THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN AND JOURNAL OF THE COAL AND IRON TRADES. Vol. CXV. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1918. No. 2994. NEW AMERICAN BREAKERS. The Mineral Spring breaker of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, at Wilkes-Barre, Penn, (described by D. C. Ashmead, in Coal Age), is surrounded by a park comparing favourably with many city parks. The old slate dumps have been terraced and covered with a layer of good soil to a depth of one foot, in which grass seed has been sown, and a well-kept lawn faces the main gate. For the main walks concrete has been used, while the minor pathways are of cinders, the borders along the walks being correctly trimmed. On each side of the walk, and extending from the main gate to the top of the hill, is a line of shade trees. The grounds about the main shafts and buildings are covered with cinders and the entire place is kept scrupulously clean, no broken cars or parts of machinery being in sight. pit. Before reaching this pit, however, the barney engages with the trip at 1), which is then in the position E, and troughs it to the position F. This opens the bridge at B to allow the next loaded car to pass up the plane. From the mine car the coal passes to the No. 1 shaker, which has two decks. The coal that leaves the line car is thoroughly wet. The lump coal passes over the top deck of the No. 1 shaker, which has a 6 in. perforated screen, and also over the lump picking tables, and the larger pieces of rock are thrown out. Then the lump goes to the No. 1 rolls, where it is crushed. The coal which passes over the second deck of the No. 1 shaker goes to picking tables on the top floor, and from this it is mixed with the coal from the No. 1 rolls. All this coal goes to the No. 2 ----Coal for further I Preparation | ----Rock -— Prepared Coal to Pockets n , Rock DUMP J POCKET/ ! >-.ITand Feed Gate SHAKER! SB& T B I PICKING 1 TABLE I ES = Od ulate L- Lump SB.-Steamboat Broken S - Stove N= Nut P - Pea BW=Buckwheat R = Rice B = Barley Crusher Rolls OTO ' (BreaksL to S BandF-<.J CENTRAL POCKET All Sizes).— L_ Conveyor An Rotary feeders from -V-Pocket to Shakers Pure Coal _____t_______I---E’over' 1SHAKING N°3 Rolfs ---------------- SCREEN (BrakesBtolcorS BmalleffiA?A°AL^.faq to ■' rd.c\ v mn Pocket ^Condemned Coal Conveyor JI6 5LU5H SHAKER \jFg~refuse slate- I BW~~|--------,----- | i?1CE [---I ---------1 Rice to Boiler Ho'.; I RADITV — ■ .— Barley to Boiler ; Loading Conveyor --------------j foe R.R.Cars--> t9. . | CAR LOADER^ [5 § s Fig. 2.—Cross Section of Mineral Spring Breaker. N?l Shaker Shaker a C , ir Fig. 1.—Flow Sheet of Mineral Spring Plant. The men at the plant are responsible for the appear- ance of the grounds, the company furnishing the necessary materials and tools, and the employees being paid for the time they give to the work. The breaker is of steel construction and is roofed shaker, which has one deck, and all coal larger than egg passes over the shaker and goes to No. 3 rolls, where it is broken to egg and smaller. Coal passing through the second deck of the No. 1 shaker goes to chutes which carry it to the No. 3 the refuse separated, the pure coal going to the main storage pockets. These jigs are of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company’s plunger type. The coal that passes through the lower deck of the No. 4 shaker goes to the No. 5 shaker. This shaker has three decks, separating buckwheat, rice and barley coal, each of which goes direct to its respective storage pocket. The rice and the barley coal can also be sent to the boiler house by means of a drag conveyor, between the breaker and the boiler house. The slush from the jigs and what passes through the No. 5 shaker is run over a No. 6 shaker. The silt goes to the mines, and what passes over the No. 6 shaker goes to the elevator for screening, being con- veyed back to the central coal pocket for re-treatment. All the rock collected from the picking tables on the top floor of the breaker goes by means of chutes to a crusher, and from here, together with the slate from the jig refuse conveyor, it passes to two pul- verisers, where it is pulverised, and then sent down into the mine for filling. The arrangement of the loading pockets is different from that in most breakers, as the pockets are arranged at right angles to the railroad track, rather than parallel to it. The coal from these pockets is discharged on to a belt conveyor which is 36 in. wide and 145 ft. centres. The discharge end of this belt conveyor is arranged so that it can be raised or lowered to discharge at the proper height into the railroad cars. One lever opens gates for the same kind of coal on each side of the conveyor, there being seven levers in all. The Lehigh Valley Coal Company has installed an Ottumwa box car loader, which enables the loading of box cars when other types of equip- ment cannot be obtained. If any of the coal already loaded into railroad cars is condemned as not being up to standard, it is dumped into a pocket and carried to the foot of an elevator by means of a conveyor, the elevator taking the coal up to the central coal pocket for re-treatment. The breaker engine house is a separate building in the rear of the breaker and under the barney plane. This is shown in fig. 4. The engine house contains a Vulcan 16 x 30 in. duplex hoisting engine, which operates the barney plane. A Vulcan 11 x 16 x 24 in. tandem compound engine drives the jig machinery. A Vulcan 17 x 26 x 30 in. breaker cross-compound engine drives the breaker machinery. The jig engine has a double rope belt, while the engine that drives the breaker machinery has a 24 in. belt. Only 27 men are employed around the breaker, making an average of 60 tons of coal a day per man employed, or 80 tons of coal a day per man employed inside the breaker. The men employed, and their positions, are as follow:—One on the barney plane; one man in the engine house; one man tends to the dumping of mine cars at the top; two men are on the picking table floor ; one man tends to the elevators ; one man looks after the shakers; one man is the breaker oiler; eight men tend to the jigs under a jig boss; two men pick all the slate from the egg coal after it leaves the jigs; one man tends to the breaker machinery, and there is one slusher; one man operates all the loading machinery, including box-car loader; five men are on the outside to handle the railroad cars. Another breaker, also belonging to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, viz., the Drifton No. 2 breaker, at and sided with galvanised corrugated sheet iron and steel sash with ribbed glass. The glass area amounts to about 75 per cent, of the total sides of the structure, affording plenty of light. The building is heated by exhaust steam to a temperature of 60 degs. with an exterior temperature of 0 deg. Fahr., and is a comfortable place in which to work. It is also vital to the successful operation of the breaker, which has all wet preparation. If there were no heat the water would freeze during cold weather. The coal treated in the breaker is brought from a shaft and a slope, the joint production of which is approximately 1,400 tons a day. The shaft is about 400 ft. and the slope 600 ft. distant from the breaker. The mine cars from the hoisting shaft and the slope are run by gravity to the foot of the barney plane. No brakes or sprags are needed as there are two car retarders on each track which are controlled by a man at the foot of the plane. When a loaded car is released from the last car retarder, it runs to the foot of the barney plane and over the barney pit. The engineer in charge of the barney engine starts the barney (fig. 5), and the upper part, which acts on a hinge, lifts, due to arrangement of the track in the pit. The upper part of the barney catches the end of the mine car and pushes it up the plane. As soon as the barney comes out of the pit, the track on which the lower wheels rest rises until the hinge is closed. On reaching the point shown at A in fig. 3, the car engages a trip and the bridge B lowers. The mine car goes to the top of the plane, where it is automatically dumped, as shown in fig. 4. Returning to the bridge B, fig. 3, the car runs over the bridge on to the empty track C, the barney passing between the tracks of the bridge and returning to the barney I i r i i |<--------](y--------- Fig. 3.—Diagram Showing Operation of Bridge on Barney Plane. shaker, where, if desired, the egg can be run through the No. 3 rolls; or else all the coal passes to the central pocket as does also the coal from the No. 3 rolls. From the central pocket the coal is fed by rotary feeders to the No. 4 shaker, which is a four-deck affair. The egg coal is taken off the top deck and sent to the jig storage pockets by means of chutes. The coal from the second deck is stove, from the third deck, nut, from the fourth pea, all of which goes to their proper jig-storage pockets by means of chutes. From the jig pockets the coal is fed to the jigs and Drifton, Pa., is described by E. P. Humphrey in the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. The plant, which replaces an older iron structure, is a modern fireproof structure built of structural steel with corrugated metal roof and siding, steel window frames, and concrete floors. There are 332 tons of structural steel, or 1-35 lb. per cu. ft. of breaker volume, distributed as follows:—Columns, 67 tons; pockets and beams, 192 tons; stairs and treads, 8*5 tons; bracing, 16*5 tons; roof, 20 tons; girts, 22 tons; miscellaneous, rivets, etc., 6 tons.