Having just posted another couple of diagrams wrt the pumping plant, I thoguht I'd better just stick a topic here so if anyone wants to ask questions etc. they can!

Don't expect a quick reply though before Sunday or Monday, weather permitting I've got decking balustrades to do and a concert to attend...

Enjoy (I hope) !

Grahami

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As every, thank you Graham. There is a fantastic archive of documents on here now with your name on them for Cwmorthin, Oakeley and Croesor.

For every person who expresses their appreciation on the forum I am sure there are many, many others who are just as grateful to you for producing and sharing them.

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If I may just repeat what I said on the other thread.

Thank you very much for uploading these plans, they really are a work of art, as well as being full of useful info. It is fortunate that you have been able to access the original info, as well as being involved with the IA courses at Plas Tanybwlch. The results are great. Thanks.

Brilliant work.
I wish I had gone down the K incline area thirty years ago and had a look around.

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What a first class example of professionalism and what IA is all about, thank you very much Graham.
I hope it teaches some contributors there is far more to IA than merely uploading what is found on a computer screen

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Excellent! Thank you Graham - that will keep me quiet for hours, something Mrs.Vanord-to-be will be most grateful for... 😮

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Brilliant work.
I wish I had gone down the K incline area thirty years ago and had a look around.

Have to be a bit more than 30 (1979) I think - K trwnc was already flooded up to G by 1975, and all the track etc, had gone... 🙂 Pumps stopped in 1968-69.

Glad you all like the drawings, the originals mostly done in pubs and clubs including the Queen's Hotel and the Commercial in Blaenau, and the Australia at Porthmadog as well as at home in Lancashire. I enjoy putting the colour on and "waking" the memeories up.

More to come.

Cheers

Grahami

ps Don't worry JonK, I'm getting nicely warmed up for a final(?) sprint at Oakeley part1!

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ps Don't worry JonK, I'm getting nicely warmed up for a final(?) sprint at Oakeley part1!

Good news indeed - it's much awaited!

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Glad you all like the drawings, the originals mostly done in pubs and clubs including the Queen's Hotel and the Commercial in Blaenau, and the Australia at Porthmadog as well as at home in Lancashire. I enjoy putting the colour on and "waking" the memeories up.

A complete aside, but I noticed at the weekend the Commercial looked boarded up.

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Excellent work Sir, perhaps these recent uploads might encourage me to continue building the 3d version to add to the Cwmorthin model I built last year !

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Excellent work Sir, perhaps these recent uploads might encourage me to continue building the 3d version to add to the Cwmorthin model I built last year !

:flowers: :flowers:

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Excellent work Sir, perhaps these recent uploads might encourage me to continue building the 3d version to add to the Cwmorthin model I built last year !

Yes - that reminds me you need some plans.....

Grahami

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A few more to keep you amused - driving a three-throw beam pump with a water turbine or a steam engine connected via belts, gears and two manual sliding piunions with 6ft. operating levers.... plus the Middle Quarry 6-track Incline.

Cheers

Grahami

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Excellent, thank you!

The Floor 5 map is very enlightening - is that triangular track layout leading onto Chamber 19 intended for turning (waste?) trucks, or is it just a quirk?

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Excellent, thank you!

The Floor 5 map is very enlightening - is that triangular track layout leading onto Chamber 19 intended for turning (waste?) trucks, or is it just a quirk?

Good question ! Possibly..... we know they had "lost" the New Vein and broken into the back of the Old Vein -if they had linked up to the Old Vein tracks then such a thing might have been necessary, or it may have been something to do with getting wagons into and out of the earlier chambers which were effectively back-shunted. On this the records are silent. With flat access which way round the wagons were was not important, however if they had to be lowered down or hauled up an incline, then the way round the rubbish wagons were was important... The access to floor 5 New Vein was via a short incline down to floor 4 or 3 in the open...

Cheers

Grahami

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Thanks you Graham, won't get time to have a proper look until tonight, but they look as good as always.

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Ah yes, the level shifts into the Old Vein towards the end: it seems careless to lose a vein, for sure! 😉

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It's rarely possible to be able to plot the vein boundaries with any certainty as I could do in this case from the original plans for floor 5 - but you can see the way the vein swngs about and it's "thickness" varies on this particular floor. The vein thins and loses quality as it goes westwards - as far as the quarry was concerned there was "no New Vein under Cwmorthin" - they did look! The chambers on floor 5 are interesting in that they were quite a late development of much older chambers which had been worked up high above Floor 3, but without any higher access. For instance, although there are chambers 17 and 18 in the New Vein, and they reach up to at least Floor 5, they were not cut into by Floor 5 itself, being worked entirely from Floor 3 and below.

In the same way, note that there is no "Old Vein" on floors Q and R -the rock was considered poor, the best being in the "New Vein" and of considerable thickness, at least on P and Q. R only had a short life and was abandoned to be an emergency sump - the rock was felt to be very hard.

Cheers

Grahami

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Just posted a couple of Caban photos of the bridge on Floor O in Chamber 2. You can see it in light blue, near the bottom, on the Plan of the "Central New Vein" I posted earlier.

Makes an interesting contrast with the many photos of the BODOD, more correctly the Floor 3 Bridge over chamber 17 New Vein.

🔗Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38117[linkphoto]Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38117[/linkphoto][/link]

🔗Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38118[linkphoto]Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38118[/linkphoto][/link]

🔗Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38119[linkphoto]Oakeley-Slate-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-38119[/linkphoto][/link]


Grahami

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