The illustration shows how the Gascoigne Wood spine tunnels linked up with the producing mines.  Originally, it was planned to drive the tunnels further, to link up directly with North Selby and Whitemoor Mines .  However, this was abandoned.  The ROM (run of mine) from those producing pits was delivered to the spine conveyor belts via Stillingfleet and Riccall Mines respectively.  Weighers were important, to ensure that tonnages were correctly ascribed to the relevant producing mine!  Coal was blended on the belts by control room operators at Gascoigne Wood, using monitors which measured the natural coal gamma rays to identify ash content.
Barnsley Seam - thickness varies from 2 to 3.25 metres.  Seam depth from surface varies from 250 metres in the west, to 1100 metres in the north east of the coalfield.	Mine surface areas/acres: Gascoigne Wood: 164; Wistow:  29; Stillingfleet: 63; Riccall: 64; Whitemoor: 67; North Selby: 80.
The Selby project was the largest deep mine coaling project undertaken in the world at the time it was developed in the 1980's.  It covered 110 square miles in the Vale of York, with originally 6 mine sites - 5 producing mines, with all their Run of Mine coming to the surface at Gascoigne Wood Mine, where it was washed, blended and loaded onto trains - mainly for the electricity industry, especially Drax Power Station.
	When the plans for the Selby complex were still on the drawing board, leading industrial and landscape architects were called in to work in consultation with local planning authorities to ensure the scheme met green guidelines.  A package was also drawn up with drainage consultants because of fears of low lying land and subsidence and concerns on risk of flooding.  The Environment Agency on going flood protection schemes were designed to take account of expected subsidence.
Pillars of unworked coal were also left to protect Selby Abbey and a large portion of the town centre, also the river bend at Cawood, and other sensitive areas. Gascoigne Wood Mine achieved the international environmental standard, ISO 14001, in September 1998.  As part of the continual restoration of the tip, hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted. Yorkshire and the Humber MEP David Bowe visiting the "wet and wild" area at Gascoigne Wood (on right)

The original design philosophy for the Selby complex envisaged an operation whose sole function was to serve the Power Station market with a -50mm, 18% ash product at the rate of 10 Mt per annum.  Borehole analysis of the reserves had indicated low in situ ash and no faulting.  However, geological problems and higher ROM ash meant that Gascoigne Wood had to evolve and develop into Europe’s largest coal preparation plant.  The final product was becoming increasingly unacceptable as the ash content steadily increased from the contributing mines.  The (then) CEGB threatened cancellation unless quality improved, leading to the importing of washed smalls for blending. Subsequent installations of barrels 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, and finally 5 and 6 over a period of 4 years meant that up to 50% of the ROM was now being washed through a 1200 tph natural medium barrel washing plant to achieve product ashes of 18% from ROM ashes of up to 27%.   The demand for a 16% ash product from the generators by April 1994 led to washing an even greater proportion of the ROM, typically up to 65%.  Gascoigne Wood eventually started producing to the new 16% ESI specification late in 1994. 

In March 1995, Gascoigne Wood began exporting large domestic cobbles by rail to Scotland.  The demand for Selby coal grew as the popularity of a well-prepared, relatively free-burning, high heat content fuel came to the attention of other areas of the UK, notably Northern Ireland and in the local area around the complex.  Two things were also becoming apparent - production levels of large coal were not sufficient to meet demand, and the displacement of imported fuels from the immediate locality required a facility for loading and despatching domestic coal by road.  The latter became a reality in April 1996, with planning consent being granted for up to 30 road wagons per day, or 150,000 tpa.  A mobile double deck screener and convenient weigh bridge were installed to give a second loading point for road wagons from November 1996, and from 1997 a permanent additional loading facility, incorporating 150 t bunkers, was added.

 To increase production rates of large coal, it was decided to target the underground environment whose whole infrastructure had been designed with the Power Station market in mind, with a -50mm product which would be crushed anyway on arrival at the Power Station.  Much of the potential domestic product was degraded in transit before even reaching the surface at Gascoigne Wood.  An initiative was therefore launched with the prime objective of minimising degradation underground by redesigning shearer drums and conveyor transfer chutes and removing strategic crushers as part of a longer-term strategy.  At Gascoigne Wood, the greatest degradation was found to be taking place during screening operations subsequent to stocking the final products to floor from boom conveyors in the covered stockyard.  It was decided to short-circuit the stock-lift-screen system of working, and allow material to flow directly to the loading terminal over a single screen and via two chutes, these measures led to an increase in available domestic fuel from about 1,500 t per week to nearer 4,000 t.

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