scoop driver

plural scoop drivers

1. machineryOne who operates the scoop that stokes a coal-based generator.

   The chief stoker who holds the handle and manipulates the scoop is known as the scoop-driver.

   1896, William John Atkinson Butterfield, Gas Manufacture: The Chemistry of, page 49

   2 more examples

   An unskilled man may, with very little practice, soon qualify himself as a scoop-driver — indeed, men who have been in the retort-house comparatively a few days have, within that short time, been able to do the charging in cases of emergency.

   1898 May 10, R. Watson, “Charging Apparatus for Small Works”, in The Gas Engineer's Magazine, volume 14, number 264, page 187

   When the scoop is opposite the mouth of the retort, the scoop-driver drives the machine, and the impetus obtained by the 5 ft. tribution of coal in the retort, which is obtained with a scoop as compared with charging by shovel.

   1901, Fletcher Wilson Stevenson, Modern Appliances in Gas Manufacture, page 13

2. businessOne who operates an automated mining scoop.

   "Got to go, boys," he said, interrupting an impassioned sermon by the scoop driver about the lineage of the University of Louisville's quarterback.

   2014, Ninie Hammon, Black Sunshine

   2 more examples

   After expressing a desire to be a scoop driver, Mr. Collins trained him for this job and Mr. Amburgey began operating the scoop " a couple of weeks " after the opening of the Number 9 mine.

   1983, United States. Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, Decisions - Volume 5; Volume 66, page 717

   Each section had a foreman, a repair man, a miner operator, and a miner helper, two bolt men, two shuttle car drivers and most of the time, a supply man and a scoop driver. The scoop driver would clean up all the loose coal the mining machine couldn't get.

   2015, Andy Timblin, A Life Worth Living