Boiler Room around 1899 (Stokers)
1958 - 1963

Meiji Sanju Ninen Koro no Kikan-ba (Kamataki)
[Boiler Room around 1899 (Stokers)]
21.2 x 30.3 cm Ink Painting

Boilers with double furnaces (nihon juro: normally nihon karo) were introduced to the pit two or three years after ones with a single furnace were introduced. The work in the boiler room was very hard even for stokers who worked for eight hours a day at that time because the 2nd class coal was used for the boilers and a lot of steam leaked underground. Even working naked in midsummer was hotter than usual.
Tadakuma Kamimio Coal Pit was especially notorious in the Kaho-Iizuka districts for hard work imposed on their stokers. They said, "That pit used a lot of steam (Joki ga katakatta)."
The smaller the pits were, the smaller their chimneys were. In small and middle-scale coal pits, more than one chimney was erected. Each of the shown boilers was called a rankyo-gama (a "shallot-shaped boiler" i.e. a vertical-type boiler in our pit dialect).


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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