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	Louis Frost Sydney	Dominion No. 20		Dominion No. 18	Dominion No. 21

The Louis Frost Notes 1685 to 1962 Dominion No. 20 Colliery Harbour Seam This mine was developed by driving cross-measure tunnels from No. 5 Landing in No. 2 Colliery to work the Harbour Seam in the area overlying Dominion No. 2 and No. 4 Collieries, production being started in 1939. The level tunnels serve as the haulage and intake roadways into the mine. These are respectively 4800 and 3900 feet long, and a vertical shaft 12 ft. x 20 ft. x 431 ft. deep serves as a return. The coal is 5 ft. 3 ins. thick with a shale roof and floor. The coal is of good metallurgical quality. The method of working consists of longwall advancing and retreating below the thousand foot cover line, and room & pillar between the one thousand ft. cover line and -300 ft. cover below the sea bottom. The colliery is completely mechanized. DOSCO Continuous Miners lead into python conveyors on all longwall faces which are worked with steel friction type props on a complete caving system. The pillar and room section are worked with JOY loaders loading into chain conveyers. The coal is conveyed to centralized loading points by trough belt conveyors. The motive power underground is electricity and compressed air. The latter is used to operate Ingersoll-Rand jackhammers for rock brushing and roof bolting drills. 102 miles of roadway has been roof bolted. Semi-circular arches are used to support the longwall levels and to date over 20 miles of such roadways are in use. The main transportation system consists of an Endless Rope Haulage 8200 feet long, serving a trolley locomotive haulage on the North and South sides of the mine. This haulage is 24,800 feet long. The auxiliary haulage deeps are equipped with drop hoists serving longwall levels which are equipped with 15-ton-l00 horsepower diesel locomotives and electrically driven rope haulages. The mine cars are of steel and 2-ton capacity. The make of water in No. 2 and 20 Collieries amounts to 135 gallons per minute. This is discharged directly to the surface through a borehole located at No. 3 landing in the Phalen Seam. The water is acidulous. The mine is gassy and is ventilated by a Canadian Blower and Forge fan with a rated capacity of 260,000 cubic feet per minute against a water gauge of 11 inches. This fan is located at No. 5 North in No. 2 Colliery and acts as a booster fan to the No. 2 Colliery ventilation system. The intake and return airways for this colliery are roadways in the Phalen Seam leading to No. 2 Colliery intake and return shafts. The surface plant for this colliery is the surface plant for No. 2 and is of steel and concrete construction with a floor space of 5,600 square feet. The average daily output of No. 20 Colliery at the present time is 3,021 tons, although the colliery is equipped to produce 4,000 tons per day from longwall and Joy loaded unit sections. To date the colliery has produced 11,057,257 long tons of coal from an area of 3,915.8 acres in the Harbour Seam. The estimated economically mineable reserves in this colliery amount to 56,480,000 tons. Of this, 23,500,000 are available in the Hub Seam. The total reserves are estimated to provide a life of 62 years for the colliery. On July 9, 1952 an explosion occurred in a room and pillar section on No. 3 South Headway, resulting in the death of seven workmen. An inquiry established that the ignition was caused by a faulty Kohler lamp carried by an overman in charge of the section.

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Last Modified: 98-01-05

Authored by: Louis Frost

IMPORTANT
The information contained on this site is not provided for the purpose of factual
representation. Instead, it is provided in an historical context. Every effort has
been made to ensure that this information represents the actual content of the
original document authored by Louis Frost for the Dominion Coal Company
on or around 1962. Nevertheless, no warranties are provided in any respect.

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