Once upon a time I was a miner. Not for long, but long enough. I worked pretty deep, on the 6700 and 6900 levels of the Star Mine in Burke, Idaho. The level numbers indicate how far below the surface we were, so 6700 means that we were 6700 feet under the surface.
I drove a muck train with my partner Billy. We would drive the train back into the drift (commonly called a tunnel, but a tunnel has an entry and exit point while a drift just “drifts” back into the rock with no exit), stop under a chute containing rock that the miners working far above us had mined, open the chute, load the cars and then drive back to the station, which is the main area of each underground level. There we would dump the cars, each of which contain about a ton of ore, into a bigger chute, which collected ore during the day that would be carried to the surface in muck skips on the graveyard shift.
When we hauled ore (trammed muck) one of us drove the motor or engine, and the other rode on the back of the last car. A train usually had four. Each day we got a list of which chutes to pull and how many loads to haul from each by the shift boss and that was our work for the day. If we got done early, we were supposed to “maintain” the ditches next to the tracks, as in shovel them out. We usually tried not to get done too quickly. On the other hand, sometimes we didn’t get done at all because the train would jump the tracks and we would spend a lot of time jacking that darn thing back on, which was no easy feat when the motor weighed 5 tons and Billy and I combined weighed close to 250 lbs. We learned a lot of on-the-job physics.
So how did we communicate in the dark? With lights and clangs. The lights were most important. When you wear a light on your head all day, there are etiquette rules, such as never look directly at someone and blind them. You always directed the light to the side of the person’s face. The light was used for signals. To have someone move away from you, you nodded your head up and down, meaning go back. When you wanted someone to come your way, you circled your light. When you wanted someone to stop you shook your head back and forth. If you wanted them to stop fast, you shook your head really fast. Many was the time when I was helping my dad hook up the horse trailer and forgetting I was not in the mine, I would shake my head when I wanted him to stop. Head shaking never worked the same as it did underground.
And then there is the clangs, which were handier when positioning the cars under the chutes. When the guy riding the back car had the position they wanted, they would hit the edge of the car one time. If the motorman didn’t manage to stop in the right place, more signals would follow. Three clangs meant move forward. Two clangs meant move back. One meant stop. Clangs were quicker than lights for signals.
I enjoyed my time underground, but I was raised in mining. To answer the question that I get a lot, no I never minded being that deep in the earth. I much prefer it to being high in the air. Oh, but I hate heights.
Born and raised in Scotland, I heard tales of the wild Highlanders who fought battles in little more than their plaids (if that). They slept beneath the stars and brandished swords and clubs, but I’d never heard of a cowboy until I ventured to Montana Territory in search of answers about my family. These men: cowboys, ranchers, horsemen, certainly are interesting specimens and I’ll admit I’ve become rather fascinated by them.
WILD MONTANA WINDS