The coal was dumped into a pit above the shaker screens and was fed through a control gate operated by a ten foot long handle and rod arrangement. The two screens were about fifteen feet long and five feet wide. The first screen was of heavy wire and had two inch wide holes in it, everything smaller than that fell through into a hopper which led to a scraper-conveyor belt which went to a chute and was picked up by a cup conveyor which took it to the top of the East bins where it entered a rotating screen about six feet in diameter and twenty feet long sloping slightly to the east. There were three bins, the slack (fine) coal fell into the first through a c.3/8 inch mesh screen, into the second went "stoker" coal through a 11/8 inch mesh and the "nut" coal came out the end into the third bin.
The bins were built "inside out" with the framing on the outside so as to provide a smooth surface for the coal to flow on the inside. The bins were 30'l x 30'w x 30' deep. The bottom of all three bins were sloped to the south and had gate-controlled openings leading straight down through closed chutes to open top sliding steel chutes about six feet long which were used to load the boxcars waiting on the tracks below. The chutes for the "nut" and "stoker" coal had screens built into the bottom, when the coal went over this the slack dropped out. The "clean up" mans job was to shovel this up and carry it with a horse and wagon, or a truck, to the powerhouse to be used for fuel.
The boxcars had a door in the middle so the chutes would drop the coal there and it was a matter of manpower and scoop shovels to fill the ends to the six and one half foot "coal line". This was brutal and dusty work.
The slack coal was loaded into open cars and sold to the electric company in Edmonton which used it to fire their thermal-electric generators. The nut and stoker were sold for domestic use.
From the two inch screen the rest of the coal continued on to a four inch screen, whatever dropped through this was "egg" coal and went down the chute to a boxcar. Everything over four inches carried on and went down the chute into the train cars as "lump" coal.
Since there was no bin storage for lump or egg coal these cars could only be loaded while the plant was operating. There were thus three sets of tracks beneath the tipple for loading cars, later a fourth "bypass" line was added to the south of these so empty cars could be backed into storage by the train crews without disturbing any of the production tracks.
Tipple crew on a normal shift:
Operator-Weighed and recorded cars, dumped them into the hopper, controlled screen shakers and other machinery.
Non-tipple surface crew on a shift:
Engineer-Fired the boilers, kept steam, ran the generators (probably maintained the pumps).
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Assistant operator- helped move cars around the tipple, lube machinery, loaded pit props, connected the empty trip, dumped the waste, etc.
Coal heavers(4)-Shovelled coal to load boxcars, generally one to each end of a car, spotted cars in position for loading. It took around three hours to load a forty foot long car, which was about a binful of coal or 45 tons. They would put a coal door on each side of the car then run the coal into the middle to this height (30"?). They put a metal plate (c. 3' x 4') on top of this pile and shovelled to each end of the car. It was easier to scoop off the metal plate at this height than to stoop each time and try to scrape the car floor, which could be rough wood. The gate was left open and was self controlling as the coal would only move down when there was enough room on the plate. Generally there were two men on the lump car and two on the egg car since these were run directly off the shakers. Depending on circumstances and orders there could be another one or two loading stoker, nut or slack. The three tracks ran parallel to each other, with the lump on the south side, the egg under the tipple (chute in the south door of the car) and the slack, nut or stoker car nearest the bins.
Clean up man- Drove the truck to clean up spilled coal, kept the wash house fires going, hauled coal for the office, bunkhouse and cookhouse, general handyman duties. Drove the truck to pick up the crew from Wabamun and along the highway.
Hoist operator- Ran the hoist for the mine cars.
Barn boss- Fed and watered the horses, cleaned the barn, mended harness.
Blacksmith- Repairs and maintenance, horse shoeing.
Timekeeper- Took care of the bookwork, money and paper which any business has.
Manager-"The boss"