Internship Report

s5/31/11 Internship Report

Department: Maintenance

(I submitted a written paper copy to Mike Elwood and Dave McBride, they should have it on file)

6/6/11 Internship Report

Department: Maintenance

Last week was my second week on maintenance, and I have learned much more from working with Greg Meracle, KY, Dave Bishop, James Owens, and Dan. I was task trained this week by Dave Bishop on how to use the Oxy/Acetylene Torch to cut rusty bolts off when they cannot be taken off by tools. I changed many golf cart and man trip tires this week along with one ramcar tire with Dan, while we were also out of Nitrogen, so all the work we did to get the tire on and put the many lug nuts back on was done by hand. I changed out a brake caliper on a ramcar and I replaced a brake line on 2 PV's, which required a lot of learning how to troubleshoot. The hardest project of the week was the 2 day shop project of changing out the turbo charger and cleaning the Diesel Particulate filter out of a Coal Scoop. Nearly everything under the hood had to be taken out to get to everything, and not a single bolt was easy to get to. The Diesel Particulate filter was a mess to clean out, as we used Simple Green and compressed nitrogen air shots to clean each of the holes out. I started to finally be sent out on my own as well to retrieve parts from the bottom for the shop, so it is good to know my basic way around the mine. I was also driving the PV up and down the main North travelway many times this week to work on more "road kills" with Greg and Dan, so I learned the correct way to yield right of way, to tell whether to turn certain lights off or keep on, honk before going through a check curtain, and much more. The most important thing I learned this week was my way around the mine, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to get to many places around the mine now.

6/13/11 Internship Report

Department: Continuous Miner

Last week was my first week on the continuous miner unit, and I have been working a lot with Jon Hanks and his crew. Due to the longwall move and one of the fan stoppage days, I was only able to work one day last week with the actual training unit in the submains. On that day we did a power move and set up the continuous miner and roof bolter and all the power and water along with it in order for it to run coal the next day. The next day, however, I was sent with Hanks and about 10 other guys to go to the 8th west headgate in order to set up the longwall. So aside from the next Wednesday being another fan stoppage, we set pans, hung power cables, cleaned the face, set up waterlines, and pulled chain all day on Thursday and Friday. I had hoped to see the miner unit in operation these two weeks, but I have most definitely learned a lot from what I have had to do on the longwall setup. The most important thing I learned last week was to work as a team when some of the stuff like longwall pans and power cables get heavy, because things move a whole lot faster with a couple extra guys helping out.

6/20/11 Internship Report

Department: Continuous Miner

Last week was my second week on the continuous miner unit, I worked again with Jon Hanks and his crew. We spent this week working on the longwall move, like the week before. I was sent with Hanks and about 10 other guys to go to the 8th west headgate in order to set up the longwall, so we set pans, hung power cables, cleaned the face, set up waterlines, set props, built cribs, and pulled chain all day throughout the week. I had hoped to see the miner unit in operation these two weeks, but I have most definitely learned a lot from what I have had to do on the longwall setup. The most important thing I learned last week was to work smarter not harder, simple machinery and shield movers can save a lot of time.

6/27/11 Internship Report

Department: Belts

Last week was my first week with the Belts department. I assisted Damon Morris' crew for one day and was with Charlie Wallace's crew for the rest of the week. I learned how to splice belts with Morris' crew on the first day and tore down a structure surrounding a belt drive. The second day I was with Tony Gobtop on slurry duty and shoveled gob spots along the belt all day on the bottom at main north 1. On Wednesday, I went to the intern meeting for the first couple hours and built cribs outside of the Maintenance Shop and helped build an overpass in the NE Submains with Doering's crew. Thursday and Friday I was with Wallace's crew where I helped replace a shoot on the main north 4 belt, this required us to tear down the structure and skirts around it and the shoot itself in order to custom fit a new one on there by the end of our Friday shift so that the belt could run coal later that night.

7/4/11 Internship Report

Department: Belts

On my second week of working under the Belt department, I worked with Charlie Wallace's crew. On Monday I worked with the Main North #2 Belt Monitor all day shoveling slurry and cleaning messes around the belt along Main North #2. On Tuesday I did a belt move all day with the Swain brothers and their belt move crew, we didn't get out until 9:30 pm that day. The rest of the week I worked with Wallace and Walker's crews making belt splices, carving grooves in a belt drive roller, releasing take