Coal Conveyor

[John Ashworth]

Today we moved the coal conveyor from Silverton to Capital Park. Nathan, Steve S and myself arrived at Silverton at 0800 to meet the truck that Nathan had arranged. First we had to offload a whole bunch of scaffolding from the truck, although it did prove useful as it included scaffolding jacks which we used to support the conveyor while moving the crane around. We also picked up a couple of labourers to help us.

Getting the conveyor onto the truck was a slow job, but with the hydraulic crane there were no insurmountable problems. We drove slowly from Silverton to Capital Park in a convoy with lots of hazard warning lights. Offloading at Capital Park also didn't prove too difficult, although there were one or two interesting moments when it appeared to be tipping over. It's standing near the coal dump between the northern coaling line and the line to the top of the coal stage.

The conveyor is in pretty good condition. The belt is good and only one roller is missing. The rest turn surprisingly smoothly. The motor is missing, but the mounting bracket is intact. The tyres on the two wheels are shot, but we should be able to replace them with old tyres. We left it with its axles standing on piles of bricks and hopefully tomorrow we'll get the wheels off and put something a little more stable under it. We'll also weld back together my bakkie's wheel spanner which Nathan tested to destruction this morning.

Nathan took a lot of pictures, some of which will no doubt be e-mailed or posted on the forum. All in all, a successful day - and another example of the hours that Board members have to spend doing things for the club without even getting to touch a steam engine! Next challenge will be to move it to Hercules once we get the fence up, but now we have some experience hopefully that will be easier.

[Nathan Berelowitz]

The move photos! Taken by me.

[Nathan Berelowitz]

More photos! Taken by me.