Lifiting Gear Rack

The left wall of this workshop at Awaba Colliery carries the record of what was once organised there. A pegboard still holds the outline of hooks and a few pieces of lifting gear that remained when the site went quiet. To the right, a pedestal grinder base sits stripped of its machine, two red safety signs fixed to the wooden planking above it: one detailing how to grind across the face of the wheel, the other mandating eye protection. Graffiti spelling "Jehovah" runs across the same planking in red and black. Exposed conduit and junction boxes climb the central support post between the two stations. Awaba Colliery, formally known as Awaba State Coal Mine, was established in 1947 on Wilton Road, approximately 1 kilometre south of the Awaba township in the City of Lake Macquarie. Development and first coal commenced that year, and the mine was formally opened by NSW Premier James McGirr on 14 July 1948. It was built expressly to supply thermal coal to Wangi Power Station, with a dedicated railway branch line constructed to carry the coal there, opening on 25 May 1954. The mine worked the Great Northern Seam by bord-and-pillar method using continuous miners, later returning to mined areas for pillar extraction, pillar quartering, and pillar stripping. Over 35 million tonnes of thermal coal were produced across its operational life. The mine passed from the State Coal Mines Control Board to the State Mines Control Authority in March 1950, then to the Electricity Commission of New South Wales on 1 July 1973, then through the Pacific Power and PowerCoal restructure, before Centennial Coal Company acquired the Powercoal portfolio in August 2002 for $331 million. Centennial Coal was itself acquired by Thai group Banpu Public Company Ltd in 2011. By November 2011, Centennial Coal announced the closure, with approximately 85 workers at the site. The last shift ran on 23 December 2011, with final cessation of all underground mining in March 2012 when coal reserves in the Great Northern Seam were exhausted. The surface buildings, including this workshop, were photographed at Awaba in 2015.