Man-riding

Carrying men underground to and from the face by machine rather than on foot — in rope-hauled tubs at first, later in purpose-built carriages behind a locomotive, and later still on conveyor belts.

Historical usage

As collieries drove further out from the shaft the walk became the longest part of a shift, and the haulage that moved the coal began to move the men. The early arrangement was simply to put them in the tubs: at Nunnery Colliery in Sheffield men rode a set of 44 tubs known as the Paddy Mail on the same rope that hauled the coal, up and down an incline about a mile long, for six years before it failed in 1923. By the post-war period the manrider was a proper train — at Bentley in Doncaster, diesel locomotives hauling Wickham carriages on a two-foot three-and-a-half-inch track, each carriage in four compartments, five men to a compartment by local agreement.

How it worked

On a rope system the set was lowered or hauled by the main engine at surface, with an attendant riding outside the leading tub to signal the engineman. Locomotive-hauled manriders ran to a signalling and control regime of their own: radio contact with a control point, colour-coded zones to keep trains apart, mechanical and air brakes, safety chains between carriages, and friction arrestors at the foot of an incline to catch a runaway.

Why it was used

Time and fatigue. A face two or three miles from the pit bottom costs an hour of every shift in walking, and men who arrive tired cut less coal — the same reasoning that put ponies and then locomotives on the haulage roads in the first place.

Risks & limitations

The hazard is the one every rope and gradient carries: a runaway with men aboard. Both of the British accidents that defined practice killed seven. At Nunnery in 1923 a signal was misread and the haulage rope broke with 120 men on the set; the inquiry condemned the use of spliced ropes for man-riding, recommended a maximum rope life and called for arresting gear. At Bentley in 1978 a driver started in the wrong gear on a 1-in-16 grade and could not stop, and the arrestor that should have caught the train was found with its operating handle pinned down by a bolt; thirteen recommendations followed, from level terminal stations to automatic speed-sensitive track brakes.

Regional variation

A deep-coalfield practice above all, and one that grew with the size of the workings — Yorkshire, the north-east, Scotland and South Wales. Metal mines rarely needed it: their levels were shorter and their manriding, where it existed, was more often a matter of riding a shaft than a road.

Related terminology

Cage, Incline, Man-engine, National Coal Board, Putter, Return Airway, Stoneman, Tub

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

• Auchengeich Colliery — North Lanarkshire (notable incident)
  The No. 2 Pit workings were reached along a return airway travelled by man-riding trains — the route the 1959 fire filled with carbon monoxide.

Disasters associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis, with the nature of the relationship stated — not every disaster where this term might plausibly apply.

• Auchengeich Colliery fire, 1959 (direct cause)
  A man-riding train carrying 48 men was sent into a return airway already full of carbon monoxide; 47 of them died.

Sources

1. (secondary) Bentley Colliery Manrider Accident, Doncaster, 1978 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Nunnery Colliery Manrider Accident, Sheffield, 1923 — Northern Mine Research Society

Record created: 25 August 2026 · Last researched: 25 August 2026