On this day in Yorkshire 1940

Coal mines will not become the tombs of miners if pithead gears are put out of action in air raids.

An emergency winding gear in the shape of an 18-ton road engine, provided by the West Yorkshire Coal Owners’ Association through the Mines Rescue Station at Wakefield. will ready to to the rescue at about six miles an hour.

The emergency winder’ was put through its paces at a demonstration at disused pit-shaft Newton Bar, Wakefield, to-day.

Mr. W. Riley, superintendent of the rescue station, who has been responsible for the adaptation of the engine to Its present purpose and who was In charge of the demonstration to-day. said:

“It has been very satisfactory; we are very delighted.”

The road engine was once a farm machine. It was built at Leeds, and the last one like it was built In 1914.

It is 22 and a half feet long. 8ft wide and l1ft. high, and its weight, with over 850 yards of steel rope, is 18 tons.

Underneath the locomotive type of boiler has been fixed to the winding gear. A steam pressure of 1601b. per square inch can generated, and the normal speed of the engine is 250 revolutions a minute.

The winding rope Is 3/4 inch in diameter and is of the flattened-strand, non-twisting type.

More nostalgia http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/our-yorkshire/heritage

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