The human engine was a platform system used to transport miners from the surface to lower levels of mines, powered by water wheels or steam engines. It replaced dangerous ladders but had catastrophic failures, causing deaths. Miners walked from one platform to another until reaching their job level.
A human engine was a series of alternate platforms that could be used to transport men from the surface to the lower levels of a mine. The method of power was often a water wheel, although some type of steam engine was used in many cases. A typical design consisted of two parallel shafts which were mutually lowered and raised, each of which had a number of equally spaced platforms on which men could stand. By sequentially walking from one platform to another, it was possible to quickly cross the shaft. These devices were invented in the 1800s and were used in the early part of the 20th century.
The man engine was invented in Germany during the 19th century as a replacement for the very long ladders that were required to enter and exit deep mines. These ladders could be very dangerous and tired men could fall off them and die. The man engine used steam or water power to move men using the same beam pumps that were often used in mines for other purposes. Despite the relative safety of ladders, catastrophic failures of these devices could cause large numbers of deaths at once. An accident in the early 20th century involved the shafts of a human engine collapsing down a well at a time when there were over 20 people aboard the device, which led to over 100 deaths.
Water wheels provided the initial power source for man’s original engines, and various steam engine designs were later employed. The steam wheel or engine was attached to a connecting rod, which in turn would have been joined to two long beams that had been run down a mine shaft. Due to the mechanism used to connect the waterwheel to these beams, one moved down while the other moved up. Each platform was spaced to align with one platform at the lower end of its throw and a second at the top.
To use a human engine, a miner would walk onto a platform on the surface. That platform would then have lowered him about 13 feet (four meters), at which point he could have stepped directly onto another platform. This process would be repeated until the miner reached his job level. To get back to the surface, the process would be reversed. A variation of this system had fixed landings connected to the shaft walls, and a miner would descend onto one of these landings, wait for the next platform to arrive, and then step onto it.
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