My Favorite Scrap Yard Explored

[13AL]

We used to kick around this place when we were kids, now it's heavily guarded, we used to walk down into it then and no one cared.
The worlds largest underground marble quarry, about 30 open acres, 2800 feet inside the side of a mountain, and still in use.
Here are a few early pics, you can see couple of larger self contained steam drills on short temporary tracks, one center one lower left, notice the soot on the under cut marble wall.

A close up

Blocks being lowered to a rail siding, notice the three rails, it splits to four at the top of the pic but for a short distance only, the only place the cars could pass, the cars would automatically switch the sidings.

A fairly currant shot of the entrance.

I am sure the old iron is long gone, but worth asking one of the locals that work there.
I am really enjoying this thread, I love the history of anything mechanical.
Kurt

 

[Bogstandard]

This is a mine very close to where I live. It is like an underground city.

The salt from there nowadays is used mainly on the roads for de-icing.

http://www.saltunion.com/winsfordrocksaltmine/image-library/

The disused areas have now been converted into an archive storage repository, because of the perfect temperature and humidity down there.

At one time, rather than being mined it was pumped out as brine and processed into table salt. This stopped many years ago after a lot of the area around where I live started to sink into the ground. Sifta Sam and Cerebos are a few of the old brand names of salts that came from this area.

My great great grandfather owned the 'Stubbs' salt plant in Winsford. Drying the brine and processing into blocks of all shapes and sizes.

John

 

[rake60]

Kurt those are fantastic pictures of a steam powered underground operation!
Even with the ceilings being that high, you'd have to wonder what the air
quality was with steam engines in operation.

John I am very familiar with the Joy Longwall Continuous Miners shown in
the pictures of that salt mine.

They use a very similar miner here for coal now.
Those cutter drums take a real beating. The bearing and seal fits wear out in time.
We repair them where I work. After the worn fits were welded up, we'd set the individual
drums up vertically on a vertical boring mill and machine them back to factory specs.
Watching those carbide tipped cutter teeth spinning less than 12 inches away from you
could be a little intimidating until you got comfortable with the job.

Rick

 

[PTsideshow]

Rick
Here are a couple of books with covers scanned from my collection you may enjoy, parents and the family came out the Pringle Hill, Lurzerne Pa area.

Growing up in Coal Country
By: Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Houghton Mifflin Co.
copyright©1996
Hardcover
ISBN#0-395-77847-6
It covers kids in the mines and stories you might have heard. From the breakers boys, to mules and rats,to the culm banks,company houses and what little good times there were. And to the legacy of coal country.
Its does make you thank full that we didn't have to do it. It is filled with B&W photos of a lot of the history, that they don't like to teach let alone talk about today!

Antique Mining Equipment and collectibles
by: David W Pearson & Ron Bommarito
A Schiffer Book for Collectors
ISBN#0-7643-1495-5
trade paperback

This is truly a soup to nuts type book as it cover everything connected with mining that is collected. from paper items books to the heavy iron of the mining world. Filled with over 450 color pictures. It talks about what is, and what it worth. It will become a historic reference for the future.

American Miners Carbide Lamps
by:Gregg S. Clemmer
Copyright©1987
Westernlore Press
ISBN#0-87026-064-2
Hardcover

This one is the source book on American miners lamps. Starting with the discovery of Calcium Carbide and Acetylene thru all the early lamps, improvements etc. Covers mining, caves along with who made what and who bought who out. So you can follow the money in the tracking of a lamp. Has a great deal of info in the Appendixes including a patten number index along collecting and caring for them.

This one has been touted as very rare on some sights.It isn't as rare as some would like you to believe. It can be had for a reasonable price if you look around.

http://worldcat.org/ It could be at a library near you. This is a great library card catalog site to find books close to home.

The above is not an offer to sell,as I only have my copies! ;D

 

[rake60]

Great Stuff PT!

That really hits home.
My GGGG Grandfather was an immigrant farmer who homesteaded an area
very near the current day Lurzerne Mines. The property is now owned by the
R & P Coal Company. He died Oct. 20, 1850 and is buried in a family cemetery
with his wife on their property.
Just last summer my wife and I went there to attempt to locate that cemetery.
We had no such luck. We discussed contacting R & P but I already know that
they have never seen any signs of a cemetery on their property.
It is quite illegal to disturb a cemetery, but I'm very sure that a couple of
150 year old hand cut grave markers would not cause a mining company to
redraw their plans...

Rick

 

[doubleboost]

Hi
Had a day looking around a old mine site today you way find these photos interesting
The buried lathe in need of some WD40 and a bit of TLC

I will be back to dig it out and see just what it has been
Regards
John

 

[Speedy]

I may be developing an obsession with this local mine history thing, but the
draw of the steam power that made it work has me hooked.

Here's a picture very few will ever see in person.

The old timbers that are holding up the world from caving in on that tunnel are
at least 75 years old. Comman sense kicks in to keep you alive when you are
that close, but there's a little voice whispering, a few more steps wouldn't hurt. :-\

The red stains on the walls just above the rail tracks show how deep the sulphur laden
mine drainage had flooded that tunnel at some point.
The same stains on the rock at the roof show where drainage has seeped through the
rock from above. It's an unstable area to say the least.

I for one wish it weren't!
The remains of a steam driven pump are said to lay about 500 feet below that tunnel.
That level has most likely been flooded for decades and there may be nothing left of
the pump.

I'd just like to know WHO prints these!

Rick

Rick. there are other ways to explore this mine.
it may start you in a new hobby :big:
anyways there are lots of rc cars out there now, and you just need a wireless camera (there are high powered ones also, for considerably good prices)
get a tracked rc put the cam on and your off exploring safely outside of the mine, just hook up some lights (l.e.ds ) only problem if its a shaft going down. then I will let you figure out how to do that one :big: tie a rope haha.

here is one I pilot around the house. cheap and fun

I will be making a head tracking airplane soon to fly in the clouds, then I will come back and make a traked head tracking explorer.

nice read, and great pics. history is awsome!