General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

I liked things the way they were.

Loved exploring the industrial dereliction on so many sites to be found.

Loved to climb the Three Sisters, and enjoy the view.

Wanted to be a Petrologist when I grew up: had a fascination with mining, and spent many Sunday securing geological specimens and studying the strata in the opencast cuts.

Could sit for hours watching draglines working.

Wouldn't have swapped it for anything.

PS Dragline still a possible weapon of choice if much overburden to be stripped, but opencast mining the Pem site, as you described would have employed the next generation of kit: hydraulic mining shovels.

There are some photos elsewhere on this site of such machines opencast mining Tan Pit (period?).

Not found photo of earlier hydraulic mining shovel. This is CAT 6040, which is a later (ie this century) machine.