Equality Boot Mine.
Equality Boot mine is a surface mine located a few miles southwest of the city of Centertown in Ohio County, Kentucky near the small community of Equality. The Green River gets a little wild in this area, as it is flowing NW toward the Ohio River and then makes a turn, flowing almost 180 degrees back SW and then makes a big loop before it starts flowing back NW again. This parcel of land created by the Green River loop, and almost completely surrounded by the Green River, is a "Coal Rich" area with several seams of coal. The Armstrong Company placed two Page 752 draglines in the area and called it "Equality Boot Mine". As one fellow employee noted-They call these two draglines by their serial numbers, #337 and #347 which is very impersonal. These two Page 752 draglines are unique in the sense that they were purchased and remodeled in the mine area they were going to strip. The upgrades on each machine consisted of converting the old "Motion Controls" with a retrofit to make each machine with a "Joy Stick" type controller instead of the old levers and pedals that were operated with the hands and feet. The two draglines ended up with Avtron drives, supposedly the latest in the industry. The internals of each machine have also been upgraded with enclosed climate controlled rooms for the electrical components. The stripper operators at Armstrong use two types of machines for the removal of the overburden, namely draglines and the excavators, with both types of machines removing the "Overburden". There are some "Dozer" type overburden removal, but the strippers and excavators do most of the removal. Some operators are experienced on both types of machines, while others prefer to only operate one type. All and all, they are about evenly split on their preference between a hydraulic control system with levers and pedals as in the excavators, or an electrical control system with a joystick, such as the two Page 752 draglines.
The raw output from the Equality Boot Mine is from four seams of coal. The seams are Western Kentucky #14, #13, #12 and #11 coal seams. The mined coal leaves the pit on a conveyor belt and is sent to the loadout facility on the Green River. From there the coal is loaded on to barges and shipped to the Armstrong dock preparation plant for processing. Armstrong has been producing coal at Equality Boot since the fall of 2010. The mining technique is with the two draglines to remove the overburden and loaders and trucks to load the coal on the conveyor belt. The mine utilizes a 4,400 foot conveyor system to bring coal from the pit to the 2,500 ton-per-hour barge loadout facility on the Green River. Coal is then loaded onto barges and shipped to the Armstrong dock preparation plant for processing. Equality Boot sold 2.1 million tons of coal in 2011.
CENTERTOWN, Ky. - October 28, 2011. In the early morning hours of 10/28/11, two Midland Powder Co. workers were in the pit area of the Equality Boot Surface Mine where they became trapped in their truck by a "Rock Fall". The truck was completely covered from the dirt and rocks of the "High Wall" collapse. It was some six hours later before the two men were reached and they were probably killed instantly. They were contract employees or "Blasters" from MEMSCO, based in Dawson Springs, which is a subsidiary of the Midland Power Company out of Evansville, IN. They were driving near the high wall when their truck was inundated by rock and dirt of the fall in the time frame of 6:45 a.m. CDT.
See you......
jrd
Equality Boot mine is a surface mine located a few miles southwest of the city of Centertown in Ohio County, Kentucky near the small community of Equality. The Green River gets a little wild in this area, as it is flowing NW toward the Ohio River and then makes a turn, flowing almost 180 degrees back SW and then makes a big loop before it starts flowing back NW again. This parcel of land created by the Green River loop, and almost completely surrounded by the Green River, is a "Coal Rich" area with several seams of coal. The Armstrong Company placed two Page 752 draglines in the area and called it "Equality Boot Mine". As one fellow employee noted-They call these two draglines by their serial numbers, #337 and #347 which is very impersonal. These two Page 752 draglines are unique in the sense that they were purchased and remodeled in the mine area they were going to strip. The upgrades on each machine consisted of converting the old "Motion Controls" with a retrofit to make each machine with a "Joy Stick" type controller instead of the old levers and pedals that were operated with the hands and feet. The two draglines ended up with Avtron drives, supposedly the latest in the industry. The internals of each machine have also been upgraded with enclosed climate controlled rooms for the electrical components. The stripper operators at Armstrong use two types of machines for the removal of the overburden, namely draglines and the excavators, with both types of machines removing the "Overburden". There are some "Dozer" type overburden removal, but the strippers and excavators do most of the removal. Some operators are experienced on both types of machines, while others prefer to only operate one type. All and all, they are about evenly split on their preference between a hydraulic control system with levers and pedals as in the excavators, or an electrical control system with a joystick, such as the two Page 752 draglines.
The raw output from the Equality Boot Mine is from four seams of coal. The seams are Western Kentucky #14, #13, #12 and #11 coal seams. The mined coal leaves the pit on a conveyor belt and is sent to the loadout facility on the Green River. From there the coal is loaded on to barges and shipped to the Armstrong dock preparation plant for processing. Armstrong has been producing coal at Equality Boot since the fall of 2010. The mining technique is with the two draglines to remove the overburden and loaders and trucks to load the coal on the conveyor belt. The mine utilizes a 4,400 foot conveyor system to bring coal from the pit to the 2,500 ton-per-hour barge loadout facility on the Green River. Coal is then loaded onto barges and shipped to the Armstrong dock preparation plant for processing. Equality Boot sold 2.1 million tons of coal in 2011.
CENTERTOWN, Ky. - October 28, 2011. In the early morning hours of 10/28/11, two Midland Powder Co. workers were in the pit area of the Equality Boot Surface Mine where they became trapped in their truck by a "Rock Fall". The truck was completely covered from the dirt and rocks of the "High Wall" collapse. It was some six hours later before the two men were reached and they were probably killed instantly. They were contract employees or "Blasters" from MEMSCO, based in Dawson Springs, which is a subsidiary of the Midland Power Company out of Evansville, IN. They were driving near the high wall when their truck was inundated by rock and dirt of the fall in the time frame of 6:45 a.m. CDT.
See you......
jrd