Breaker Room

The breaker room at Awaba Colliery sits along a corridor lined with pale green electrical control panels, each fitted with red and green indicator lights and warning signs marking high-voltage circuits and air compressor controls. A set of keys still hangs from a hook on one of the panels. Natural light enters through a large window protected by square grid security mesh, throwing a grid shadow across the floor. Nothing has been cleared out. The room looks as though the last shift simply ended and no one came back. Awaba Colliery began development in 1947, when 8,500 acres in the Awaba district were reserved for state mining operations. The mine was formally opened by NSW Premier James McGirr on 14 July 1948. It was a drift mine, meaning access to the underground workings ran via an inclined decline rather than a vertical shaft, and no headframe was ever built on the surface. The primary target was the Great Northern Seam, worked by bord-and-pillar method using continuous miners. The mine was built specifically to supply thermal coal to Wangi Power Station, and a dedicated railway branch line opened on 25 May 1954 to carry that coal the approximately 6.5 miles to the power station. Ownership passed through several hands over sixty-five years. The State Coal Mines Control Board governed the mine at opening, succeeded by the State Mines Control Authority in March 1950. Ownership transferred to the Electricity Commission of New South Wales on 1 July 1973, and later to PowerCoal Pty Ltd under Pacific Power before Centennial Coal Company acquired the operation in August 2002. Banpu Public Company Ltd acquired Centennial Coal in 2011. By the time of closure, Awaba Colliery employed approximately 85 workers and produced around 800,000 to 900,000 tonnes of thermal coal per year. Mining ceased in March 2012 when reserves in the Great Northern Seam were exhausted. Total production across the operational life exceeded 35 million tonnes. The breaker room, its panels and keys intact, was photographed in 2015.