The steel plow !

In this picture you can see the second production method - the steel plow, sometimes also written "plough". The steel plow passes along the coal face and cuts off a slice of 5 to 10 centimetres.

The photo shows the steel plow passing along the face. Because of the modern technique it is possible to use the plow even if the coal is hard and the seam has a height of two metres. The steel plow is moved by heavy chains, it is electronically supervised and after each time it passes along the face it is moved towards the coal seam again with high pressure together with the face chain.

The chains moving the plow are under the cover behind the rail the steel plow is moving on. Again the face chain can be seen very well in this picture - in this channel the coal is brought out of the longwall mining area and to the gateroad.

Continue...