Show panel system used at the independent and the myers whaley shoveling ng machine machi nel T J ES E S V wal g 40 zi TA tf r X N rt coal a coke power house tipple and surface tram independent A most interesting letter relating to the I 1 operation of a myers whaley 1 leveling hoveling machine in a leading utah coal eftie line is given below together with results Obtain stained el from the use of the panel t elu in mining dining operations in the opening UD of the new mine of the independent t coal oal coke company at kenilworth utah the letter follows salt lake city utah june 21 1918 rb M perry geni benl supt bupt the moffat oal al company gas ell electric e atric builds denver deave er colorado dear sir your letter to our kenilworth office has just reached me in regard to the myers whaley shoveling machine will say that we have had our machine about a year we first put it in our old mine in which the rooms are all driven 8 to 12 per to the rise on a pitch of from cent in order to use the machine we started an entry on the panel system that is we used the entry for a haulage road and drove panel entries down the dip and turned rooms off on both sides of the panel not more than 2 per cent entry on n a grade of company kenilworth utah in favor of the loads that the rest of the mine was working on the room and pillar system with tahe rooms all driven to the rise we found it impractical to arrange the haulage to advantage however from what we have learned from our experiments experiments in the old mine we believe we have davd solved the problem in a new which is being mine that we are opening opened on the panel system at the top we have an outside incline of which we have a large electric hoist this hoist pulls the trips from inside about feet and lowers them on the incline the parting on the inside is located on an electric haulage road which is driven on the strike of the coal or on a grade of not to exceed 1 per cent in favor of the loads from this haulage road we drive panel entries to the dip and from this panel entry we turn our rooms both ways on a grade of not to exceed 2 per cent in favor of the loads we place a small hoist at the top of these panel entries to pull the loads and lower the empties A better way to do this would be to have the haulage road at the bottom of the panel entries so the loads could be lowered and the empties hoisted but our conditions are such that we cannot do this rooms nearly opposite our plan is to have the rooms as nearly opposite on the panel entries as possible and to move the machine from one to the other with the hoist pulling the machine up the entry and dropping it into the room on the other side this is necessary to turn the machine around for working in the opposite direction we plan to have three places for each machine the rooms will be about twenty two feet wide which will give us approximately eighty tons per cut 16 feet high and the three rooms would give us in the neighborhood of tons which we think is about the limit of the machine we also plan to have two tracks in the room so that while we are loading 0 one car behind the machine two cars may be spotted on the other track and while the one behind the machine is being taken a away vay and another one spotted the two on the side can le be loaded this of course takes two tracks in a working place but as you are getting a good deal more than twice the coal from it you can afford to do it and can get a great deal larger tonnage from a gooel good many less working places we plan to have our panel 1320 feet long and the rooms about feet long in order to keep the panel rope from interfering with the haulage on the haulage i entry we set the panel hoist back up atom f om the haulage entry and run the track I 1 under the haulage track and then back switch the trips onto the parting of the haulage I 1 entry this makes it necessary to drive the haulage entry in the top coal or brush the floor for the panel entry to lo get its track under the haulage entry track the machine is a success in my opinion the operating of the machine is a success as far as the machine itself I 1 is concerned the problem to be solved is one of haulage and getting coal for the machine to load tests that we have made indicate that the machine will average one ton in two minutes or better if you can get the coal away from it and the empties to it the machine handles itself in the mine as fast as a mining machine and there is very little time consumed in getting ready to load after reaching the face and very little in getting ready to move after cleaning up a place it does not clean up the place ready for cutting and we generally load a car or two 3 to 6 tons by hand after it has finished while we have quite a stock of repair parts parts that we thought were likely to wear out or break we have used very little of this material and our repairs have been a great deal less than the repairs to a mining in machine the machine is well constructed and I 1 believe will stand up well under hard usage A loading machine mine it is our intention to make our new mine a loading im machine mine however another reason for opening it on the panel system with the rooms driven on the strike was to get away from the steep grades in the rooms and consequent flat wheels due to wildcatting wild the cars down the rooms with we have had to take a good many things into consideration in planning this mine not the least of which is the fracture in the coal of course the coal shoots the best when shot on the face our fracture runs quartering to the strike so that it does not shoot so well when the rooms are driven on the strike but at this stage of the experiment we believe the advantage gained by using the machines and the 2 per ceaf cent grade in the rooms will ivill overbalance the disadvantage in shooting I 1 believe if your mine is such that you can drive your rooms on a grade not to exceed 2 per cent and can get the coal away from the machine fast enough it would be a success another thing that comes to me is that you cannot build your cars up as high with the machine as by hand and consequently they will not hold as much coal by perhaps 15 or 20 per cent and of course will take more cars for a given tonnage however this is partly eliminated by the fact that the car is in the place only a few minutes as against a much longer time when loaded by hand we have thought of building special cars with higher sides to overcome this we use two men on the machine one to trim the car and help the driver to shift cars and one driver with a horse yours truly GEO A MURPHY general superintendent independent coal coke co |