The Mountain Belts of the Burragorang Valley collieries

High above the Burragorang Valley, where the morning sun never shines, stands a relic of industrial prowess: the Mountain Belts. For 33 years, this engineering marvel defied gravity and the rugged mountainside, hauling over 42 million tonnes of coal. It became a symbol of human ingenuity, of the relentless drive to innovate and extract the valley’s rich coal seams.
It was the late 1950s. Elvis Presley’s voice echoed through radios with *That's All Right*, and the world was on the cusp of Beatlemania. Meanwhile, deep in the Burragorang Valley, coal was in high demand. Both domestic and overseas markets were hungry for fuel, and the valley’s four mines-Nattai Bulli, Valley 1, Wollondilly, and Wollondilly Extended-were producing over a million tonnes of coal each year. But as production increased, so did the challenge of getting the coal from the valley floor to the plateau above.
In those early days, coal was mined and sold straight from the ground. But with international contracts came higher standards. Steel manufacturers needed precise blends, and that required coal preparation. A Coal Handling and Preparation Plant (CHPP) was essential-and it was another major challenge for Stan Fox.
Trucks also had to navigate the narrow, winding mountain road, built way back in the 1840s. It was a treacherous and costly route, where both time and money were wasted in transport.
The Clinton family had already commissioned a coal washery at Glenlee in 1959, and now Stan Fox was facing similar pressure to keep pace with the fast-evolving coal industry. That’s when Jim Brown introduced a revolutionary idea. Why continue relying on hazardous and costly road transport when they could send the coal straight up the escarpment via a conveyor belt? Trucking the coal cost 2.6 pounds per tonne, but Jim estimated that a conveyor system would reduce that to just 1.6 pounds per tonne. Plus, the coal could be conveyed directly to a preparation plant, streamlining the entire process.
In 1959, Sam Fox gave the green light, and the project to build the Mountain Belts and Wollondilly Coal Preparation Plant kicked off. The plan was ambitious: a conveyor system to transport coal 370 meters up the steep escarpment to the washery above. The coal initially came from Wollondilly Colliery and Wollondilly Extended, with later additions from Nattai Bulli once the Burragorang mines came under one owner.
The site for the new preparation plant was about 1.5 kilometers off the main road, known locally as Snake Mountain. Almost like fate, the location was perfect for the conveyor system. Mr. Jack Eldridge was appointed as the project engineer, overseeing what would become an extraordinary engineering challenge. Initially five conveyor belts were planned in total with a coal bin at the bottom, but it was Number Four that posed the greatest difficulties-it would have to be pinned to the face of the escarpment.
Work began swiftly. Surveyors had to use ladders to access and survey excavation points, while bulldozers cleared the Wollondilly washery site and a path for the first 3 conveyor belts, the dozers pushing dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Stories from the time tell of two dozers being chained together-one in the rear to prevent the other from plunging over the edge-as they pushed down to the transfer of number 3 and number 4 conveyor.
Then came the hardest part: scaling the cliff for Number Four conveyor. With sheer drops of over 100 meters, this was a job that only the bravest could tackle. Scalers had to drill holes for explosives right on the edge of the cliff, perched high above the valley floor. These men weren’t just miners; they were part mountain goat, clinging to the rock face as they worked.
The conveyor was installed and up and commissioned with the Coal preparation plant in 1961.
Initially, the coal would come out of the mine and into a bin, but any blockage would cause all the underground conveyors to stop. Later, conveyors 6, 7, and 8 were added, along with a set of 3,000-tonne bins. This upgrade allowed the mine to continue producing even during stoppages on the Mountain Belts-and there were many.
On several occasions, falling rocks smashed through the conveyor structures, while heavy storms sometimes tripped the belts, causing coal to run back down the system.
The Mountain Belts ground to a halt in 1992 when Nattai Bulli ceased production, marking the end of an era. After decades of defying the rugged escarpment, the belts fell silent, leaving behind only the echoes of their once relentless roar and the legacy of an extraordinary engineering achievement.