The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-12-24
COAL CONVEYOR
SYSTEM SPEEDS
UP COAL Miners
Helps Increase Army of
JObIeSS Workers
Continued from page u

NO~@N~~-N~N~
not to be turned out on the street.
Under this system, designed by R.
A. Suppes, general superintendent of
the Knickerbocker mines at Johns
town, Pa, miners work in crews of
><e. Each crew has charge Of main
conveyor $50 feet long made up Of g.
foot sections, face conveyors each
IL feet long which discharge into the
main conveyor, one underwriting ma
chine, a distributing fan, 5-horse-
power hoist, etc. The nature Of their
work is described as follows:
-Four men out Of the 5-man crew
work at the face, the 9th man being
stationed on the entry to load, trim
and spot cars. The four men work on
their knees in low coal. They are sta
toned at equal intervals along the
face. Shoveling is easy in that they
are enabled to load the coal by a
single toss Of the shovel. The men
60 thru no unnecessary motions and
the exertion involved is less than one
third that required to load in the or
binary mine car. This point is impor-
tant as it has been proved in actual
practice, for man in l hour loads
without taslcing himself as much coal
as he could load into a mine car in ap-
proximateiy 8 hours of heavy exer-
tion."
The face at which they are loading
measures about 35 feet. When about
two-thirds of this DIS loaded two load
ers let the others finish, and they
start underwriting the coal which is
10 be shot down for the next advance.
BY the time the underwriting is half
done the loading is finished and the
other two leaders start drilling for
Shots while che 5th man who has been
tending the cars gets all the equip
nen& ready for lengthening the con-
veyor. The shots are fired by electri-
city and the men eat their lunch while
the distributing fan carries of the
gases and smoke.
The second half of the SHIFT is spent
like the first. At the end of the day
the crew finishes by preparing cut
for loading at the beginning Of the
following shift! It Is remarked that
this system lends itself to 2 shifts a
day. saaF
The machinery Is relatively simple.
The men shovel directly into a 3-inch
trough on the floor of which travels
a conveyor belt at the rate of 1S1 a
minute. The belt is driven by a r.
hourse power motor. The main con-
veyor into which this empties is a
steel trough in the bottom of which
travels double chain to which steel
sorapers are welded. A 10-horse pow
er motor drives It at a speed Of 11S
feet a minute and also drives the
loading apparatus which takes the
coal from the conveyor and lifts it in
to the cars.
Next to the fact that more rapid
loading cuts down the number OF min
ers required, the important point is
the change IN the kind of job which
this simple machine brings about. The
cOaldigger must feed coal to this ma
chine which carries it away steadily
at 1S1 feet minute. Working on his
knees in seams as low as 80 inches,
with a mechanical toss of the shovel
repeated monotonously he throws
some 16 tons of coal onto the moving
belt The necessity of using this ma
chine TO a maximum has introduced
a new discipline. Mining is no longer
an Individual job. The shift from
loading to cutting and drilling must
be carried out with regularity in or
der that the machine may not wait
too long for its next meal. II the load
ing and cutting do not gear into each
other according to schedule the boss
will be on hand to see why.