Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	24th January 1905
Colliery:	Washington
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1

Deceased was fatally injured and two other men seriously injured by part of an engine set of full tubs running amain down a self-acting incline and colliding with empty tubs standing near the shaft bottom which crushed them as they were getting out of the cage. A main rope hauls sets of from 40 to 50 tubs from landings in the Low Main seam to a kip at the top of a stone drift 140 yards long dipping at the rate of 4 inches per yard to the Hutton seam where the tubs are caged. When the set arrives at the kip the incline breaker shouts to a rapper lad when it has come far enough and the rapper lad signals to stop to the engineman at the hauling engine situated near the shaft in the Low Main seam; the breaker then knocks off the rope and both he and the lad insert sprags into the wheels of several tubs in the set, which is then run down the incline in sets of 12 tubs. The regular breaker was absent and a waggonwayman had taken his place and had dealt with 15 sets before the accident, but he appears to have allowed a set of 46 tubs to come too far and part of it got on to the incline; he knocked off the rope and when he saw the set had gone too far uncoupled the last 18 tubs and 28 ran amain. These should have been stopped (a) by runaway switches which the breaker stated were in position to throw the tabs off the way but failed to act, (b) by chocks a little further down which a driver had failed to place in position, and (c) by a pair of horns at meetings fixed on an axle next the roof to drop on pulling a lever. The breaker pulled the lever before the tubs were past the horns, but they failed to stop as the wire was slack. The hauling engine was not provided with an indicator to show the position of the set but there was a mark on the rope

Source:

1905 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 2910)

	Black, Thomas, aged 42, Stoneman
	All names found

 

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