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Today's Face
This is where the face is today. Every night, the pit props, horizontal planks and conveyors are moved
forward towards the new coalface. The conveyors run from either end of the face towards its centre.
Miners work in the narrow space between the conveyors and the coalface itself. First,
hewers dig some coal out of the bottom of the seam, creating a gap where it
meets the stone below. Drillers drill holes along the
top of the seam.
These holes are filled with explosives and the shots are
fired, bringing down the coal into the gap created by the hewers. The loose coal is shovelled onto
the conveyors by fillers, and carried along to the place where the face
meets the Mothergate conveyor.
Tomorrow's Face
This is where the face will be tomorrow. Stonemen
will extend the barriers and the Mothergate forward and move the conveyors, the props and the planks.
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Woodhorn Colliery: Mothergate
Barrier
A 6 feet (1.8m) wide service tunnel, called a barrier, led from the underground roadway to each end of a 200 feet (60m) long coalface. These arrows shows the direction travelled by tools, pit props and other materials needed at the face. Pit ponies, pulling wagons along rails, transported these items to the end of the barrier. At the face, materials were loaded onto the face conveyer and carried along the face to where they were needed.
Mothergate
The 10 feet (3m) wide tunnel leading from the midpoint along each coal face to the underground roadway
was called the mothergate. Coal from the face conveyors dropped onto the mothergate conveyor, which
carried it back to the roadway. At the roadway, the coal was loaded into tubs for the journey to the
shaft Listen to Jim Slaughter talking about Mothergate.
Goaf
As the coal was dug out and the face advanced, the space left behind it was filled with waste stone from the mothergate and barriers. There was not enough waste stone to prop up the unsupported roof, which had once rested on coal. When the weight of stone above became too great, due to the extraction of coal, a rock fall would occur, bringing down the stone onto the goaf. Once this had happened at a face, it would continue to happen every day as the face advanced.
Yesterday's Face
This is where the face would have been yesterday. Every day, coal is dug out all along the face, exposing a new face for the next day. Each night, the mothergate and barriers are advanced forward to the new face.
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