Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler
The coal mining museum is the old Shuttle Eye colliery on the A642 Huddersfield-Wakefield road, about a mile East of the Grange Moor roundabout. The sculpture park is beside the road running SE from the Grange Moor roundabout, through the narrows of Flockton, joining the M1 at junction 38. Quite close to the motorway.
David
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Coal Mining museum is actually the old
Caphouse Colliery and still goes by that name. There is also some telecoms interest there.
They have the original PMBX switchboard still in situ but only a display item. But the internal automatic telephone is still used with extensions both above and below ground.
Officially it is still classified as a 'working' mine so system has to work. The system is a
Plessey 50/400 PAX - the then National Coal Board had 50/400's fitted in many mines back in the early 1970's. Caphouse colliery was on strike for most of the 1984 Miners Strike and then was closed the following year. Three years later, it opened as a museum and the phone system worked without any maintenance until it failed about six years ago. Not bad running for about thirty years with no maintenance!
I answered a call for help as they had no information/circuits etc. Luckily I had looked after several 50/400's including the last two mines in North Wales until they closed. I was able to source a complete set of documents for them plus get the system up and running and find a local ex-BT engineer to look after it.