Apart from trying to settle the way in which Koepe's name should be
spelt, I was spurred to try and find out more about his system because
I've always associated it with the large winding towers where the winder
was sat on top -- still to be seen at Kellingley, Maltby and Harworth
collieries. Yesterday, however, I was reading the Listed Building
notice for Clipstone Colliery which referred to it having Koepe
winders. A quick look on Google maps shows it to have a similar
arrangement to No.1 Shaft at Frickley Colliery (in the 1970s), which I
was familiar with. Rossington, also near Doncaster, had them until
their recent demolition. They used a continuous rope running from the
top of one cage (or skip), over a shaft head pulley, round a
cylindrical, wood-lagged drum (with one or two laps), then back over a
second shaft head pulley and down the shaft to the top of the other
cage. Another continuous rope linked the cage bottoms and ran round a
pulley in the sump. The winding engine was at ground level and set
close in to a very tall headgear, giving the rope a very steep
angle.This, apparently, was the layout given in Koepe's first patent,
but I cannot remember ever hearing it called a Koepe winder.As a
dialler, more than the basic technological detail was not my field, but
I was impressed by the shear power and acceleration of the skip winder
on No.1 Shaft.By the time the 15 ton skip got from the sump to the man
winding inset (50 feet or so) it was no more than a passing blur.The
system could also be left to run itself automatically, with the whole
loading, winding and emptying process being done (I assume) by an early
form of computer (nothing now, but it was clever stuff in 1971).
Interestingly, the first Koepe tower system in the UK was fitted over a
792 foot deep shaft at Plenmeller Colliery (now Northumbria Stone
Products), near Haltwhistle in Northumberland, in 1914.This worked the
Little Limestone Coal and so was not even on a Westphalian coalfield.
Mike
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