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GMC Forum _ CHILL OUT _ Real Life Minecraft!

Posted by: Chris S. Jul 4 2015, 02:17 AM

On vacation with my girlfriend and she recommended that we check out the Lackawanna Coal Mine - and it turned out to be a great time!

You start the tour by loading up into a Man Car which travels down at about a 45ish degree slope across 1300ft and when you reach the bottom you are between 300-400ft below the surface

It was dark, musty and damp which served for perfect inspiration for some future music. Our tour guide was awesome - a fourth generation miner - he talked about the history of the mine and the miners and it is pretty sad the working conditions these people had to go through - I have no right to complain about work anymore!

Some pictures and brief history:

^^Called monkey tunnels or tummy tunnels as the miners would have to mine small veins in very tight tunnels. No shifts or anything - the miner who started this vein would have mined it for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week until the vein was depleted - all for around 1-3 cents per week.

^^They would use donkeys or mules to help pull the carts - once these animals were brought into the mine they never left - and after living in darkness for such an extended period of time they would eventually become blind. Miners would develop bonds with them and feed them tobacco or table scraps they brought in from home to motivate the mule to keep working.

^^Picture of part of the shaft we walked through.

^^How dark it actually was when these miners would work - blows my mind how anyone could find their way around down there in such conditions.

Overall - I had a great time - it was a very humbling experience to see what these men had to endure day in and day out just to scrape by and keep food on the table and a roof over thier families head.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Jul 4 2015, 01:29 PM

Looks like great fun!