through the preperation plant
At Hotellneset, west of Longyerabyen, there used to be a coal preparation plant, the coal storage and the shipping dock is still there and in use today. Hotellneset is named after the hotel which was built here back in 1896. The hotel was in use for a couple of seasons and was later moved to Longyearbyen and destroyed during the 2nd World War.
The water around Hotellneset had the best sailing conditions in the fjord, and the shipping port was built here early in the 1900s. Before the road to Longyearbyen was built in the 1960’s, the workers at Hotellneset had their own mess and accommodation. All supplies were brought in by horse and cart. In bad weather, food had to be sent here with the coal buckets. In the post-war period, the workforce was approximately 30 men. In addition, a couple of families lived at Hotellneset. During the shipping season in the summer, the workforce increased.
Cleaning the coal was previously a manual process which took place in the the mines. The coal was spread out on a wide belt and the workers stood on each side of the belt and picked stone and slate from the coal. Then the coal was transported directly to the coal storage and shipped out without further processing.
The first separate coal preparation plant at Hotellneset was built in 1953. The plant mainly consisted of a large concrete silo. Above the silo was the cleaning room located. The procedure was the same as before, with hand sorting stones from the coal, in a cold and dusty room. The coal was transported into the facility with a conveyor belt and further out to the coal storage with a separate cableway, Line no. 4.
As the demand from the international market for higher quality coal increased, the process of cleaning the coal had to improve as well. In 1964 a new preparation plan was build. The plant was an automatic air preparation plant. Coal and stone were shaken over mesh frames while a strong air current was blown through the mass. This method left the coal in a layer above the stone and other impurities. At the end of the machine, the coal layer was separated from the stone layer with a knife. An important part of the process is also sorting the coal info different sizes or fractions. This takes place before and during the cleaning process. The sorted stones are used as filling material for construction work. The different fractions of coal are then piled up at the coal storage according to size and quality.
In 1980 a large coal dust explosion at the preparation plant blew off the roof of the old concrete silo. After the accident a new silo was built, together with new modernizations. In 1983 a Bradford drum was installed. The drum sorts out large stones and crushes larger pieces of coal.
Until the cableway closed in 1987, the preparation plant was the terminus and turning station of the main line, Line no. 3 from Taubanesentralen (Cableway Central). The buckets were automatically emptied into a large funnel and then had to be manually turned back to the correct position. This was heavy work that required a good health and a good technique.
On Line no. 4 from the preparation plant to the coal dock a total of four men worked on each shift. The workers alternated between turning the buckets on Line no. 3 and filling them up for Line no. 4. The cableway to Hotellneset was considered a particularly dusty workplace; “It was a hellish workplace. You stood right in front of the sluice and pulled a lever, so the coal came, and you had a cloud of coal dust right in your eyes – then you became as black as the darkest night... and it was cold”.
Around 1977, at the same time as Line no. 4 was closed, an automatic bucket turner was installed in the turning station which would put the buckets back into its right position. Now the station could be operated by one person on each shift. After 1987 all coal was transported to and from the preparation plant by truck.
