I have a few, but I will post them one at a time, so let’s get started…

One night, I was the Maintenance Engineer in charge of the shift. I received a phone call sometime in the middle of the shift, “can you come to the coal plant – I think we have a problem”. You know the type – don’t bother asking any questions on the phone, just get up there now. When I arrived, the plant was in full operation, but that was the only good news.

The operator told me that the gantry conveyor tripper wouldn’t move, so he was limited to placing the coal where the tripper was currently located. I checked the status of the ROM (run of mine) system. The longwall was busily producing coal at top rate, with very little spare capacity between the longwall and where this tripper was located.

To cut a long story short…

It turned out that the tripper motor had burned out, so we had to change it. We got the replacement motor and headed up to the tripper. I had better explain…

The temperature outside was below freezing, the sleet was blowing almost horizontal, and we had to manually carry the motor up the gantry. We slung the motor on a pole with one person at each end of the pole.

Once we isolated the whole system and got the old motor off (with the sleet still hitting us in the face), we all agreed that we were not going to manually carry the faulty motor back down the gantry. We discussed a few options, then decided on a plan. Because the coal had already completely filled up below us, we decided that we would just drop the motor on to the coal “hill” just a few metres below us. It should hit the coal stack, then roll down another few metres into a gully in the coal pile. We could then retrieve it with one of the CAT loaders. Simple, right?

Well, it didn’t hit the coal stack and roll down. It just hit the stack and went straight down and disappeared from sight!

Funny? We didn’t think so at the time, but things do seem to get funnier with time.

Now, what about your story? There are just a few rules:

1. The story must be true
2. It must not promote an unsafe situation
3. Either it must have happened on a mining site or it must have something to do with the mining industry (ie mining equipment in an overhaul workshop, etc)
4. We reserve the right to not publish a story

I’m looking forward to hearing from you – get those keyboards going. Tell us your story by using the “Post a Comment” link below.

Calvin Close
Managing Director
miningreference.com – Australia’s Premier Mining Directory

ps We did manage to retrieve the faulty motor later.