Extra-large Electric Pump in the Showa Era (1926-1989)
March 1967

Showa Denki Pompu no Cho Ogata
[Extra-large Electric Pump in the Showa Era (1926-1989)]
37.8 x 53.6 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

A 350-HP electric pump was installed in the 2nd pump station at the bottom of the main slope (as long as 1,000 meters from the pit mouth and inclined 23 degrees) of Nittetsu Inatsuki Coal Pit in the summer of 1938. Small and middle-scale coal pits could not introduce such a large pump underground. It took very long (in the literal sense of long) for workers at Inatsuki Coal Pit to send down and fix the pump. After a few days, the pump was given a trial. However, with the ability to raise 100 square meters of water per minute, the pump had so much power that the old discharge pipeline did not bear the pressure and all of the pieces of packing between its joints were blown out. The pump would become useless if the old pipeline was not wholly replaced with thicker one. Even this rich semi-governmental pit could not lay a new and thicker 1,000-meter-long pipeline. This extra-large pump was immediately abandoned. (If it had been usable, the pumps at the 1st pump station would have been needless.)
'A pair of pumps was regularly installed in a pump station and one was used as a spare.'


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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