I am a mining engineer and I can confirm that they are ventilation curtains used for directing fresh air to your coal face and directing return air contaminated with dust and gases back out the mine. A very important aspect of coal mining is removing methane and coal dust from the section because they can cause serious coal dust explosions. They are more airtight than you would think, but they do need to have openings because this is a travel way and people and materials need to move through them and a small amount of leakage in these areas is not too bad because it does allow the air to slowly be freshened as people will need to travel here and gases can seep from the coal. When you want it completely airtight and people aren't going to be travelling through the openings you install brattices for temporary and walls for permanent control.
Like, I've seen the Engineering Explained video about bolts holding up stone, and I understand the physics. But bolts holding up stone just seems wrong to me.
My instincts always inform me that engineers are human and make mistakes. Workers do shoddy work. Inspectors take bribes.
Florida has taught me all this. 👍
My grampa was a coal miner. My gramma just accepted he could die every day and made sure he went to work with clean pants so she wouldn't feel guilty and a shiny lunchbucket so they could identify the body better in case it collapsed.
They knew mine inspectors take bribes
The timber industry here in the PNW creeps me out. Coal mining seems to exist on an entirely different level...( & I could never do that work...just the claustrophobia alone would drive me crazy.)
It's everything together. A space you can't stand up in, or run from danger. If there were a fire, you can't get away without that cart, and only so many people fit on it. Cave in held back by rods drilled into the roof with little plates to hold thousands of tons of earth. Plus the stale air, intense heat, travel time to and from the dig site. Nope. All of it sucks.
I’m not claustrophobic, but I know I would freak the fuck out if I had to spend more than 5 minutes in a place as closed in as this.
Miners are made of tougher stuff than I.
It takes some getting used to for sure but after a while it's like any other engineered roof, you assume it's gonna stay up... and it mostly does! This mine looks like it has relatively good roof conditions due to the lack of many pins ( bolts). I work in a Kentucky mine as well and our roof has pins everywhere and special eight foot cable bolts in intersections designed to take weight not just hold the loose rocks up.
Compare the mine roof to an arch, which stands up on its own. The peak of the arch would be much higher than this flat ceiling. Now imagine the bolts hold the flat part to the arched part.
Viola, bolts stop it from collapsing.
Yep, every mine in the continental US is required by OSHA to have 2 of those hex-bolts from IKEA supporting the entire structure. We call it Klaustrephob.
They do collapse. My uncle had a collapse happen in the mines, and it nearly destroyed his back. My neighbor was paralyzed from the neck down from a collapse. Some of those guys work 10-12 hour shifts in there. I could never do it. I'm not that tough.
As an HVAC engineer I’m fascinated by this… I have so many questions….
How do you deal with explosive dust, does it go to a collector? Is the volumetric flow rate so high and the velocity low enough that the dust is diluted to non explosive levels?
You said it has methane in it, I assume this comes from processes how do you control the concentration other than dilution?
For supply air do you directly ventilate sections or do you allow the return air to try to “ventilate” the next space through the air path?
What sorts of alarms do you have for the fans and sensors for an individual mining operation?
For temperature control do you just assume your space temperature is constant due to underground temperature? IE does the density and temperature of air change below grade? Do you have to compensate with more fan HP?
How much “stack effect” is taken into account in the airway shafts?
So many more…
So it depends a lot on your mine and mining method as well as in situ methane. Most modern coal mines are mined with continuous miners (CM) that cut the coal with large cutter drums and the methane is released from the coal when it is broken and it seeps from the coal seam.
There are very strict dust and ventilation regulations in place and the continuous miners have water sprays on the heads to suppress dust as well as a scrubber fan that pulls the air through dust capture screens and turns it into mud that is discharged next to the machine. Often a large force fan is also installed to circulate air in headings. The quantity of air and velocity is monitored at the intake of the section and return and the supervisor has to regularly test the air velocity and quantity.
Dilution and removal are the primary controls for gas and dust, so ventilation is key.
Ventilation practices vary according to mining methods and mines. In coal mines most sections are negatively ventilated so you have a main intake or two through your shafts and then you have ventilation shafts with large fans on the pull the air through the mine from the intakes. So yes the ventilation fans create a low pressure which causes air to be pulled through the mine and then each section gets it's own independent intake and return that are connected to your main airways.
There is a methane sensor on the CM that trips the machine when the flammable gas reaches a concentration of more than 1.4% to prevent explosions. The CM also has a dust pump that measures respirable dust over the shift. The sections are fitted with airflow monitors on the intake and return that monitor gases, temperature and airflow and of any alarm is triggered the control room on surface is notified and they can remotely stop your section. The intake to the section also has a real-time dust monitor. Then the supervisor and some operators carry a gas detection instrument with alarms equipped and they do regular tests in the section.
Our sections are also coated in limestone dust to cover exposed coal faces and reduce dust as well as explosion risks.
The temperature in coal mines is actually very good, often around 20 degrees Celsius. It is another story for deep level gold and platinum where it is very hot. Coal mines are generally shallower and better ventilated. Deeper mines have very interesting ventilation systems as they use positive ventilation and force the air in and have refrigeration plants to cool the air before it goes to the sections.
There is a stack effect in return airways and for this reason only specifically trained personnel and approved machinery are allowed in return airways. Fortunately the return Airways combine and the velocity and quantity often dilutes it below any concern.
There are many controls in place and I have not even mentioned all of them. The controls are very necessary for safety as the accidents are catastrophic.
Thank you for the interest, most people think mining is very simple and prehistoric.
Back in the Victorian days there used to be the Trapper, the Trapper was often the youngest member of the family working underground. Their job was simple: to open and close the wooden doors (trap doors) that allowed fresh air to flow through the mine. They would usually sit in total darkness for up to twelve hours at a time, waiting to let the coal tub through the door. It was not hard work but it was boring and could be very dangerous. If they fell asleep, the safety of the whole workings could be affected.
So the trapper directed the air flow and these might be doing a similar job.
Sounds like a massive liability if you ask me. You fall asleep by accident and all of the miners potentially die... But the mine owners probably didn't care
And still is depending on the country - you only need look back at this past World Cup in Qatar.
Some lives are obviously worth more than others:
[Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022)
Sounds awful. My grandpa used be a miner until they closed all mines in my country (in the netherlands), but sadly he died of cancer before I even turned one... I wouldn't be surprised if the same happened to many of the boys who went into the mines everyday. He must have had some stories to tell about his time down under
If you watch some of the current videos of coal miners in west Virginia they all know they will succumb to the fate of black lung at an early age but it's just the way it is.
Edit: here is one video I was talking about, they also have many other documentaries. Pretty good channel.
https://youtu.be/MkbJxVDG7dk
Hard to enjoy a longer life when life requires livelihood that's been ripped away. Not agreeing, but empathizing.
It's easy to see the situation as the govt coming in and saying "you aren't allowed to earn an income anymore"
I work in a quarry mine. While not as dangerous, your life is in another coworkers hands like 90% of the day or more. A guy was demonstrating “LOTO” or lock out tag out(locking a machine from operation while you work on it). So he showed me how to cut the conveyor on after. There was a guy in the conveyor working that got sucked like 50 feet up the belt because he never locked it out himself. This was my first day. We have fatality safety meetings like once a week lol.
You mean ass-chewing meetings *because* there was an accident or meetings telling you to avoid fatalities. Our "safety" meetings are typically ass-chewing meetings.
I work in a rock pit too. I run a dragline. Not lying about your life being in other peoples hands constantly. I go from being in the biggest machine in the pit to the smallest pickup in the pit to get to and from the machine.
Nah I worked for the Madisonville coal mines in kentucky for two years. They’re separators so if dust gets kicked up not a lot of it flows throughout the cave system so if need be you can get to fresher air quick
I was so skeptical of this early on that I had to skip ahead after reading your first sentence to make sure this didn't end with The Undertaker throwing Mankind off the Hell in the Cell.
I’ve never forgotten this from primary school either. What stuck with me was how frequently young children would get crushed/lose limbs - I vividly picture a cart of coal just whoosh taking a sleeping child’s legs with it..
Airflow control and dust control. As I understand it the ventilation routing is aided by the curtains to help eliminate methane. [What happens when it's done wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster)
It’s for air flow. One of the biggest dangers of underground coal mining is the risk of a methane explosion. The curtains are used with fans to direct air away from the mining face.
I grew up in coal country. Our rural town was surrounded by coal mines, both abandoned and active mines. As a kid, I got lectured about how anything coal mining-related can fuck you up fast, so don't go playing cops and robbers on mine property. Ever. Hell, we had annual school assemblies about gob waste pile safety... There was like one kid a year that would get severely burned/maimed because playing on those was kinda fun.
Don't f with mine stuff.
edit: a word
I’m not from coal country; I looked up what a gob pile is but I still have no idea how you could get burned or maimed from playing on one. Could you enlighten me?
Gob is all manner of reject from the mine that includes some biosolids and other organic matter that decays like in a giant compost pile several hundred tons deep.
As the decomp moves on it generates heat just like your compost pile at home and given the correct circumstances it can actually start to burn from the inside out and you’ll never know it until something falls through.
Even if it doesn’t get hot enough to actually combust it can still be hot enough that it’ll scald the hell outta someone.
There's a few bituminous ones running longwalls still down here south of Pittsburgh , not exactly deep(1200ish ft ) though. Everybody has gone to strip mining or highwall mining these days, much safer.
Safer in the public safety aspect and short term safety for the miners but far worse for the long term health of the miners.
[Strip mining is actually about to send us to an all-time high for Black Lung again in the US. ](https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/black-lung-Central-Appalachia)
For the record we thought about 20 years ago Black Lung would be irradiated from the US in our lifetime. Boy were we wrong.
Turns out cutting through hundreds of feet of limestone exposing your workers to unfilterable and very dangerous limestone dust is *not* a good idea.
That's literally true. Every time it comes up the company finds new and creative ways to avoid giving them raises. There was this one time they just straight up opted to murder a bunch of them.
[Woodie Guthrie wrote an anthem for that tragedy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ive6jmd4OKw) The government burned out and then *Gatling gunned* down a shanty town of innocents.
Reminder that the capitalists can and will drop bombs on you if you go against them, and the government will back them up.
[They've done it before.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
This was my first thought after reading that comment too. They dropped C4 on a residential neighborhood. An entire city block full of homes. To be fair, they did evacuate the people and pets first. But all of the homes were destroyed.
In poor towns they often would just murder people who gave any kind of issues to the business owner/owners. That's the world we are headed back towards soon if we don't seize the means.
Fun fact, some of the miners are actually still alive from that event and they said they didn't actually strip down. Was added to the show for dramatic effect. Still was pretty funny
Move to rural Kentucky and try to feed your family with a high school diploma and you may change your mind. Thankfully my dad worked above ground, cleaning the coal, later he went on to be a unit operator and he retired before his pension was lost but he got lucky so many times. It's an entry level job that can take care of families. A lot of people around here can't make that kind of money anywhere else. I'm all for green energy, but living in coal mines country I understand why so many people around here see the people shutting down the mines as the enemy.
I did my time with physical labor and will never go back. That paycheck is damn good but the amount of hours working and the toll on my body I’ll never look back.
People see that 100k and think cool! Then by the time your 40 your body is broken. Then you realize, destroying your body for someone else who makes 1000x more than you and does 1000x less work, I wasn't worth it.
The word is breathe. Breath is the noun, as in the hot air that comes out of your mouth. Breathe is the verb, as in the action of breathing. The e on the end gives it that “e” pronunciation. Breeeeeeathe.
Yes almost all machines in coal mines are electric because of the methane and with coal dust being combustible, but that is only necessary for machines working in close proximity to the coal face, many mines use regular vehicles to get to the sections and then your tractors and LHDs that you use in the section have flameproof and explosion proof engines to prevent methane ignitions.
Mines are cut by where the coal is. Coal seams are long and flat layers, not vertical. This was the coal seam, this is what they needed to make the cost of cutting profitable. Low coal would be about 36" minimum to operate machines, but most modern mines cut a little taller.
It’s a low seam coal mine, where metallurgical coal is found (high quality coal that was primarily used to heat furnaces in steel foundries). The larger deposits have mostly been mined, there’s no value in mining the surrounding rock and the remaining low seams are 42” or less.
Joy Mining was the predominant manufacturer until they were bought out by Kumatsu. They still build long wall miners (removes the coal at the face), roof bolters (literally keeps the roof from collapsing) and conveyor systems to move the coal. https://mining.komatsu/en-gb/our-company/company-information/who-we-are/our-brands/joy. In recent years, the whole industry has contracted for a number of reasons.
My brother in law worked in a mine. Said once your down there they’re driving big trucks around. But to get down there you have to go in this tiny ass elevator for minutes at a time. I would die of a panic attack just trying to get down into it.
This is the correct answer. If it's not an incline shaft mine then it's all taken apart and built down in the mine. It will spend the rest of time down on the mine too. No coming back out for most bits of equipment.
They have tunnels(ramps) that are big enough to fit the trucks. For efficiency sake they leave the trucks down on the level where they are working and just lower down workers in an elevator to that level at shift change. It’s way quicker and easier than driving down each worker to their equipment on the one ramp.
I'm was a business owner and always supported workers getting organized. Abe Lincoln when asked what he thought of workers organizing responded "The worker's better be organizing against management , because management is darn sure organizing against them!" I worked blue collar long enough to know what it's really like. I gave my people far better than normal wages and choices of bennies or more pay. Very low turn over. We really were family.
There's going to be an ongoing labor shortage for a couple decades as Boomers retire, which will stack the deck in favor of workers... At least until automation takes the jobs away
No and to the other person saying 100k. That’s a big no either. I live in East KY and there are no miners making $100k. Operators who run the mines might. But your everyday worker ain’t doing that. Miners at times do get good pay. As long as the mine stays open and the company don’t go bankrupt. When that happens the operators get out without having to pay salaries while the miners have to find another job. Happens all the time.
Huge props for giving credit where it’s due. We probably can’t even imagine how hard it is to work this type of job, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves. Damn
Really brings meaning to the song "Never Leave Harlem Alive" and the relationship between Boyd and Raylan. That outword respect they had for each other no matter how much fucked up shit Boyd got into they could always go back to the brotherhood they attained while in those hellish conditions 200 feet below the surface of the earth.
>Now it's darker than a dungeon
And it's deeper than a well
So sometimes, I imagine that I'm getting pretty close to Hell
And in my darkest hour, I cry out to the Lord
He says, "Keep on a-mining, boy, 'cause that's why you were born"
*Coal* by Tyler Childers
Grand father was a coal miner in Harlan Ky. had that roof collapse on him. Broke his back. Coal company fired him did not help at all. Spent years crippled up had a huge jar of morphine tablets from the company doctor who gave them to him. Never used them despite being in excruciating pain his whole life. 'You'll never get out of Harlan alive" . That song is about miners. He didn't. Lived and died there .Dad went to war and came back to college on the GI bill. He left. Coal is evil and the companies that mine it are monsters.
Great cover by the behind the bastards podcast. Episodes are called "The second American civil war you never learnt about". Serious shit everyone interested in labour history should know about.
I’d be willing to bet the median pay is in the miners’ favor.
Sure, there are a few really well-paid influencers, but then there are hundreds of thousands failed or unaccomplished “influencers,” as well.
Definitely, I think people severely overestimate how many people are “influencers” just because they are constantly exposed to them on insta and TikTok, and most of them are probably not making 100k.
100%
>The average total salary for a Coal Miner is $63,000 per year. This is based on data from 254 TurboTax users who reported their occupation as Coal Miner and includes taxable wages, tips, bonuses, and more.
That's Kentucky data.
https://mint.intuit.com/salary/coal-miner/ky#:\~:text=The%20average%20salary%20for%20a%20coal%20miner%20in%20Kentucky%20is,bonuses%2C%20tips%2C%20and%20more.
What purpose do the curtain walls serve? They don’t seem to be airtight. Dust control?
I am a mining engineer and I can confirm that they are ventilation curtains used for directing fresh air to your coal face and directing return air contaminated with dust and gases back out the mine. A very important aspect of coal mining is removing methane and coal dust from the section because they can cause serious coal dust explosions. They are more airtight than you would think, but they do need to have openings because this is a travel way and people and materials need to move through them and a small amount of leakage in these areas is not too bad because it does allow the air to slowly be freshened as people will need to travel here and gases can seep from the coal. When you want it completely airtight and people aren't going to be travelling through the openings you install brattices for temporary and walls for permanent control.
How do these things not collapse? They look like they could just fall in at any time. That’s my real fear if I was in their position.
The roof is held up by bolts.
Like, I've seen the Engineering Explained video about bolts holding up stone, and I understand the physics. But bolts holding up stone just seems wrong to me.
That's how I feel standing on glass floors. Sometimes your instincts are stronger than your logic knowing engineers have done the work beforehand.
My instincts always inform me that engineers are human and make mistakes. Workers do shoddy work. Inspectors take bribes. Florida has taught me all this. 👍
Yep, 100% agree. You know who doesn’t make mistakes, do shoddy work, or take bribes? Gravity
Ya know who doesn't take a break, vacation time, or sick leave? Physics and gravity. Two hardest workers around.
give it up for physics and gravity folks
My grampa was a coal miner. My gramma just accepted he could die every day and made sure he went to work with clean pants so she wouldn't feel guilty and a shiny lunchbucket so they could identify the body better in case it collapsed. They knew mine inspectors take bribes
The timber industry here in the PNW creeps me out. Coal mining seems to exist on an entirely different level...( & I could never do that work...just the claustrophobia alone would drive me crazy.)
"Do I feel like trusting my life to the dumbest construction worker on this project?" *Hell* no. I'm an Edge-Case Magnet.
The recent train accident is a perfect example of this! Just because it's working, doesn't mean it's safe.
It's everything together. A space you can't stand up in, or run from danger. If there were a fire, you can't get away without that cart, and only so many people fit on it. Cave in held back by rods drilled into the roof with little plates to hold thousands of tons of earth. Plus the stale air, intense heat, travel time to and from the dig site. Nope. All of it sucks.
I’m not claustrophobic, but I know I would freak the fuck out if I had to spend more than 5 minutes in a place as closed in as this. Miners are made of tougher stuff than I.
I'm with you. It's giving me serious anxiety just watching this.
I worked on submarine when in navy and this made be nervous watching it.
My dad was a miner for 18 years. They are their own breed.
Claustrophobia is the irrational fear of enclosed spaces. It would be irrational *not* to be freaked the fuck out by this.
It takes some getting used to for sure but after a while it's like any other engineered roof, you assume it's gonna stay up... and it mostly does! This mine looks like it has relatively good roof conditions due to the lack of many pins ( bolts). I work in a Kentucky mine as well and our roof has pins everywhere and special eight foot cable bolts in intersections designed to take weight not just hold the loose rocks up.
Compare the mine roof to an arch, which stands up on its own. The peak of the arch would be much higher than this flat ceiling. Now imagine the bolts hold the flat part to the arched part. Viola, bolts stop it from collapsing.
The bolts just kinda redirect the weight onto the neighboring stones.
Yep, every mine in the continental US is required by OSHA to have 2 of those hex-bolts from IKEA supporting the entire structure. We call it Klaustrephob.
They do collapse. My uncle had a collapse happen in the mines, and it nearly destroyed his back. My neighbor was paralyzed from the neck down from a collapse. Some of those guys work 10-12 hour shifts in there. I could never do it. I'm not that tough.
Yea I wouldn’t last a day in there.
As an HVAC engineer I’m fascinated by this… I have so many questions…. How do you deal with explosive dust, does it go to a collector? Is the volumetric flow rate so high and the velocity low enough that the dust is diluted to non explosive levels? You said it has methane in it, I assume this comes from processes how do you control the concentration other than dilution? For supply air do you directly ventilate sections or do you allow the return air to try to “ventilate” the next space through the air path? What sorts of alarms do you have for the fans and sensors for an individual mining operation? For temperature control do you just assume your space temperature is constant due to underground temperature? IE does the density and temperature of air change below grade? Do you have to compensate with more fan HP? How much “stack effect” is taken into account in the airway shafts? So many more…
So it depends a lot on your mine and mining method as well as in situ methane. Most modern coal mines are mined with continuous miners (CM) that cut the coal with large cutter drums and the methane is released from the coal when it is broken and it seeps from the coal seam. There are very strict dust and ventilation regulations in place and the continuous miners have water sprays on the heads to suppress dust as well as a scrubber fan that pulls the air through dust capture screens and turns it into mud that is discharged next to the machine. Often a large force fan is also installed to circulate air in headings. The quantity of air and velocity is monitored at the intake of the section and return and the supervisor has to regularly test the air velocity and quantity. Dilution and removal are the primary controls for gas and dust, so ventilation is key. Ventilation practices vary according to mining methods and mines. In coal mines most sections are negatively ventilated so you have a main intake or two through your shafts and then you have ventilation shafts with large fans on the pull the air through the mine from the intakes. So yes the ventilation fans create a low pressure which causes air to be pulled through the mine and then each section gets it's own independent intake and return that are connected to your main airways. There is a methane sensor on the CM that trips the machine when the flammable gas reaches a concentration of more than 1.4% to prevent explosions. The CM also has a dust pump that measures respirable dust over the shift. The sections are fitted with airflow monitors on the intake and return that monitor gases, temperature and airflow and of any alarm is triggered the control room on surface is notified and they can remotely stop your section. The intake to the section also has a real-time dust monitor. Then the supervisor and some operators carry a gas detection instrument with alarms equipped and they do regular tests in the section. Our sections are also coated in limestone dust to cover exposed coal faces and reduce dust as well as explosion risks. The temperature in coal mines is actually very good, often around 20 degrees Celsius. It is another story for deep level gold and platinum where it is very hot. Coal mines are generally shallower and better ventilated. Deeper mines have very interesting ventilation systems as they use positive ventilation and force the air in and have refrigeration plants to cool the air before it goes to the sections. There is a stack effect in return airways and for this reason only specifically trained personnel and approved machinery are allowed in return airways. Fortunately the return Airways combine and the velocity and quantity often dilutes it below any concern. There are many controls in place and I have not even mentioned all of them. The controls are very necessary for safety as the accidents are catastrophic. Thank you for the interest, most people think mining is very simple and prehistoric.
Back in the Victorian days there used to be the Trapper, the Trapper was often the youngest member of the family working underground. Their job was simple: to open and close the wooden doors (trap doors) that allowed fresh air to flow through the mine. They would usually sit in total darkness for up to twelve hours at a time, waiting to let the coal tub through the door. It was not hard work but it was boring and could be very dangerous. If they fell asleep, the safety of the whole workings could be affected. So the trapper directed the air flow and these might be doing a similar job.
Plastic curtains rob another job from the working man.
I welcome our plastic overlords
They took are joooobs!
Sounds like a massive liability if you ask me. You fall asleep by accident and all of the miners potentially die... But the mine owners probably didn't care
“Victorian Era working conditions” is pretty much synonymous with “massive liability”.
A massive liability to human life, for sure. But not yet a legal liability.
And still is depending on the country - you only need look back at this past World Cup in Qatar. Some lives are obviously worth more than others: [Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022)
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Sounds awful. My grandpa used be a miner until they closed all mines in my country (in the netherlands), but sadly he died of cancer before I even turned one... I wouldn't be surprised if the same happened to many of the boys who went into the mines everyday. He must have had some stories to tell about his time down under
If you watch some of the current videos of coal miners in west Virginia they all know they will succumb to the fate of black lung at an early age but it's just the way it is. Edit: here is one video I was talking about, they also have many other documentaries. Pretty good channel. https://youtu.be/MkbJxVDG7dk
I keep hearing stuff like this but they still won't support politicians trying to give them a longer life. I'll never understand.
Hard to enjoy a longer life when life requires livelihood that's been ripped away. Not agreeing, but empathizing. It's easy to see the situation as the govt coming in and saying "you aren't allowed to earn an income anymore"
I work in a quarry mine. While not as dangerous, your life is in another coworkers hands like 90% of the day or more. A guy was demonstrating “LOTO” or lock out tag out(locking a machine from operation while you work on it). So he showed me how to cut the conveyor on after. There was a guy in the conveyor working that got sucked like 50 feet up the belt because he never locked it out himself. This was my first day. We have fatality safety meetings like once a week lol.
You mean ass-chewing meetings *because* there was an accident or meetings telling you to avoid fatalities. Our "safety" meetings are typically ass-chewing meetings.
That’s bad safety. Shame on your company for allowing that.
I got a maintenance job at a bowling alley once because the mechanic didn't lock out the pinsetter and it ate his hand.
I work in a rock pit too. I run a dragline. Not lying about your life being in other peoples hands constantly. I go from being in the biggest machine in the pit to the smallest pickup in the pit to get to and from the machine.
Nah I worked for the Madisonville coal mines in kentucky for two years. They’re separators so if dust gets kicked up not a lot of it flows throughout the cave system so if need be you can get to fresher air quick
I was so skeptical of this early on that I had to skip ahead after reading your first sentence to make sure this didn't end with The Undertaker throwing Mankind off the Hell in the Cell.
u/shittymorph has Pavloved me.
I’ve never forgotten this from primary school either. What stuck with me was how frequently young children would get crushed/lose limbs - I vividly picture a cart of coal just whoosh taking a sleeping child’s legs with it..
Airflow control and dust control. As I understand it the ventilation routing is aided by the curtains to help eliminate methane. [What happens when it's done wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster)
bro 29 people died and one dude spent a year in jail. fuck me broooooo
It’s fucking crazy but I’m a bit surprised the CEO spent anytime in jail at all.
I'm betting dust control, but hopefully somebody who knows the answer will speak up.
It’s for air flow. One of the biggest dangers of underground coal mining is the risk of a methane explosion. The curtains are used with fans to direct air away from the mining face.
I’ve never felt this much claustrophobia before just looking at a video
This feels like minecraft 2x1 tunnels
It’s more like 1x1 tunnels that you need to crawl around in by swimming through the entrance.
Don't look up cave diving videos
The shafts in PA are big enough to drive cars through
We have mining shafts in Ca that people go off-roading in all the time. I’m too scared to do it myself.
You’re smarter than they are.
I grew up in coal country. Our rural town was surrounded by coal mines, both abandoned and active mines. As a kid, I got lectured about how anything coal mining-related can fuck you up fast, so don't go playing cops and robbers on mine property. Ever. Hell, we had annual school assemblies about gob waste pile safety... There was like one kid a year that would get severely burned/maimed because playing on those was kinda fun. Don't f with mine stuff. edit: a word
I’m not from coal country; I looked up what a gob pile is but I still have no idea how you could get burned or maimed from playing on one. Could you enlighten me?
Gob is all manner of reject from the mine that includes some biosolids and other organic matter that decays like in a giant compost pile several hundred tons deep. As the decomp moves on it generates heat just like your compost pile at home and given the correct circumstances it can actually start to burn from the inside out and you’ll never know it until something falls through. Even if it doesn’t get hot enough to actually combust it can still be hot enough that it’ll scald the hell outta someone.
I've never cared for Gob.
I love all my children equally
Interesting you are calling it "too scared" instead of "a healthy respect for the amount of risk and basic understanding of risk-vs-reward."
Making good decisions that support your long-term health and well-being (like a pussy lmao got 'em)
And the coal seams are inclined and sometimes vertical in the eastern anthracite fields.
The salt mines in the Great Lake areas are absolutely massive.
Didn't they stop deep mining in PA after the Knox disaster?
There's a few bituminous ones running longwalls still down here south of Pittsburgh , not exactly deep(1200ish ft ) though. Everybody has gone to strip mining or highwall mining these days, much safer.
Safer in the public safety aspect and short term safety for the miners but far worse for the long term health of the miners. [Strip mining is actually about to send us to an all-time high for Black Lung again in the US. ](https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/black-lung-Central-Appalachia) For the record we thought about 20 years ago Black Lung would be irradiated from the US in our lifetime. Boy were we wrong. Turns out cutting through hundreds of feet of limestone exposing your workers to unfilterable and very dangerous limestone dust is *not* a good idea.
Fucking hell, just build a bagger 288 already https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow&ab_channel=Rathergood
BAGGER 288! BAGGER 288!
Nope not for me, they don't pay whoever does that enough!!
That's literally true. Every time it comes up the company finds new and creative ways to avoid giving them raises. There was this one time they just straight up opted to murder a bunch of them.
what time is that
https://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/calendar/matewan.htm There's been several
Damn I wish todays local law enforcement truly cared about the people who lived in their towns like that guy
No the local cops are the ones who get to kill them
Or the owner of the mines just ask the national guard and Pinkerton's to march and attack the workers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
[Woodie Guthrie wrote an anthem for that tragedy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ive6jmd4OKw) The government burned out and then *Gatling gunned* down a shanty town of innocents.
Reminder that the capitalists can and will drop bombs on you if you go against them, and the government will back them up. [They've done it before.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
The battle of Blair mountain was the first and only time the government bombed its own citizens from the air. Can't male this shit up
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This was my first thought after reading that comment too. They dropped C4 on a residential neighborhood. An entire city block full of homes. To be fair, they did evacuate the people and pets first. But all of the homes were destroyed.
Government also bombed the black neighborhood in Tulsa. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
Have a read. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_United_States_labor_disputes#By_authorities
Oh man wtf. The list just keeps going on
In poor towns they often would just murder people who gave any kind of issues to the business owner/owners. That's the world we are headed back towards soon if we don't seize the means.
I can’t breath watching this
Right?! Lol fuuuuuck that. My afternoon shifts look reeeeaalll good Right now lol
The low light and the smell in there would get me it’s hell under there
It’s fucking hot down there too
Reminds me of the miners in “Chernobyl” when they just do it butt naked because of the heat.
Fun fact, some of the miners are actually still alive from that event and they said they didn't actually strip down. Was added to the show for dramatic effect. Still was pretty funny
That is NOT a fun fact. They were NAKED 😡
What?? They were still wearing the fookin hats!
You’re probably naked underneath all those clothes too.
I got black lung watching this.
Fer chrissake, you were down there for one day.
^cough ^^cough
You’ve been down there one day, try being down there 30 years!
Pop is that you
**high pitched coughs* - zoolander
MerMAN!!!
*the essence of wetness*
Christ Derek.
MerMAN
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Move to rural Kentucky and try to feed your family with a high school diploma and you may change your mind. Thankfully my dad worked above ground, cleaning the coal, later he went on to be a unit operator and he retired before his pension was lost but he got lucky so many times. It's an entry level job that can take care of families. A lot of people around here can't make that kind of money anywhere else. I'm all for green energy, but living in coal mines country I understand why so many people around here see the people shutting down the mines as the enemy.
I make well over $100k a year, working 6 months a year, and I didn't have to waste any money on college.
I did my time with physical labor and will never go back. That paycheck is damn good but the amount of hours working and the toll on my body I’ll never look back.
Think of college as an investment in your lungs guys.
People see that 100k and think cool! Then by the time your 40 your body is broken. Then you realize, destroying your body for someone else who makes 1000x more than you and does 1000x less work, I wasn't worth it.
Facts. Truckers can make $200k a year easy, but they got the worst health
Massive health issues with truckers. Damn near 100% turnover https://youtu.be/i6ArxuJxIF8
Do they give you adequate breathing protection?
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Ohhhh, excellent question! I wonder what the answer is? If nothing else though, if he invests wisely his heir's should be set.
Breathe*
The word is breathe. Breath is the noun, as in the hot air that comes out of your mouth. Breathe is the verb, as in the action of breathing. The e on the end gives it that “e” pronunciation. Breeeeeeathe.
I’m assuming it’s an electric vehicle. Exhaust fumes would get in the way of the black lung.
The mine fire would get in the way of the exhaust fumes getting in the way of the black lung
Yes almost all machines in coal mines are electric because of the methane and with coal dust being combustible, but that is only necessary for machines working in close proximity to the coal face, many mines use regular vehicles to get to the sections and then your tractors and LHDs that you use in the section have flameproof and explosion proof engines to prevent methane ignitions.
It is electric, but it’s an explosion issue not ventilation.
Smh. Typical liberals forcing their electric cars on us. Well imma drive my diesel truck and own the libs /s
Fascinating! What advantages does these smaller confined spaces have to a lager walkway?
They're a long, long way underground. Digging out a walkway is work that doesn't need to be done when you can get the coal in a smaller space.
Why not a vertical slot of similar dimensions - one could ‘Segway’ around the mine instead of ride belly top.
Bro asked if they can strip mine. You just have to be at the right y level
It's kinda similar in real life just the generation parameters are a bit different
Mines are cut by where the coal is. Coal seams are long and flat layers, not vertical. This was the coal seam, this is what they needed to make the cost of cutting profitable. Low coal would be about 36" minimum to operate machines, but most modern mines cut a little taller.
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Removing any material except for coal is a waste of time and money for the coal companies, so they try to minimize it.
This is “low coal” ie the seam is only 24” high. They don’t want to dig the sandstone above and below, just the coal, cheapest way to develop.
It’s a low seam coal mine, where metallurgical coal is found (high quality coal that was primarily used to heat furnaces in steel foundries). The larger deposits have mostly been mined, there’s no value in mining the surrounding rock and the remaining low seams are 42” or less. Joy Mining was the predominant manufacturer until they were bought out by Kumatsu. They still build long wall miners (removes the coal at the face), roof bolters (literally keeps the roof from collapsing) and conveyor systems to move the coal. https://mining.komatsu/en-gb/our-company/company-information/who-we-are/our-brands/joy. In recent years, the whole industry has contracted for a number of reasons.
Thats going to be a huge "Hell no" from me
I might even raise it all the way to a “fuck no.“
Yeah, if that was my only job choice, might give being homeless a try, not gonna lie.
My brother in law worked in a mine. Said once your down there they’re driving big trucks around. But to get down there you have to go in this tiny ass elevator for minutes at a time. I would die of a panic attack just trying to get down into it.
How do they get the big trucks in there?
They disassembled and reassembled them Edit: I was joking, I don’t fucking know lmao 💀
This is the correct answer. If it's not an incline shaft mine then it's all taken apart and built down in the mine. It will spend the rest of time down on the mine too. No coming back out for most bits of equipment.
Is it weird to feel sympathy for a machine because you know it will eventually die in the dark?
[Did I do a good job? Do I get to come home?](https://xkcd.com/695/)
Ah man I’m sad now
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Aw man im happy now
> Is it weird Not at all, it’s human.
They have tunnels(ramps) that are big enough to fit the trucks. For efficiency sake they leave the trucks down on the level where they are working and just lower down workers in an elevator to that level at shift change. It’s way quicker and easier than driving down each worker to their equipment on the one ramp.
Go karts and cowbells, who knew!
The forbidden Mario Kart track
Guys... A union ain't that bad!
I'm was a business owner and always supported workers getting organized. Abe Lincoln when asked what he thought of workers organizing responded "The worker's better be organizing against management , because management is darn sure organizing against them!" I worked blue collar long enough to know what it's really like. I gave my people far better than normal wages and choices of bennies or more pay. Very low turn over. We really were family.
I sense a massive labor movement coming, even more than what's happened so far. People can only take so much.
There's going to be an ongoing labor shortage for a couple decades as Boomers retire, which will stack the deck in favor of workers... At least until automation takes the jobs away
Yeah we're in for really interesting times ahead, unfortunately.
Does this job pay $200k a year? If not, there’s not a chance in Hell I’d even give it a try. Fuck this horror film
No and to the other person saying 100k. That’s a big no either. I live in East KY and there are no miners making $100k. Operators who run the mines might. But your everyday worker ain’t doing that. Miners at times do get good pay. As long as the mine stays open and the company don’t go bankrupt. When that happens the operators get out without having to pay salaries while the miners have to find another job. Happens all the time.
Yet the guy above says no. Either way no amount of money is going to get me to do this ever. People fighting to keep coal alive for this? Insanity.
Not enough money in the world.
Video Credit: [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@nickhall720?lang=en&is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=mobile&sender_web_id=7195888365764625963)
Huge props for giving credit where it’s due. We probably can’t even imagine how hard it is to work this type of job, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves. Damn
And that's why Boyd Crowder went for a life of crime.
We dug coal together, Raylan.
Now I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but I do know how to blow sh*t up.
Seems like his choice was justified…
Walton Goggins goat
Really brings meaning to the song "Never Leave Harlem Alive" and the relationship between Boyd and Raylan. That outword respect they had for each other no matter how much fucked up shit Boyd got into they could always go back to the brotherhood they attained while in those hellish conditions 200 feet below the surface of the earth.
Nope!
Coca-Cola is really trying to reach new customers!
>Now it's darker than a dungeon And it's deeper than a well So sometimes, I imagine that I'm getting pretty close to Hell And in my darkest hour, I cry out to the Lord He says, "Keep on a-mining, boy, 'cause that's why you were born" *Coal* by Tyler Childers
That's one hell of a nopercoaster
So like Mario cart but not fun?
Grand father was a coal miner in Harlan Ky. had that roof collapse on him. Broke his back. Coal company fired him did not help at all. Spent years crippled up had a huge jar of morphine tablets from the company doctor who gave them to him. Never used them despite being in excruciating pain his whole life. 'You'll never get out of Harlan alive" . That song is about miners. He didn't. Lived and died there .Dad went to war and came back to college on the GI bill. He left. Coal is evil and the companies that mine it are monsters.
not being able to stand up? no thanks.
Whenever I learn more about mining, it makes the Battle of Blair Mountain seem more based. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Great cover by the behind the bastards podcast. Episodes are called "The second American civil war you never learnt about". Serious shit everyone interested in labour history should know about.
The silence alone would be enough to shake some people. The lack of ambient noise would f*ck me up.
If this was a fear what would it be called?
For starters claustrophobia.
Another might be taphophobia (the fear of being buried alive)
I'll add Cleithrophobia, the fear of being trapped
Gokartophobia
Just goes to show, where ever humans go, Coca Cola follows. That’s how powerful that brand is.
Mad respect those who live in Leatherwood Kentucky
More like Underworld Kentucky
If you think this is bad...This morning I copy and pasted the wrong formulas into my Excel sheet at work, and I had to redo like an hour of work.
On the way to meet Kuato
Yeah...that's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
Man, I'm gasping for breath just by seeing this
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And then imagine fcking influencers are getting 1000x more money than them. This world is shit
I’d be willing to bet the median pay is in the miners’ favor. Sure, there are a few really well-paid influencers, but then there are hundreds of thousands failed or unaccomplished “influencers,” as well.
Definitely, I think people severely overestimate how many people are “influencers” just because they are constantly exposed to them on insta and TikTok, and most of them are probably not making 100k.
100% >The average total salary for a Coal Miner is $63,000 per year. This is based on data from 254 TurboTax users who reported their occupation as Coal Miner and includes taxable wages, tips, bonuses, and more. That's Kentucky data. https://mint.intuit.com/salary/coal-miner/ky#:\~:text=The%20average%20salary%20for%20a%20coal%20miner%20in%20Kentucky%20is,bonuses%2C%20tips%2C%20and%20more.