News on Screen

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 16th Year

Issue

Issue No.

5

Date Released

Jan 1963

Length of issue (in feet)

784

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. NEW HOMES FOR OLD
• 2. THE HAPPY WANDERER
• 3. SUPPORTING PROGRAMME
• 4. PITMAN-PAINTER

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: The Institution of Mining Engineers meet in Manchester. From nearby Bradford Colliery a demonstration of the NCB’s remotely controlled self-advancing roof support system is piped by close circuit television into the lecture hall.
NCB Commentary - The 121st General Meeting of The Institution of Mining Engineers was held at the Manchester College of Science and Technology.
Mr. Collins, the Coal Board member for Production and Reconstruction opened the meeting.
Five miles away, in the yard of Manchester’s Bradford Colliery, a television camera was to carry an unusual programme by closed-circuit to the mining engineers in the Lecture Hall - a demonstration of two remotely-controlled self-advancing roof support systems.
Two senior engineers of the Coal Board have a paper on the "Application of Electronics to Mining."
Over the television link the engineers prepare to screen their caption chart - appropriately with pick and shovel rampart against a black background.
Although the two systems on view are made by mining equipment firms, the remote-control had been developed by the Coal Board’s own Mining Research Establishment.
The equipment has been tested underground in working conditions, and is a real breakthrough for mining engineers who have been working on the idea for at least ten years.
The remote-control system applied to self-advancing roof supports will take away some of the danger which is present in the winning of coal. It will also increase productivity and reduce cost.
In a future issue of Mining Review we shall show these two systems operating underground.

Keywords

Organisations; Mining; Inventions and discoveries; Scenery and travel

Locations

Manchester; England

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The British National Film Catalogue   Vol.1 1963, p.55
Film User   Vol.17 No.199 May 1963, p249.
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Camera

John Reid

Commentator

John Slater

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit

Cutter

Rhonda Small