WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

1
00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:02.560
- The folks at this quarry
in Claughton near Lancaster

2
00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:06.700
dig up about 60,000 tonnes of shale rock
from the ground every year.

3
00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:08.260
That shale needs to get to the brickworks,

4
00:00:08.260 --> 00:00:09.800
about a mile and a half that way.

5
00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:12.660
Nowadays, you'd have some
fancy underground conveyor belt

6
00:00:12.660 --> 00:00:16.800
or you'd just have trucks loading up
and driving back and forth.

7
00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:18.650
But this quarry opened in the 1920s.

8
00:00:18.650 --> 00:00:22.060
So the solution was a bit different:
an aerial ropeway.

9
00:00:22.060 --> 00:00:23.660
This is the last aerial ropeway
in Britain.

10
00:00:23.660 --> 00:00:25.100
It's nearly a hundred years old.

11
00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:27.940
It needs no fuel and
no electricity to run.

12
00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:30.720
And in 15 years time, it'll be gone.

13
00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:33.610
- This ropeway was
commissioned in the 1920s

14
00:00:33.610 --> 00:00:36.100
but we've been quarrying
from this valley now

15
00:00:36.100 --> 00:00:38.280
for well over 150 years.

16
00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:41.210
An empty bucket arrives, it goes onto
what we call the bull rail,

17
00:00:41.210 --> 00:00:43.360
so that automatically comes off the rope

18
00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:45.880
and it allows the rope
to go around a wheel.

19
00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:48.700
The bucket then is dusted.
If the weather is bad,

20
00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:52.360
the rain adheres to the bucket
and the muck sticks to it.

21
00:00:52.360 --> 00:00:55.410
So that would reduce what
is taken down to the factory

22
00:00:55.410 --> 00:00:58.310
and also would affect
the balance of the rope.

23
00:00:58.310 --> 00:00:59.810
And then it's put under a feeder

24
00:00:59.810 --> 00:01:02.630
where a given amount of material
is put into that bucket,

25
00:01:02.630 --> 00:01:04.310
about a quarter of a tonne.

26
00:01:04.310 --> 00:01:07.480
At that point, another
operative takes the full bucket

27
00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:11.480
from under the feeder and waits
until the correct positioning

28
00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:13.920
of the incoming bucket is in place,

29
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.550
which allows him then to
feed it onto the rope.

30
00:01:16.550 --> 00:01:20.900
That spacing is critical because
of the way the rope works.

31
00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:22.290
It's gravity fed.

32
00:01:22.290 --> 00:01:24.340
- The brickworks is downhill from here

33
00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:26.870
so all the power for this
ropeway comes from gravity.

34
00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:29.529
Put the full buckets of shale on one side,
going down the hill 

35
00:01:29.529 --> 00:01:31.439
and the empty buckets on
the other side going up

36
00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:34.060
and you don't need an
engine house or a motor.

37
00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:36.420
You just need brakes
to regulate the speed.

38
00:01:36.420 --> 00:01:39.570
It takes about half an hour for a round trip.
There are about 40 buckets.

39
00:01:39.570 --> 00:01:42.840
This ropeway will move about
300 tonnes of shale every day

40
00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:45.340
with no need for petrol or electricity.

41
00:01:45.340 --> 00:01:47.900
So let's go to the brickworks
at the other end

42
00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:50.080
and see how it works down there.

43
00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:53.710
- As a bucket comes in the other end,
an operator is stood waiting for it.

44
00:01:53.710 --> 00:01:57.370
It comes off the rope at a
given speed onto a bull rail,

45
00:01:57.370 --> 00:01:59.980
from that bull rail, the
operator walks round.

46
00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:03.250
There's a pivot system on the bucket
that tips into a hopper.

47
00:02:03.250 --> 00:02:06.220
At that point, it then feeds
into a dump truck.

48
00:02:06.220 --> 00:02:08.470
The operator then puts the bucket back.

49
00:02:08.470 --> 00:02:12.300
When the correct space is positioned,
he pushes the bucket onto the rope.

50
00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:15.030
It's an art to swing that bucket
and tip it at the right time.

51
00:02:15.030 --> 00:02:17.410
They do walk quite a few miles in a day.

52
00:02:17.410 --> 00:02:21.910
This factory was designed to produce
round-about 42 million bricks annually.

53
00:02:21.910 --> 00:02:24.920
And there was a £4.4 million
investment four years ago

54
00:02:24.920 --> 00:02:27.740
that increased the productivity
up to 50 million.

55
00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.540
Claughton produces
frost-resistant product.

56
00:02:30.540 --> 00:02:33.960
It's down to the shale from the quarry,
that's a vital key to it.

57
00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:35.321
The temperature we fire at

58
00:02:35.321 --> 00:02:38.920
and also the durability
of the ceramic bond.

59
00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:42.810
That means we can sell this product
into all extreme weathers.

60
00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:45.320
There's nowhere in the UK we can't sell to

61
00:02:45.320 --> 00:02:47.620
with our durability of
the product at Claughton.

62
00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:49.120
Unfortunately, it has to cross the road.

63
00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.610
It's never been known, certainly
in the last 50, 60 years,

64
00:02:52.610 --> 00:02:55.430
to come off at that point,
but it is a possibility.

65
00:02:55.430 --> 00:02:59.252
So we have a steel bridge with
big bucket-catchers on the side

66
00:02:59.252 --> 00:03:00.690
that would prevent that happening.

67
00:03:00.690 --> 00:03:04.170
The rope construction is a
25mm steel rope.

68
00:03:04.170 --> 00:03:06.290
Very difficult to get
contractors these days

69
00:03:06.290 --> 00:03:09.620
who are skilled in splicing
ropes of that size.

70
00:03:09.620 --> 00:03:12.140
We replace the rope every six years.

71
00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:15.000
It's a very, very difficult
process, very old,

72
00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.460
the technology's the 1920s, of course.

73
00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:21.840
We did a computer design of
a new ropeway many years ago,

74
00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:25.750
and unbelievably, the
computer matched this design

75
00:03:25.750 --> 00:03:28.940
in terms of trestle heights and weights

76
00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:32.070
to somebody with a
slide rule and a pencil.

77
00:03:32.070 --> 00:03:34.299
- There used to be hundreds
of these ropeways around Britain,

78
00:03:34.299 --> 00:03:36.610
in industrial sites, mines and quarries.

79
00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:39.980
This is the last one still operating
anywhere in the country.

80
00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:42.245
It nearly wasn't, the financial crisis
in the late 2000s

81
00:03:42.245 --> 00:03:45.250
meant the quarry and brickworks
shut down for a few years.

82
00:03:45.250 --> 00:03:47.940
But it was kept in working order
and as of right now,

83
00:03:47.940 --> 00:03:50.270
it's still transporting rock.

84
00:03:50.270 --> 00:03:54.810
But it has an expiry date.
31st December, 2036.

85
00:03:54.810 --> 00:03:56.860
Permission for quarrying
was going to end in 2018

86
00:03:56.860 --> 00:03:59.175
but the local council planning
department granted an extension

87
00:03:59.175 --> 00:04:02.370
because the quarry and
brickworks are still operating.

88
00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:04.450
There's a lot of shale
still in the hill up there

89
00:04:04.450 --> 00:04:06.690
and literally no one objected.

90
00:04:06.690 --> 00:04:07.685
I checked the planning report.

91
00:04:07.685 --> 00:04:11.237
Environmental agencies, local residents,
everyone was, like,

92
00:04:11.237 --> 00:04:13.470
"Yeah fine, keep it running, that works."

93
00:04:13.470 --> 00:04:15.720
Now in theory, that deadline
could be extended again

94
00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:17.100
but the reason they picked 2036

95
00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:20.070
is that by then, the company
will more or less have quarried

96
00:04:20.070 --> 00:04:22.280
everything they can out of that hill.

97
00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:24.290
And one of the conditions
of that time extension

98
00:04:24.290 --> 00:04:28.350
is that once quarrying is finished,
the ropeway has to come down.

99
00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:30.860
The planning report does acknowledge
that it's unique in the country, 

100
00:04:30.860 --> 00:04:32.710
it's the only one left in Britain.

101
00:04:32.710 --> 00:04:34.800
There is some heritage value in it,

102
00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:38.580
but, they say, not enough to
justify saving it for posterity.

103
00:04:38.580 --> 00:04:40.090
This isn't like an old railway line where,

104
00:04:40.090 --> 00:04:42.910
if it's left unmaintained,
it'll just slowly, steadily decay.

105
00:04:42.910 --> 00:04:46.490
It could be actively dangerous if the
ropes and towers start to fall apart,

106
00:04:46.490 --> 00:04:49.170
particularly when they run
over a road, just there.

107
00:04:49.170 --> 00:04:52.000
Unless money is constantly spent
to keep it in working order,

108
00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.130
it'll decay into an unsafe
blot on the landscape.

109
00:04:55.130 --> 00:04:57.510
Which is fair, but I suspect
when that final day comes

110
00:04:57.510 --> 00:04:59.290
in about 15 years time,
when the last bucket

111
00:04:59.290 --> 00:05:01.820
goes down the ropeway,
there'll be a few people here

112
00:05:01.820 --> 00:05:02.900
to say goodbye to it.

113
00:05:02.900 --> 00:05:06.917
And until then it'll keep moving shale
without needing any fuel at all.

114
00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:09.640
Thank you so much to
all the team at Forterra

115
00:05:09.640 --> 00:05:10.550
for showing me around.

116
00:05:10.550 --> 00:05:12.120
They did ask me to make
clear that the ropeway

117
00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:13.450
is not a tourist attraction.

118
00:05:13.450 --> 00:05:15.490
So if you're in the area
and you want to take

119
00:05:15.490 --> 00:05:17.280
a couple of pictures
from the road, sure!

120
00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:19.530
But then, for their sake,
please keep driving.