Colloquial Mining Terms Used At Ballingarry
- 'Banshee', a compressed-air rock drill with an extending mono-pod, used to bore holes for explosives.
- 'Puncheon', a round timber strut (approx. 4 inches diameter) to support overburden in areas where coal was extracted.
- 'Chock', lengths of pine-trunk 3 feet long and from 9 to 12 inches in diameter and roughly sawn to give two flat surfaces. They were used on the flat to construct square supports if more substantial support than puncheons was required.
- 'Fire damp', methane gas.
- 'Bogey', rail car for transporting support-timbers (and occasionally miners).
- 'Tub', rail car for transporting coal and shale.
- 'Cane', stick of gelignite.
- 'Pit bottom', limit of main road sloping from surface (at approx. 25 degrees) and where the largest pumps were positioned. Miners walked down the pit at Lickfinn, on rough-cut steps beside the single narrow-gauge rail. At the pit bottom, horizontal roads (also with a single rail-track), branched left and right. As the branch roads progressed, switched sidings were extended to 'park' tubs near the work area.
- 'Rock face', limit of horizontal branch road.
- 'Topple', a sloping drift off the branch road and following the coal seam upwards. It was excavated only to the depth of the coal. This was where most of the coal was extracted by miners lying flat in the two feet headroom.
- 'Coal face', the limit of a 'topple'.
- 'Hurrier' (occasionally 'Trammer'), a miner engaged in moving tubs underground.
- 'Chute', a metal bin fixed at the end of a topple and extending over the branch road. A trap-door was opened and closed to progressively fill a series of tubs on the road. Galvanised sheets extending from the chute up to the 'coal face' allowed the miners to fill the chute assisted by gravity. The full tubs were then winched or pushed to the pit bottom. There they were attached to the main winch for hoisting to the surface, tipped, and the empties returned.
- 'Shining ball', form of culm or duff, high in clay content.
- 'Pillar', section of coal left to support roof.
- 'Cutter', large chainsaw-like machine used to undermine coal.
- 'Jigger', pneumatic pick.
- 'Tally', a brass token with a stamped number threaded on a string and carried by the miner around his neck. It was placed by the 'Hurrier' in the full tub to indicate which team had mined it. Tallies were used to calculate production-based bonuses.
- 'Fireman', the foreman responsible for detonating explosives at the end of a shift.
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