Centralia PA...we took this one down to the bones

[Popeye an old miner]

We finished all of em up in Mahanoy City so they asked us to come out to Centralia. They let this CAT 785 go just a wee bit too long and wore a hole right through the point on the tailpiece. We got to cuttin and found out it was pretty much just about ready to go through in about 6 or 7 places, so we cut it out and fixin to put a new one we made in tommorrow then a wear plate on top of it.

[Bls repair]

I though Centralia was pretty much shut down.

[idacal]

your posts look like incredible amounts of work. and you seem to whip them out quite fast. for taking a bed apart like that do you use a torch or air arc?

[Popeye an old miner]

I though Centralia was pretty much shut down.

There is 2 families livin there yet, they just flat out told the goverment they not leavin home. Whewn they do go the goverment will buy the property. The fire still burns yet and is west of Centralia. We are workin about 4 miles west of centralia on the north side of rt 61, we are in no danger from it.

But yes the town itself is pretty much dead, the post office evn eliminated there zip code

[Popeye an old miner]

your posts look like incredible amounts of work. and you seem to whip them out quite fast. for taking a bed apart like that do you use a torch or air arc?

Yeah well me and this young fella done so many of em over the years we pretty got this down to a science, this is only the 2nd one we had to cut apart like this though.

I generally use a jet arc or what most call a air arc...we call it a jet arc up this way in Schuykill County, the other fella uses torch with a big gouging tip...#10 i think he said, I use em too but what i can do with one box of 50 carbons he can do with 3 bottles of oxygen, and just seems to work better for me with a jet arc, but it dont matter it all comes out about the same ammount of time

[Bob]

How many pounds of rod will go into that?

[ronsii]

How many pounds of rod will go into that?

I think they call it out in tons when you get to that level... LOL!!!!

[In Utopia]

Would that be one of the mines where they tried to divert the Susquehanna River into without success?

[Reebz]

I want to go there. I used to teach science that kind of stuff fascinates me. My luck I will go and fall into the earth

[Popeye an old miner]

How many pounds of rod will go into that?

I couldnt say what it would take for stick welding, we burned up about 6 rolls of 1/16 wire doin the top seams, we had a big gap tp fill the guy who cut the plate should have cut it a bit wider, but it all worked out, we still have the underside to back gouge and weld yet,. We got some other work we are gonna do up on top before we stand the box up to work underneath it

[Popeye an old miner]

In Utopia I never heard of that, i know when the river blew through the mine up in Pittston back in 1962 i think it was the river did get diverted a bit. Thats all ive heard about that

[Popeye an old miner]

I want to go there. I used to teach science that kind of stuff fascinates me. My luck I will go and fall into the earth

There isnt much to see, just a bunch of steam and smoke comin up, the town for the most part is gone they tore most of the buildings down. Kids used to go up there and paint the one road, i think they close it off and buried the road this summer

One young boy did fall in a hole his older brother or cousin pulled him out, there is an article about it if you google it

[Reebz]

I saw the article about the girl and boy. The town and what happened there so many years ago just seems like science fiction. I heard the oly thing that gets bigger is the cemetery, people want to buried in their home town

[12V71]

I saw the article about the girl and boy. The town and what happened there so many years ago just seems like science fiction. I heard the oly thing that gets bigger is the cemetery, people want to buried in their home town

I recall some sci-fi/horror movie being based on that Centralia theme... Silent Hill, that was it.

[In Utopia]

In Utopia I never heard of that, i know when the river blew through the mine up in Pittston back in 1962 i think it was the river did get diverted a bit. Thats all ive heard about that

Might have been the fire in Carbondale. Can't find info on it, but I thought they cut a channel to it but when the water started flowing it just turned to steam.
One of my grandfathers worked that Carbondale mine back in the 20's.

[Ron_J]

There isnt much to see, just a bunch of steam and smoke comin up, the town for the most part is gone they tore most of the buildings down. Kids used to go up there and paint the one road, i think they close it off and buried the road this summer

One young boy did fall in a hole his older brother or cousin pulled him out, there is an article about it if you google it

Say it isn't so. I've been through there a few times and remember seeing the road.

[Ron_J]

Might have been the fire in Carbondale. Can't find info on it, but I thought they cut a channel to it but when the water started flowing it just turned to steam.
One of my grandfathers worked that Carbondale mine back in the 20's.

I worked with the Department on the design to put the Carbondale fire out. Pretty interesting to go through the property and check temperatures. It will be all reclaimed shortly, if it isn't already.

[Popeye an old miner]

My wifes grandmother is from over that way, her dad worked in one of the mines back around the 1900s

[BillE.Dee]

]In Utopia I never heard of that, i know when the river blew through the mine up in Pittston back in 1962 i think it was the river did get diverted a bit. Thats all ive heard about that.

the river diverted itself into the mines due to an error in the depth of the shaft beneath the bottom of the river. ONce the water started eroding, there was no stopping it. The mining company did divert a railroad siding toward the whirlpool in the river and started shoving rail cars into the hole to plug it up.

It is known as the Knox mine disaster. and that is what put a stop to underground mining in the wyoming valley. There were several small stripping operations for a while. Now it's all gone.

[Popeye an old miner]

It been awhile since i looked at this post. I been bowed up like a rooster in a henhouse, things got real busy elsewhere and i been goin 14 hours a day and more the past month or so, workin on this thing here and doin other jobs back at the shop and workin on this thing and that thing at home.....so here is some more pics of this Cat785 dump body we been workin on.

It was supposed to rain 3 days strait so we pulled it out of that hole and stood the box up so we could work on the bottom like men instead of crawling around like worms.


First thing i had to weld was this so the box would stay up.



It aint been easy workin on this under here, and i know it dont look pretty what with water and dirt runnin down through the gaps i had to fill, not the best way to position myself and so on but it will stay together and do what it supposed to do. I had a young lad helpin me and he kept burnin me up so he was helpin the guy workin on the apron, that fella left for another job so I am doin the apron now. We still got a bunch of stuff to cut off the floor and the new wear plate to put in yet....then we got another one just like this one to do so it looks like i got a lot of work in my future. The maintnance manager is happy with what he is seein he just wishes it would go faster

[Popeye an old miner]

Ron...

There was a lot of things goin on up there what should not have been goin on...I heard one kid got beat up pretty bad by a bunch of punks, a girl was raped a few years ago, some drug deals happened, keggers, and generally just bad place to be on a saturday night. I never been on that road myself but I seen pictures of it and yeah its some nice artwork but there was a lot of goings on that need not have been so they shut it down...not that it will do much there is dirt trails all over these hills and you can get just about anywhere you want to on a dirt bike or a 4 wheeler

[Bls repair]

If you had a magic wand and got it done instantly it wouldn’t be fast enough for some people.

[Popeye an old miner]

If you had a magic wand and got it done instantly it wouldn’t be fast enough for some people.

Oh I know this, some of these small mom and pop outfits to hear em talk they were born 3 million dollars in debt, had to borrow 30 grand for their own diapers but they drive around in brand new trucks and have the biggest house that can be built.

So when I get these fix it jobs I dont say squat to nobody...I just cut apart what I know needs cut apart fix it right as long as the steel is available. It usually works out good for me that way, they knew that it all needed done and they understand after a bit of thinkin that hey this cat saved me some downtime fixin it now instead of later.

Question i got for you though Bls is where does this guy think that runnin wire is more expensive? Only thing I can think of is he is supplying the weld rods, A 50 pound box of 7018 is just about as much as a roll of Innershield isnt it?....not to mention the time involved in gettin another rod verses just runnin the wire.

[Bls repair]

Yes it is , his thinking 25lbs of wire verses 50 lbs of rod

He sent a guy out to get 2 sheets of plywood for forms. He came back with finished plywood ( $8.00 a sheet more expensive). Next day sends the guy back to exchange for cheaper plywood. In the mean time a crew of 5 making about $75 per hour with benefits is waiting around for two hours for the plywood.

[ronsii]

Yes it is , his thinking 25lbs of wire verses 50 lbs of rod

He sent a guy out to get 2 sheets of plywood for forms. He came back with finished plywood ( $8.00 a sheet more expensive). Next day sends the guy back to exchange for cheaper plywood. In the mean time a crew of 5 making about $75 per hour with benefits is waiting around for two hours for the plywood.

He might have been thinking that 'saking' doesn't stick as well to AC plywood finish??? LOL!!!!!

I see the same thing when we're on bigger jobs spend 30 bux to save 10 cents