About 200 underground coal miners and electricians at James River Coal Company’s two Perry County subsidiaries learned new skills using some of the industry’s most high-tech training equipment aboard the Success Xpress.

The Success Xpress, a mobile training facility built into a 53-foot truck trailer, spent a week training miners at the company’s Leeco mine at Jeff from May 21-25. From May 28-June 1, the truck was stationed at the Blue Diamond mine at Leatherwood and provided training to additional miners there.

The Success Xpress is owned and operated by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), Inc., a nonprofit agency that administers workforce development programs in eastern Kentucky.

Many of the James River Coal miners came directly out of the underground mines and onto the Success Xpress to spend hours mining “virtual coal” with the facility’s three-dimensional computerized simulator. Full shifts of James River Coal mine electricians also diagnosed and corrected simulated “faults” in training exercises using the facility’s electrical training panels, which are exactly like those on actual mining equipment.

Each miner who stepped aboard the Success Xpress ultimately will be a safer miner because of that training, according to Danny Sorrells, Human Resources director for the Leeco and Blue Diamond mines.

“The training the Success Xpress brought to us helps give a new miner a better idea what he’s going into, and helps older miners become better, safer miners,” Sorrells said. “We’re going to have better miners and electricians because of these excellent training tools.”

The Success Xpress features a state-of-the-art classroom outfitted with the continuous mining machine simulator and nine computer workstations with wireless internet connectivity. The simulator includes a virtual reality headset that trainees wear to experience the sights and sounds of operating a continuous mining machine. Others in the class watch the operator’s progress on a 40-inch flat-screen display.

Jesse Eversole was one of approximately 150 Leeco miners who used the hand-held control panel to command the virtual continuous mining machine’s spinning metal teeth as they tore coal from the face of a computer-generated underground mine.

Eversole said he has spent plenty of time at the controls of actual continuous mining machines during his 17 years as a coal miner. He said the Success Xpress’ simulator is especially beneficial in helping new miners prepare for the demands of underground mining.

“It’s hard for someone to operate a continuous miner when they’ve never seen one,” Eversole said. “But this simulator’s control panel is close to the real thing, and the way it operates is real close, too.

“Anything that helps prepare miners for what they’re going to have to do adds safety to the whole thing,” Eversole continued. “What they don’t know might scare them, but when they leave (the Success Xpress), there are less things for them to worry about.”

Sorrells said the company also used the on nine computers onboard the Success Xpress to provide mandatory mine foreman training. In the hands-on lab area, the Joy, Inc. electrical training panels showed electricians exactly what occurs when a real continuous mining machine is in operation.

“Our chief electrician can go in there and simulate problems on the control panel, and let the guys come in there and train on it and try to solve that problem,” Sorrells said. “They can see the electrical contacts in there, and can actually see what’s going on when the pumps are energized on the machine, when its conveyors are started, and the cutting head is running.”

The Success Xpress can be driven to remote coal mines, colleges, high schools, or any other location where training is needed. This mobility allows working miners like those with James River Coal to train on the Success Xpress for certifications in essential high-skill positions (mine electricians, METs, equipment operators, foremen, etc.) at their work sites, reducing the impact of training on their companies’ productivity. It also allows high school students who are considering careers in coal to get a firsthand look at the high-tech nature of modern mining.

The Success Xpress makes the best possible training and instruction accessible to working miners and students at any location in the EKCEP service area, according to Crawford Blakeman, EKCEP Business Solutions manager.

“Wherever there’s a need at a coal mine for more skilled and better trained miners, Success Xpress will be ready to literally drive that training to their front door,” Blakeman said. “Being able to present this training in such a mobile way allows workers to train for advancement more efficiently with much less impact on company productivity.”

Since late December, the Success Xpress has also trained working miners and students in Clay, Harlan, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Letcher, Martin, Perry, and Pike counties. The Success Xpress has also recently visited Area Technology Centers in Clay, Knott, Martin, and Pike counties, and the Kentucky Junior Coal Academy at Lawrence County High School, allowing hundreds of high school students spent time at the controls of the facility's continuous mining machine simulator. (Click here for comments from others on how the Success Xpress is being received in various locations in eastern Kentucky.)

The Success Xpress plays a major role in EKCEP’s ongoing efforts to help the state's largest industry replenish its dwindling and aging workforce, according to EKCEP Executive Director Mable Duke.

“The coal industry has indicated time and again that it needs trained, skilled miners,” Duke said. “Success Xpress allows EKCEP to help address that need, and its mobility allows us to bring specialized training to the region’s miners and students in a way that has never been seen before.”

Distance-learning technology aboard the Success Xpress also allows mining courses to be taught by specially qualified instructors at remote locations and transmitted to trainees in the mobile classroom. Remote-controlled cameras in the mobile unit allow the class to interact with the remote instructor in real time.

Additionally, should the need arise, the communications equipment in the Success Xpress would allow it to function as a mobile command center in the case of a mine accident or emergency.

Sorells complimented EKCEP for developing the Success Xpress and making it available to the James River Coal mines.

“We’re really fortunate to have people around like EKCEP who are interested in the mining industry and want to help us keep our miners safer and keep up their training,” Sorrells said. “(The Success Xpress) can be brought right to our mines, and it isn’t costing us a thing to get it here.”

The Success Xpress was created with a portion of EKCEP’s share of a $3.1 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The grant was awarded to EKCEP and the West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board (WKWIB) in December 2005 to train new miners and upgrade the skills of experienced miners in the state’s eastern and western coalfields. The grant was awarded under the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, as implemented by the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

Based in Hazard, EKCEP administers government employment and training programs and employer services in 23 rural mountain counties, including the entire eastern Kentucky coalfields. EKCEP also administers the JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to a dozen government workforce programs for job seekers and employers through a single location.

The Center for Rural Development is also a participating partner, designing and coordinating the Success Xpress’ distance-learning technology.

For additional information on booking the Success Xpress for a visit to a mining operation, high school, vocational and technical school, or any other location, contact Crawford Blakeman at 606-436-5751.