Good luck! A mine trip

by Rolf Gutsche quoted by Horst Bayer

(The text was written in 1929 by Rolf Gutsche, a former teacher at the Bad Salzdetfurth elementary school, who reports on a mine trip on December 19, 1929. Unfortunately, Rolf Gutsche died in World War II

Picture 1 Bad Salzdetfurth potash plant

Figure 2 Winding tower and building of shaft II

There is a potash plant near my home town of Bad-Salzdetfurth. Its overall position can be seen on the aerial photograph (Figure 1).

Even as a small child, I admired the huge iron headframes. I've always had the desire to take a trip to the mines to see how the salt was taken down below.

Finally my father fulfilled my wish and took me to the pit. On the way to shaft II, the main shaft (picture 2), I saw the large iron winding tower in which 2 pulleys rotate. After I changed my clothes for the mine trip and received a miner's lamp, I went with my father into the so-called shaft hall.

Here I saw how the trolleys filled with salt were pushed over from the conveyor cage by a push-on device. Empty and offset wagons were pushed in place of the full salt wagons. The full salt wagons were pushed under the chain conveyor that leads to the factory, while the empty and offset wagons come from there. You can see this in picture 2. There was so much noise and noise that it was difficult to communicate. The winding tower is an iron frame with 2 floors. 2 trolleys can be pushed onto each one, so that 4 full salt trolleys are always brought to light and 4 empty or residue trolleys are put into the pit.

The conveyor cages were moved by an electrically driven conveyor machine. This conveying takes place very quickly, so that the 750 m is covered in one minute. The speed reaches up to 18 m per second. The cross section of the shaft is a circle with a diameter of 5 m.

Now the journey into the depths began. I climbed onto the high support bowl with my father. Beforehand, the basket feeder was called through a loudspeaker to “passenger transport” so that he could maintain the prescribed speed of 8 m per second. Then the driver gave the conveyor engineer the bell signal to drive off. Now I noticed how we were gradually sinking. It got faster and faster. I kept my mouth open so as not to get ringing in my ears. My father showed me the wooden track slats.

These gave the basket the guidance to prevent it from swinging back and forth. From the basket I looked at the rides, which are ladders on which the miners can climb out of the shaft if the winding machine fails. But it is not pleasant to climb up because it takes several hours and is very strenuous. I was also able to observe the casing of the shaft. In the tunnels where less water is present during sinking. H. occurred when the shaft was brought down, there is masonry, while the remaining tunnels are lined with iron rings, which consist of individual circular sections. Suddenly there was a jolt and we were at the filling point on the main production site.

The people were greeted with a cheer. Here I watched as the empty cars were pushed away by the full ones. These then continued to run automatically around the shaft and were taken along one by one by a chain that was on the wagon and a so-called driver. Here at the height is the drive machine for the chain conveyor (picture no.: 3). This is a chain without end. From here a so-called route continued in a straight direction, in which the chain railway also ran. In the picture you can again see how the full salt wagons drive to the shaft and the other wagons drive into the mine field.

The routes have a rectangular cross section 4 m wide and 2.2 m high. They lead from the shaft to the salt deposit so that salt can be brought to light. The routes are open without any development, because the salt mountains support themselves. The miner calls the side walls “the butts, the thickness, the ridges, and the floor the sole. The routes were created by drilling using electric drills and blasting (Image No.: 4). So-called security explosives, more rarely explosive saltpeter, were used for blasting. In the picture on the right we see the tusker standing next to his drill and also traces of drill holes. The salt released is filled into the wagons by conveyors and transported to the cable cars.

After about 600 m we come to the deflection pulley of the chain railway. From here there are cable cars going in two directions, and I also saw their driving machines. In contrast to the chain railway, which takes the cars individually, these are pulled in trains of 6 - 8 cars. Each trolley is 0.6 cubic meters in size and holds 8 double rooms. Salt. It is provided with coupling hooks on both sides, which allows them to be connected to each other. The connection between the rope and the wagon train is a chain.

Picture 3 Chain track with carriages

Picture 4 Miners with drilling rig and wagon

Figure 5 filling location

A path called the route leads next to the cable car. We followed this one. After we had covered 400 m, we came to a blind shaft. A blind shaft has a rectangular cross-section measuring approximately 2 x 4 m and reaches a vertical height of up to 7.5 m. It connects the different partial soles together. In picture no. 5 we see the filling location of this blind shaft.

Here a full salt wagon is being removed and an empty or offset wagon is being pushed on. The other tray stops at a higher valley and the empty wagon is replaced by a filled salt wagon.

A blind shaft is very similar to the elevator in a residential building. There is only one carriage, and there is a counterweight on the other side. Now I climbed with my father onto the rides next to the conveyor department, 30 m high to the salt mines. This so-called elevator shaft is secured against the mining department by boards to prevent the miners from being injured. Every 8 m there are access platforms, like those built into the main shaft, on which the rides stand and the miner can rest at the same time. When I arrived at the 746 m level, I saw the salt wagons being transported to the blind shaft again by cable cars. Now I came into a large room about 15 m wide, 50 m long and 12 m high. This is where the salt that had been shot out lay, which the miners filled into the mining wagons. Since it is very warm in these rooms due to the great depth, the miners often work wearing only their trousers. This can be seen in the picture.

These cleared out mining spaces, so-called salt ridges, are filled again after the extraction has been emptied by introducing factory residue. I was able to observe this from another place. On this so-called offset, the mining then continues upwards. Pillars 6 - 8 m thick remain between the individual excavation areas so that the excavations are secured against the collapse of the overlying layers.

In many places I was able to clearly observe the salt layers that had been deposited. My father mined magnesium in a ridge, which brought out the magnificent play of colors in the salts. The salts reflected the colors white, reddish brown, light green, violet and the translucent intermediates. The salt ridges are very rarely still in their original, horizontal position, but are instead formed into a wide variety of folds due to huge uplifts and subsidences. These are often completely vertical, then again inclined flat. It happens that routes alternately lead through younger and older salt mines.

Only carnallite and sylvanite are brought to light for processing in the factory, while the others are thrown into the empty mines as a replacement for the mines along with salts that have been released, a rock salt and anhydrite.

Manual conveying is increasingly being replaced by machines. I saw so-called shaking slides in a large salt mine. These are moved back and forth intermittently by machines, causing the salt lying on the chutes to be thrown forward. The slide plates are placed on the so-called sleigh and lead to the large, loose mountain of salt. This is where the salts are

People rake or shovel them into the chute plates. The salt is transported up to 75 m. There will no longer be any mining trucks.

Picture 6 Salt slide

In picture 6 we see how one slide delivers the salt to another slide that is perpendicular to it. This conveys the salt into a so-called roller hole. The roller hole leads, like a chimney, from the upper part of the base to the main conveyor line. At the bottom, the roller hole is covered by thick iron sheets that are steeply sloped. Only a movable flap allows the salt inside to fall into the trolleys pushed underneath. The cars are then pushed under the passing cable car and assembled into trains.

Another technical control for conveying the salt masses is the so-called scraper. I saw this in operation in another salt ridge. It consists of the conveyor reel with the two cable drums and the scraper vessel. The scraper vessel is connected to the two ropes. The rope attached to the rear of the scraper vessel is guided over a pulley suspended in the ridge. The reel moves the vessel back and forth and takes the released salt with it.

Picture 7 Salt slide

It is pulled onto an inclined plane, the scraper table (picture no.: 7). From here it falls into the trolleys pushed underneath. A scraper vessel fills 2 – 3 trolleys. The end roller in the mining process changes its place once the salt is present, so that the entire mining process can be scraped empty. Up to 200 cars are filled in one shift.

The time had flown by. Now it was time to think about the exit. On the way back, a cool wind blew towards us on the main conveyor line. As the miner says, we went against the fresh flow of the weather. The fresh weather enters shaft II, where we entered, and moves out into shaft III. Here a large fan sucks the used weather out of the pit.

When we arrived at the filling point, 4 hours had already passed. Aufschlager had already had the conveyor basket ready. With a bit of luck we said goodbye and headed to the surface. I was happy to see the blue sky and my dear homeland in the sunlight again. I tried to describe what I saw. I've overlooked a lot of things and can't pass them on as much as I would like to. I won't forget this mine trip because it was an experience for me as a teenager and at the same time very educational.