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This book covers British Coal
Opencast Sites in the period 1986-1994. It is
largely a pictorial book containing 230 colour photos
most of which are good quality. Nearly all the
photos are of the machines that worked the mines during
the period concerned.
The book is organised in sections with each mine
allocated a few pages although it is not clear what has
determined the order of the content as it is not
alphabetical, and not wholly chronological either.
However the index lists all the sites. There is
also an Index at the back of the book which allows the
main machines to be located within the book.
The strength of the book is the photos with the text
providing a little background, but it is not in any way
a technical text about the machines or mines.
Among the machines covered is the 'Ace of Spades'
walking dragline (along with a number of others of this
type) and there is an interesting selection of cable
shovels and hydraulic excavators. Other plant such
as dump trucks and dozers appear also.
The author has also included a final couple of short chapters
covering some information from 'Open Day' events and
there are a few pages of reproduced specification sheets
for some of the machines.
The book will be of interest to anyone interested in the
machines being used for opencast mining in the UK a few
decades ago. It is also interesting to see the
liveries of some of the long-gone contractors that
carried out the work at that time. Overall the
book is recommended.
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