Published in the June 2013 Australian Longwall Magazine
He has worked around many mines in the state including Cook Colliery, North Goonyella, Central Colliery, Alliance Colliery, Oaky Number 1, Grasstree, Newlands Northern, and Moranbah North. His qualifications include a Deputy’s Certificate and an electrical fitter-mechanic trade qualification. His favourite hobbies outside of work are crabbing when he can. He also enjoys spending time with his family at home or at the beach.
Q&A with Andy Morris
What is your earliest mining memory?
My father coming home black as the ace of spades because the bath house at the pit was out of order. He knocked on the door of the caravan we lived in at the time and I got the fright of my life when mum opened the door. I was about four years old from memory.
What made you choose mining as a career?
Like most kids I wanted to do the same as my father. After my first visit underground and subsequent visits while growing up it seemed like the natural job to have. The closeness and camaraderie of underground miners in a mining community during that time was something that appealed to me. I have always considered myself fortunate to have a job I relay love.
When was your first underground visit?
A very early visit underground in Blackwater courtesy of my father. I won’t say what age I was but I was very young. I remember travelling underground on the back of a scout car. That visit set my mind on the path of becoming a career underground miner.
What was your favourite job in a coal mine?
Up until recently I would have said face deputy. Being the leader of a close knit crew you spend almost as much time with them as you do your own family.
Also, I enjoy seeing some of the young blokes I have had in crews over the years achieve their goals.
Some of these lads now hold very senior positions within mining organizations. Having said that my current role gives me more scope to influence change in the way we operate our business and is extremely satisfying when we achieve set goals.
What was your least favourite job?
Boot end boy for sure! For the older blokes around they would remember that role. The fact everyone else would be at the face together and the boot end boy predominantly working by himself for most of the day not only seemed to drag time out but you missed out on the fun at the face.
Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?
Many good people along the way have given me sound advice and mentoring. Some of the undermanagers and deputies I had early in my career were always there with good advice. Over the ast few years I have been lucky enough to have worked within some very focused teams. The team at Moranbah North is a prime example.
What do you consider your best mining achievement?
To not have had any serious injuries to myself or anyone under my direct control. As part of a team it would have been the performance and production records set at Newlands Northern Underground. The mine had a rocky start with its first panel but the mine as a whole achieved some tremendous results after that.
What do you see as being the greatest mining development during your career?
A couple of things still amaze me. Firstly the amount of monitoring available to an underground operation not only makes it safer but also enables us to understand specific issues in a lot greater detail than when I first started.
Things like LVA nowadays compared to only having leg gauges and yield valves to give indications of weight related events.
Secondly the increase in size, power and support capabilities of the modern longwall. Not that far back 1000t roof supports were something to marvel at.
The longwall roof supports at Moranbah North are rated at 1750t. The first longwall I was employed on had 4 leg Dowty chocks.
These were rated at around 800t and weighed a grand total of 17t. The supports at Moranbah weigh in at around 67t.
Do you hold any mining records?
Being part of the longwall team at Newlands Northern Underground in which we achieved two 8 million tonne plus years back-to-back.
Also during that period we achieved two 1 million tonne months in a calendar year and broke the shiftly, weekly and yearly Australian production records. We also achieved a weekly average of 106 uptime hours for an entire block while I was superintendent.
Although we produced those amount of tonnes we still had the same issues that other mines have in respect to strata issues.
More recently Moranbah North Mine has just achieved 2 million tonnes for the first quarter – an excellent result for all concerned. Some people thought I was mad to leave Newlands but these lads here know how to cut coal.
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
I have always wanted to work in some capacity overseas. The opportunity has never really presented itself at the right time. Having exposure to some of the big undergrounds in US is still an ambition of mine. Although they work under different legislation than what we do it amazes me the amount of coal they can turn.
What was your most embarrassing moment in a coal mine?
There have been a few. I am a punctual time keeper and absolutely hate turning up late for anything. I started at a mine as a deputy and my first shift was night shift. I then managed to sleep-in and had the embarrassment of turning up three hours late for my first shift. Not a good start in my books.
What was your scariest time in a coal mine?
Having buried our breaker line supports in pillars, a plan was devised in which we flitted around and drove the next split. Instead of lifting this off we holed into the goaf where the breaker lines were. We loaded out the goaf until we had clear access to the supports. I then scampered out with the cable in hand and plugged it in.
They were then powered up and – with me inside one of the breaker line supports – they were trammed out of the goaf. It was only afterwards when you thought “What could have gone wrong” did I think it wasn’t the safest thing to do.
What is your worst memory of coal mining?
Without doubt being on shift at a mine when we had a fatality. We were on night shift and got a message around 3am to evacuate to the surface. Upon arrival on the surface the mine manager was there and the look on his face told me this was not an exercise.
I was told of a major roof fall in one of the development sections and there were two men unaccounted for. The production manager and myself headed back underground to co ordinate the rescue efforts.
What greeted us was a massive fall of ground that had buried the shuttle car, which was behind the continuous miner at the time of the fall.
Myself and another deputy managed to get up along the side of the fall and make it to the back of the continuous miner under the tail.
We then spent the next few hours digging out one of the trapped men who trapped between the rib and shuttle car.
He was very lucky not to sustain any major injuries. Unfortunately the second buried miner did not survive. This event cast a somber mood over the mine for some time later. I would not wish this experience on anyone. It does however make me grateful that this type of incident is very rare in the Australian coal industry today.
Do you think that the day of the fully automated, remotely-operated face is near?
We have made significant steps in the area of automation with a lot of R&D being given to this area, however I don’t think a fully automated face will be seen in my working life. We will continue to improve within the automation systems to a degree that will decrease the input of the operator. This being said good experienced operators will always be needed on the face.
What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?
Firstly dust control is needed on the modern longwall face.
As mentioned above with the increase in size and power the amount of dust being liberated has increased as well. We manage it on a whole with sprays and water additives, however, in thick seam operations it is still very dusty on the face.
Secondly I can’t wait for the day when proximity detection and collision avoidance systems on longwall faces are a standard specification when ordering.
Although a lot of time and effort have gone into this area the technology is not widely used throughout the industry. Not only is it a major safety leap but will preserve the integrity of the machine.
