Thought some here may want to read a CSX Engineers view
of the WVA mine disaster
This was sent via email to some fellow C&O CSX modelers
Jesse is a CSX engineer
Friends,
Monday’s dreadful mine explosion near Whitesville, WV (5 miles beyond Elk Run) was shocking. My conductor and I got word of the disaster aboard engine 118 on the day it happened, while we were en-route from Catlettsburg to Elk Run. We were called at 4:15 p.m. to take 95 empties to Elk Run, but by 11 p.m. at St. Albans our train had been diverted instead to the Fork Creek Mine (also up the Big Coal SD).
When I worked the shifter-jobs out of Elk Run to all the local mines back in 1987-'90, the Upper Big Branch Mine (site of Monday’s disaster) had not yet been built. I did, however, pull and supply the Montcoal Mine a mile to the west, and also worked the Sundial Mine to the east.
When they built the Upper Big Branch Mine, there was no space in that tight valley of the Big Coal between Montcoal and Sundial for another loader (in which to load Big Branch’s coal into trains), so the UBB belts its coal high across the valley in a giant tube. Where that tube (a giant pipe containing the belt line) reaches the other side of the valley, it continues straight through the mountain in a belt-line tunnel, and then that belt-coal feeds the loader at Montcoal Mine, a mile to the west. Since that time 20 years ago when I worked out of Elk Run, Montcoal has been completely rebuilt, with a different track arrangement, a giant new loader and all new equipment.
Back in 1990, our trains were loaded there at the old facility with a pair of end-loaders, filling the hopper cars from each side, one car at a time.
Statistics have shown for years that coal mining is always in the top most 10 dangerous jobs in the U.S. My prayers go out to the families that have lost loved ones in this horrible disaster…chuck
In the 50’s my great-grandfather was killed in a mine collapse in Kentucky. My prayers go out to these men and their families. I never got to know my Great Grandfather, though, If I could, and because of the amazing man my grandfather is, id definately want to meet him. God Bless all those involved in this tragedy.
It takes a disaster to bring out the difference between the nice, sanitized view most modelers have of coal mining and the harsh, filthy, deadly dangerous reality of the prototype industry.
I ‘minefanned’ the surface workings of several underground coal mines (ranging from major operations to ‘three couples and a dog’) in the late 1950s. I was NEVER tempted to try to get underground in any of them. I figured that working on a flight line was dangerous enough for my blood.
My thoughts and condolences for the families of those that died, and, especially, for those that are missing…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with two collieries)
Not a coal miner but a miner nonetheless. I also have to have the same safety training as the underground guys do. I am all for MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Agency) rules and regulations in trying to keep all of us safe. The last five or six years of MSHA inspections at the five facilities the company owns has been a joke and the fines for serious violations is laughable. The news media is a joke also and have no business reporting on something they know nothing about. I would like to know if the mine was unsafe why didn’t the last MSHA inspector close it down until it could be brought into compliance? It is more than likely the same kind of serious infractions we get at every inspection. Her is just a few. $10,000 fine for not having a lifeboat for the silt pond that is ankle deep or less. $200 fine for a loader operator not securing his lunch box inside the cab of the wheel loader. $200 fine for not having a covered trash can in the lunch room. $50,000 fine for not reporting a fatality within 1 hour. (The Police chased a trespasser that crashed his motorcycle at the locked gate at 10 pm. six hours after the pit was locked up and the last person had gone home). We used to get inspected once or twice a year. These are just a few of the SERIOUS violations we get from MSHA. They do have the power to shut down a mine operation if there are real serious violations. Lately it seems that it is not about safety but generating revenue. Usually we get inspected once or twice a year. This is April and we have had 3 inspections since January.
My heart goes out to the survivors and all their families.
When I lived in West Virginia I talked my way into a tour of a coal mine in Logan County. It was a large deep long-wall mine and it was incredibly interesting to see. I took the mine safety course and they had me a fixed up with the helmet light and O2. It was obviously, inherently dangerous. When my wife found out that I had done it she was pretty upset with me. The NS coal trains were loaded using a continuous loader. I feel really sad for those families. - Nevin