PIT HEAPSTEAD BUILDINGS.

hoggy03 asked :-

Hi Bill, Did the NCB have spares for everything or just a select few things that would be needed ASAP, if they where damaged or broken for the pit to work.

high pit wilma reply :-

Hi Hoggy! Most spares that were considered essential,were kept,and that, was a lot of spares!! On one aerial photo,i have put notes on,and you can see a complete face installation of hydraulic face chocks,stacked in double rows,which would have cost a million pounds back then......then then there was spare shearers,Dosco Roadheaders [costing £30 million each!].....pumps,conveyor belt driveheads,and structure.....etc etc...! A lot of that stuff was sent down the pit and never used,just to put the costs onto the colliery Manager's budget,and so deeming the pit to be uneconomical.....cos as long as it stood in the pit yard,it was costed to the area plant pool..,but the minute it was put into the cage to go down,the Manager had to account for it. I was talking to a Welsh ex-miner at Beamish museum,a few days ago,same age as me,and he said they did the same thing in all the pits down there,one by one,to deem them "uneconomical",as an excuse to close them. He said they left hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of machinery down there....... .....and he isn't the only one who has told me tales like the ones we already know! Cheers,Hoggy!