Commercial Mine Tour - Pioneer Tunnel Anthracite Coal Mine in Ashland, PA - October 28, 2023

The Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine in Ashland, Pennsylvania has been operating as a historical attraction for over 60 years. The original Pioneer Colliery was operated along Mahanoy Mountain in Ashland during the late 19th century, and gave its name to the Pioneer Tunnel, which was owned and operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company from 1911 to 1931. The Pioneer Tunnel was reopened as a mine tour in 1963. In this video, an informative and entertaining guide showed us the sights in this historical anthracite drift mine, while explaining the area's coal mining past.

[@bobs1728]

In the summer of '67, I worked in the Bethlehem Steel's No. 3 mine in Cornwall, PA. It was an iron ore mine, and the sump was at about 1300 feet. In 1972 the mine lost power for 2-3 days due to Hurricane Agnes and flooded. (No power to run the sump pumps). The company never reopened the mine. Very interesting video Dave. Thanks for posting.

[@briantaylor8366]

real men

[@WPUpioneer]

Every mine tour guide says the two most dangerous gasses in mines are carbon dioxide (blackdamp) and Methane (firedamp) there is, however, a third equally dangerous and lesser known gas, called assithane. Assithane is usually generated when your miner colleague had beans for dinner the night before. Assithane is colorless but has a very distinct severe odor and can often be worse than methane and CO2 combined.

[@timothynaugle1326]

Is the 'EXIT' tunnel at 20:58 still a legitimate exit, in case of some sort of emergency in modern times?

[@DaveSeasholtz]

Commercial show mines have to follow the same federal/state safety regulations as a production mine, so there still needs to be additional access point(s) in the case of an emergency such as a portal collapse. This exit would be quite chllenging for some folks to climb, but it is an emergency exit. The Lackawanna Coal Mine tour actually had to use their emergency exit proceedure a couple weeks ago, when the main entrance slope winch had an issue. Now that would have been a great tour to experience.

[@timothynaugle1326]

@@DaveSeasholtz Thanks. 👍

[@577buttfan]

Cool mine.Do they do private tours?

[@DaveSeasholtz]

It past years, the Underground Miners group from the Wilkes Barre / Scranton area used to do mine tours here, and at the Number 9 mine in Lansford. But now that they host their own tours at the Brooks Mine they restored in Scranton, I believe they are keeping all their resources there.