next meeting with the senior colliery officials ID and myself being outnumbered by about 8 to one, manager, under managers, engineers of all ranks both electrical and mechanical, stores manager and possible the colliery road sweeper were in attendance to await my statement that the machine was of the wrong specification and had been supplied "Not Fit For Purpose" thus placing myself on the tree of crucifixion. I am not able to tell lies very well and also considered myself as a man of honour, but also I was not stupid enough to jeopardise my Mother Company and more importantly my own hide, so when the perpetual question came I stood up and without so much as a stammer dived into a verbal report that said very little or at least admitted very little. What I couldn't say was that the coal production to date had been adequate, but I could say that with both mechanical and operational changes the potential of the shearer could be improved, the easiest part first, a little bit of retaliation to put them in a position of part responsibility. I explained about the use of too high a speed selection not providing the optimum production, but that I could also appreciate the operators not being able to realise that, but that they as educated professionals would see the benefits of continued cutting at reduced speeds (Go on tell me that you don't, but they didn't), went on to discuss the intention to monitor the performance and determine the best speeds for the different actions employed in cutting the face. The most difficult explanation next, that of the cutting drums being next to useless, or actually put as, I believed that there could be improvement in the drum design that may help with the problem of variation in coal hardness, eased back at that and allowed the expected outcry of " The coal is consistent all the time", but MR Panicker had been of some use in telling me that the roof was not "Working" the way it had been expected to, in so much as the necessary loading of the roof prior to its controlled breaking had not happened. Note of explanation here may be of some use to non pitmen; - one of the primary requirements in successful Longwall operation is the controlled way in which the roof is allowed "Bend" down towards the floor behind the roof supports and in doing so "Squeeze" down onto the coal face edge causing a release of pressure within the coal and setting up fractures enabling the coal to be broken off easier. This function is sometimes so good in operation that the coal is broken and simply spalls off, the shearer only being used to load the coal onto the face conveyor. This of course has to be balanced to prevent too much coal being exploded off the face, creating unnecessary and unwanted exposed ground in advance of the supports, and in some cases pieces of coal being fired off the face cause a real danger of striking face workers.
In the case of PK 2 the roof did not bend but remained unloaded for extensive distances, thus not relieving the coal until the very last minute before its ultimate fracture, when this happened the coal for three or four consecutive strips was cut and loaded with such ease as to allow the machine to travel at maximum haulage speed without trips, until of course the roof started to hold again and the pressure was lost. Thank you Mr. Panicker, glad I listened to you.
I was able to use this information to worm around the fact that the drums had been designed around the expected relief of the coal in this way, and now that it was realised that this was not the case then new or altered drums should be made to account for this.
Now for the icing on the cake, I felt fairly confident in relating the fact that Anderson Strathclyde could now supply an enhancement kit to give even greater haulage effort, (The new worm and wheel arrangement). Confident that the parts would not be readily available and sure that they could be fitted at the time of machine overhaul on completion of the face panel within the surface workshops. A brief discussion on the way in which this particular change could improve output torque was ongoing, when the storekeeper asked for Part Numbers of this kit, in order for him to set off a claim for free supply no doubt, a brief pause whilst I checked the parts list and provided the storekeeper with the necessary, up he shot and went to start the letter of demands. The meeting continued with discussions on the general condition of the face equipment and was conducted in a slightly better atmosphere, I felt that to some extent I had if not fully appeased them, then that some hope of improvement was ignited, mainly that the claim of Anderson being one hundred percent responsible had been put in question, breathing space at least. Back to the guesthouse, bottle of cold beer and collapse onto the patio lounger, get my brain back into mesh before taking a bath, end of round one and no knockouts. Aunty Bi appeared at the door with a tray smiling through a nearly toothless cavity announced "Special chi sir" and left me with the pot full of milky sweet tea heavily laced with ginger, brilliant. Only for me, the Dowty lads wouldn't touch it saying it was horrible, well each to his own, they all ate the sacrificial goat meat though, hidden in the brown sludge of a curry.
I was laid in the second bath full of hot water, the first black and oily primary scrubbings run off, and the second relax and soak run in, not quiet as warm as the first, when Mr. Red Legs came knocking and informed me that a driver was waiting to take me back to the mine site, "Bloody hell, just what I needed, what does he want?" "Don't know he has been told to just fetch you".
Back to the pit expecting something stupid, like a burst hydraulic hose or something, I had enough experience of India by now to know that when you were on site anything that related directly or indirectly to Anderson Strathclyde was my responsibility, even down to the shearer driver trapping his thumb. How wrong I was, I walked into the managers office to see that he and the engineer had been bathed and returned, I was surprised to see the storekeeper there as well, all three grinning like Cheshire cats, I knew it, I just knew it, my execution warrant had arrived, the worlds greatest cynic, I am. But no it was even worse than that; the storekeeper had checked his stock of spares and found the haulage upgrade kit in store, just what I needed yet again. The engineer said we have made arrangements to start the job on day shift tomorrow, choose what I said now I knew that I had lost, couldn't say that it didn't need to be fitted, and the statement from me that it was a workshop type of job not to even be attempted underground just fell on deaf ears, "We can do it easily we are preparing around the machine now it will be just like a workshop in the morning, and you are an expert of course we can do it." I must admit I was grateful for his confidence because all mine was in the negative and the job was such that it needed somebody's confidence. Not being able to believe their luck I went to the stores to check, it just might have a low pull replacement kit rather than the upgrade, and no it was the high torque set.
Back in the guesthouse I was being comforted by the Dowty lads, one of who volunteered to help me with the job, great guy. Early to bed, start of a big day in the morning I might even be able to sleep, I took the machine parts list with me and went through the strip down and build up a few times, screw by screw, part by part, fell asleep and did it in my dreams, dead easy!
Pleasantly surprised on arrival at the face when I saw the "Workshop" that had been prepared, plenty of room, machine cleaned off and lids opened but not removed. The day shift fitter had been brought back to the pit last night in order to supervise the preparations and was instructed to stay with the machine until the operation had been completed, I apologised to him but he shrugged it off saying that it was his duty and apart from that he would be paid overtime all through, his assistant couldn't wait to tell me as soon as he was out of earshot that the fitter was the highest paid workman at PK 2 and that he was a close runner himself, the Anderson Strathclyde machine was their sole responsibility and as such had made both of them very rich men. I won't go into the gory details of what happened next other than to say the machine was ready to try after about thirteen hours, five hours of which had been spent finding balls out the bearing which pulled apart on initial strip down. Fifteen balls were scattered about the box of the haulage most were spotted quickly and with the removal of a few lubrication pipes, were reached out from the bottom of the box, the rest proved more elusive, the last one eventually found tucked away in a corner resting nicely against a spur gear, just waiting for the gears to turn and rip the bowels out of the whole machine, it just had to be found by the Senior Engineer who just happened to poke his head over the opened casting for the first time just to grab a glance as it were and simply said "Why there it is, my eyesight is perfect" what a plonker! Wouldn't put his hand into the oily box though to retrieve it but brought the fitter in to winkle the last ball out.
Here we are, with the machine oiled up and ready to start, I hardly dared switch it on, but I did and without a problem the machine fired up, oil pressures reached working levels, haulage selected and the thing moved nicely, no nasty banging or clanging, thank you Kali. Haulage pull tests completed and the clutch settings tweaked as far as I dare to provide the maximum of haulage effort. Couldn't really try the machine's performance owing to the fact that the pit had taken advantage of Andersons' downtime to rectify their own outbye belt drive, but were still working on it on our completion. (This was probably the real reason that the shearer job was leapt into in the first place, there would be no recorded downtime against the colliery's belt repair.
The next morning there was a pleasant reception in the engineers' office a party like atmosphere almost, tea was ordered and I was told that there was no need to rush into the pit today, some coaling production had been done by the night shift and reports of a fair improvement in performance had been made, Mr. Panicker had in fact been present on the night shift no doubt to provide a non biased opinion, non biased towards Anderson Strathclyde's' favour that is.
I remained a PK 2 for another week monitoring the machine and tidying it up here and there whenever we had chance, the improvement was marked but both I and the mine officers knew that it should be better, I had to have hope in the replacement of more suitable cutting drums being made quickly and fitted (Some months away yet after the wrangling of whose responsibility it was, who was to pay for the replacements and even more interesting as to who should make them, Anderson in the UK, or by their collaborators in India, basis of a later story).
During this week I was "lucky" enough to be on the face when disaster struck or at least very nearly, a couple of days before I was due to leave the coal suddenly started working, banging and cracking, great I thought and upped the machine speeds, the weight in the roof became obvious and the miners were all starting to show a certain apprehension, that is because they are new to longwalling, I thought, having experienced hundreds of massive goaf breakages, especially the first breaks of a new face when distances of around sixty metres were advanced before the roof started to collapse, this provides for an awful lot of roof rock to fall when you consider that a normal face length would be two hundred metres, over sixty metres back falling en mass sometimes from a height of two metres, certainly could be awe-inspiring if not frightening, but wrong again. What I had never experienced occurred at PK 2 and did remove a certain amount of arrogance from me forever, sat in the chocks one morning waiting for belts to start yet again and listening to the distant thunder like rumblings from up above, I noticed that many of the colliers had gone past me making their way into the tail gate, probably to take Tiffin and advantage of the stoppage, and then it happened an almighty bang and it went suddenly black, choking dust, gritty sand flying everywhere and terrifyingly the weight of the chock canopy on my head, on my shoulders, then onto my back as it pushed me onto my knees, Jesus the world is on me I knew that I was being crushed, I couldn't get flat, there wasn't the room to move I was stuck on my knees with the chock on top of me, it stopped moving thank God but still I couldn't see, I could hear a babbling of Indian voices all around, but nothing made sense for a while I couldn't understand what was happening or had happened in fact. The air was getting cooler again, it had suddenly become warm when it first happened, but I hadn't really noticed until a cool draught became apparent, I began to crawl forward feeling in front of me half expecting to find my way barred by a totally closed roof support or a slab of roof but nothing prevented me moving, all the chocks to the tail gate had lowered to a similar height at just about a yard high clearance, by the time I got into the tailgate the air had cleared enough to see but it carried with it the grit from the roof, it was like being sandblasted, the face tannoys were alive a thousand conversations, eventually it was related to me that no one had been hurt the roof had broken exactly at the coal face edge and was simply sat on top of the chocks like a great slab. The biggest weighting had been at the tailgate end and the roof supports at the rise side of the maingate end had only yielded a small amount, WOW!!
What a shift that had been!
Underground next day everything seemed too quiet, no belts were running on the walk inbye, not much happening anywhere really, it was like a day of mourning without the fatalities, thank goodness. The Dowty engineers went to evaluate any damage to the roof supports and I crawled to the shearer, it was fairly obvious that the roof had nipped the machine but it was impossible to identify if other damage had been done, access to the face side was impossible, power onto the shearer and both cutting heads out of gear, started up without problem, right hand gear- head put into gear and the machine tried, a full stall on the electric motor resulted, switched off quickly and taken out of gear, the exercise repeated with the right hand gear-head which after a "cough" started up , the drum cutting its own clearance. I asked Mr. Panicker to arrange for a hole to be bored above the left-hand cutting drum and a "popper"(this being a small part of an explosive charge put into the roof directly above the cutting drum) to be fired above it, in order to release the pressure of the roof. I had immediate thoughts of a nightmare situation whereby the cutting drum was blown off, so I did in fact physically ensure that only a quarter of a pill of powder was used in the first shot, much to the disappointment of the shot-firer who wanted to put two pills up the hole, as it turned out he was probably nearer the mark, the first explosion barely marking the roof let alone the cutting drum, I still insisted on only half a pill being used for the second attempt and this proved just about adequate, two tries to start the machine with the drum in gear managed to growl and scour its way through the remaining interference of roof contact, ok the machine was released from its captivation and ready for the off. I then offered my services to the Dowty lads and was given the job of pressurising the individual roof support legs with an hydraulic intensifier. (I won't even attempt to describe this tool other than to say it was like a "very high pressure" pump that was used to hydraulically pump up the roof supports telescopic legs individually and literally jack the roof up bit by bit). This job was tedious to say the least but millimetre-by-millimetre the roof was lifted sufficiently to allow the face to restart and the trapped chocks to again become self-advancing. I left Patherkhera on the day that the face restarted, at least in the knowledge that the production of coal was once again initiated with a little better chance than when I had arrived. I was destined to visit Patherkhera many more times in the future; at least the ginger tea in the guesthouse was good !!
THE JUNGLE.
Early in the start of these ramblings I mentioned that the guesthouse was adjacent to the jungle and the interest that this caused, well here I will take the opportunity to attempt to describe the reasons why this meant something to me personally. Firstly the snakes, I have now and always have had an abnormal hatred of snakes, much more than normal fear, to the extent that the mere mention of the word snake or Indi "samp" caused in me, the classic cartoon reaction of a lady leaping onto a chair with raised skirts at the sight of a mouse, not that I wear a skirt very often really, but I did carry a chair with me all the times whilst in India for that very purpose. It seemed that the cleared area around the officers' village denoting the jungles' finish and civilisations' start meant nothing to the multiplicity of snakes, scorpions and giant millipedes that succeeded in transferring their allegiance from the jungle to that of "modern living". A secondary but still major part of interest to me were the trees that formed this jungle, they were high quality, purpose planted Teak trees very near to maturity, amidst a myriad of self seeded genuine jungle trees and shrubs. A huge notice close by the guesthouse clearly indicating the fact that to take timber from this plantation was illegal, served only to create the tip, tip, tip, repetitive use of the axe to be heard under the cover of nightfall, I was grateful for the delay in chainsaw technology reaching Patherkhera particularly when sleeping was sufficiently difficult as a result of the millions of peacocks screaming their intentions of love across all four corners of this encampment clearing.
The Jungle also harboured animals of both mystery and maybe even mythology, whilst tigers had not been seen for a long time jackals and monkeys were common, and I personally played a part in perpetuating a part to the mythology in my claim to having seen a wolf on returning to the guest house at 4.0 am one morning, the driver swore it was a jackal, I had seen neither but knew that what I saw in the headlights of the bus was bigger than any Alsatian in the UK, and this in the belief that Jackals were a little bigger than foxes.
Within this jungle were several areas of water where fish could be caught, ranging from the standard UK type sporting sizes of freshwater fish to the downright industrial weights of fish that supported several lakeside villages whose sole purpose was the business of fishing, I did catch some of the smaller specimens, but was pleased to witness the capturing of fish of up to fifty kilos. The professional fishermen used hand lines from the sides of boats, these being little more impressive than dugout canoes, I was swimming in the lake one Sunday morning when I noticed a motorised canoe travelling at a great rate of knots across the middle of this huge man made "pond", but something didn't seem quite right, it took me a while but I then realised that the boat seemed to be going in reverse the stern was high up out of the water and the bow was nearly scooping water in to itself, I swam to the shore and asked the driver who had taken me there, he sat having a smoke and watching the same performance, "What was going on?", he simply said "Big fish, very big fish", it then dawned on me that the guy in the canoe had hooked one of these monster "gudgeon" (gudgeon, because that is the best description I could think off, same sort of shape and colouring as the British Native Fish but about 1,000 % bigger). I walked round to the tiny fishing village that the boat eventually docked at, some thirty minutes later to watch alongside a dozen other people from the village, the proud fisherman struggle up the beach with this four foot monster in his arms. What a fish it was, the biggest freshwater fish that I had or am ever likely to see, seeing me standing in awe the tiny fisherman approached and with an air of classic Indian understatement said, "This is only a small one, I have caught much bigger", in my best cynical Barnsley accent I THOUGHT …."Arr, allrait pal, al bet tha hess anorl"……but maybe he had.
There was a legal decree that local villagers, although not allowed to cut down trees in this plantation jungle, could in fact collect and use in any way they wished, broken branches and dead wood but only to the extent of the amount that they were able to personally carry. This resulted in a daily tea time convoy of elderly women and children walking from the woods past the guest house with piles of timber on their heads in bundles up to four foot diameter, no doubt the majority of which was to be sold as firewood to eke out a meagre living, it would have been easier for them to have been allowed to work underground. To think that this daily toil had to take place in the heart of a coalmining village never did make any sense to me, literally the roads were made of coal, coal was everywhere but for some reason the price and need for wood made all this effort worthwhile.
Another anomaly, related to the numerous tiny village encampments that had grown up around PK 2 and the within the jungle periphery, was the fact that they had no electricity supply during the day, but at night these "hutments" became illuminated as brightly as Blackpool in September, with radios and public tannoys playing classical Indi Film Theme Music loud enough to be heard in Blackpool as soon as darkness fell. The answer to this mystery was revealed one evening when returning from a long day shift the driver stopped the bus taking me back to the guest house in the middle of one such encampment, he turned to me and said "Two minute delay sahib", I looked forward and saw two young men throwing what looked like rocks on ropes up into the air across the road, rocks on ropes was exactly what they were, the daily game was get the stones over the three phase electricity supply that ran on pylons to feed the pit alongside the main road, once achieved the ropes were pulled tight and the copper cables pulled into contact, free power was supplied to all on the illegal network immediately, sorry to say that the "Owt for nowt, genetic Yorkshire trait" in me glowed at witnessing this.
I love India, for the way in which it survives despite itself !
Copyright © Daz Beattie.
All Rights Reserved.
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