The coal was stripped using motor scrapers to remove the dirt overburden of 60 to 90 feet and expose the coal seam. This was at first done by contractors who worked during the summer. These stripping gangs occupied the bunkhouse and cookhouse while they were working. Later the company got its own equipment and hired workers to do the job.
Three ton, single-axle trucks hauled the coal from the pits to the hopper along a purpose-built haulage road. These trucks were loaded in the pits by Cat mounted overshot loaders, later a diesel powered shovel was brought in to do the loading. The mine contracted with truckers for this job for several years and
1948 - COAL PLANT MODIFICATIONS FOR STRIP MINING OPERATION:
The chute c.200' east of the tipple north of the tracks was built in 1948 and was used to load pit-run coal from the first strip mine (#1 pit) directly into open railcars while the tipple was being modified.
By 1958 these modifications allowed a throughput of 200 tons "per hour", with one operator, a far cry from the 350 tons "per day" that the underground mine had produced.
A metal clad shop building was built north-east of the tipple (c.1956) to house the mechanics and welders who were needed to maintain the new equipment.
The closing of the underground mine lost the water supply and the need for steam for the hoists so the boiler was shut down and the generator was connected by a belt drive to a large Diesel engine which ran during the day to generate the 220v power for the plant motors and 110v power for the buildings.
The Wabamun thermal generating plant began producing electricity in 1956, fired by natural gas. By 1962 a coal fired unit was in operation and by 1963 the coal handling business was moved to the Whitewood Mine and the Lakeside Mine coal plant was shut down, after fifty years of operation.
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During the next couple of years the screening plant was upgraded in various ways to handle the increased throughput that the strip mining entailed.
The rail-car scale and tip and trackway were taken out and a hopper to be loaded by dump trucks was built to the north end of the plant with a covered beltway lifting the coal to the shaker screens.
A second rotary screen was installed above the bins with a larger cup elevator to feed it.
Chutes were mounted for stoker and nut on the north side of the bins and a backdown road was dug along the slope for access to these.
A covered beltway and mobile belt loader mounted on two large wheels was installed to the east of the bins for loading stoker and nut coal into boxcars. One man could now load a boxcar in about an hour. A belt loader was also mounted to load egg coal.
In 1950 the egg bins to the south of the main plant (c.50'x20") were built to serve the increased truck transport sales. There was a belt to load them from the top and four chutes, two on the south end for bigger trucks and two halfway along the bin for smaller ones. The truck weigh scale was under the beltway and south of the bypass track.
There was a four cylinder gasoline powered lighting plant in the old hoist house which was started after the main generator was shut off at the end of a shift. This powered the lights in camp until about midnight.
About 1955 a power line was run in from Onoway directly to the mine and all the local generators were shut down for good.