Canals closing in Scotland

[ProDave]

The charges did rise dramatically a couple of years ago - it used to be circa £5 per metre which was ridiculous for 3 men and a vehicle for the better part of two days.

when we went through, I could never understand why it needed staff to operate the locks. There was nothing unusual about them and the rest of the UK canal network operates quite hapilly with the boat crews operating the locks themselves.

Oh and how to confuse / piss off your support crew. Stop to fill up at a water point between locks. By the time we had taken on water and got to the next lock they had got bored and buggered off.

 

[awol]

If I remember correctly there were covers over the sluice operating thingies that needed a special key. The idea was to stop the creative locals from filling the Clyde (or Forth). The guys also rode shotgun to dissuade the locals from interference.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

when we went through, I could never understand why it needed staff to operate the locks. There was nothing unusual about them and the rest of the UK canal network operates quite hapilly with the boat crews operating the locks themselves.

Oh and how to confuse / piss off your support crew. Stop to fill up at a water point between locks. By the time we had taken on water and got to the next lock they had got bored and buggered off.

I can't speak for most canals in the UK, but round our way most locks are operated by the boat crews, BUT they have been automated to the degree that you just press a button and the lock does everything by itself, with all sorts of interlocks so the lock won't operate if (for example) the gates aren't shut! I suspect the requirement for a crew doesn't stem from the difficulty of operating locks, but from a need to avoid people doing things like leaving sluices open. Although most locks aren't manned on the Crinan Canal, there are staff nearby at bridges etc. and they can be (and are) checked from time to time. The locks on the Caledonian Canal are manned.

I learnt to operate locks (and pretty dodgy locks in some places) when I was about 10, but it isn't in the RYA syllabus for marine vessels!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Oh and how to confuse / piss off your support crew. Stop to fill up at a water point between locks. By the time we had taken on water and got to the next lock they had got bored and buggered off.

My father offered to crew for me when I was bringing my last boat back to the Clyde for the winter, about 30 years ago. I waved him off at Crinan, drove to Lock 13, opened the lower gates and waited.

And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually he turned up, about two hours after leaving Crinan. He had enjoyed himself so much - it was his first trip through the canal - that he had throttled the outboard to tickover to extend the experience for as long as possible. Although it cost us an extra day in the canal, I couldn't really be cross. He was so happy!

 

[wee_niall]

My father offered to crew for me when I was bringing my last boat back to the Clyde for the winter, about 30 years ago. I waved him off at Crinan, drove to Lock 13, opened the lower gates and waited.

And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually he turned up, about two hours after leaving Crinan. He had enjoyed himself so much - it was his first trip through the canal - that he had throttled the outboard to tickover to extend the experience for as long as possible. Although it cost us an extra day in the canal, I couldn't really be cross. He was so happy!

lol! That's the joy of canals - totally different pace of life....i love them which is why i was keen to go back through the F&C and hopefully do the crinan next year. I'm still hopeful they'll get the bridges sorted and the through route will be open but i think long term the days must be numbered. I know it's hard to argue for extra funds these days but when you see some other vanity projects that get funding......

 

[JumbleDuck]

I know it's hard to argue for extra funds these days but when you see some other vanity projects that get funding......

Tell me about it. Dumfries is about to get the Scottish Centre For Children's Literature, in a place which is practicably reachable for a day trip - by perhaps 5% of the schoolchildren in Scotland. If it lasts as long as the Big Idea inventor centre in Irvine did I'll be surprised ... but they have a VERY good fundraiser who can get Joanna Lumley to support any idea, no matter how daft. Garden bridge, anyone?

and ... relax ...

The trouble is that once the excitement and mwa-mwa-darling fun of capital fundraising is over, the places have to run and as someone rightly said up there ^^^^ somewhere, revenue support is always harder to get. Impossible, generally.

We might see the Crinan saved as a working ancient monument, but I'm afraid it's more likely to be Crinan - Bellanoch and Ardrishaig basin only. It all depends which lock fails catastrophically first. How many years now is it that they have been unable to fix Dunardry Bridge?

 

[ProDave]

If I remember correctly there were covers over the sluice operating thingies that needed a special key. The idea was to stop the creative locals from filling the Clyde (or Forth). The guys also rode shotgun to dissuade the locals from interference.

A lot of the English canals have locks in "undesirable" areas, opened with a standard BW key. You don't hear of the local low life bothering to source a BW key (not hard) just to create havoc.

What's the betting these are actually locked with the same BW key?

 

[Quandary]

I want to fix Dunardry Bridge, it is just iron work and heavy carpentry, the old cast iron mechanism is still there and sound, mostly just heavy carpentry. A great way to spend a winter. Trouble is that they do not want it fixed, after about ten years the complaints about its loss have ceased and the farm on the other side have got used to driving the north bank. If it was fixed they would have to man it and maintain it, neither too onerous but if you can get away with doing nothing?
I am not too sure it is really broken, I recall that it was closed when a woman driver (sexist, me???) reversed in to it and claimed for the damage to her car.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Communities can do all sorts of things if they organise themselves e.g. Strontian primary school and hydro scheme (Investing in What Matters). The crinan canal is not such a huge thing that a community could not organise itself to look after it and reap the benefits for their villages. Sometimes authorities are not best placed to run things as they can not see the trees for the woods. Folks will make all sorts of excuses why community could not run a canal, but it could, it's just people after all that makes things happen.

 

[A1Sailor]

I went through East to West in 2012 and it was surprisingly smooth and cheap. Limbo danced up the River Carron after getting my mast down and got into the canal above the M9.
Got to "The Stables" west of Kirkie after leaving Falkirk/Grangemouth in one day then on to Bowling the next. I'd left "the Stables" at first light and arrived at Maryhill about 8am...
Only issue was the mast crane at Bowling was out of action (nesting jackdaws) so got my mast up at Rosneath. ~£40 for a 7.4m boat iirc.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I am not too sure it is really broken, I recall that it was closed when a woman driver (sexist, me???) reversed in to it and claimed for the damage to her car.

They told me that the farmer took a grossly overweight trailer over it. In which case I would have expected them to claim from his insurance ...

 

[A1Sailor]

I want to fix Dunardry Bridge, it is just iron work and heavy carpentry, the old cast iron mechanism is still there and sound, mostly just heavy carpentry. A great way to spend a winter. Trouble is that they do not want it fixed, after about ten years the complaints about its loss have ceased and the farm on the other side have got used to driving the north bank. If it was fixed they would have to man it and maintain it, neither too onerous but if you can get away with doing nothing?
I am not too sure it is really broken, I recall that it was closed when a woman driver (sexist, me???) reversed in to it and claimed for the damage to her car.

Dunardry Bridge was great fun to "staff" - the winding mechanism seemed pretty simple. It is a shame it is broken. Rather obviously you worked the lock as well, and I used to help yachties out on the whole flight, particularly 12 & 13. 10, and especially 9, are a bit further away and 9 is out of sight of 11... Even just emptying/filling the locks when boats appeared from west/east helped them.
MoBos would just appear out of nowhere, though - no masts to give their location & direction away!

From memory the top gates at 12 were a real bugger to open - in 1979!!!!! I presume if anybody has a problem these days they just phone for help. Mick Chell lived in the house by the bridge.

 

[A1Sailor]

The trouble with that is that, having done a pathetic half-arsed job of linking to the Carron/Forth at re-opening, they didn't really improve the situation when they were footering about with Kelpies. Here is what it should look like:

and here's what they did:

The original canal dock at Grangemouth is built over, but if reestablishing that wasn't possible a lock into the Old Dock could have given all-tide access to the canal.

A pre-1960 map of the original route at Grangemouth and a "pre-Kelpies extension" satellite image can be seen side by side here:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...t=56.0200&lon=-3.7395&layers=10&right=BingHyb
It's fun to play with.:encouragement:

 

[JumbleDuck]

A pre-1960 map of the original route at Grangemouth and a "pre-Kelpies extension" satellite image can be seen side by side here:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...t=56.0200&lon=-3.7395&layers=10&right=BingHyb
It's fun to play with.:encouragement:

Coo. That's neat. Thank you!

 

[A1Sailor]

Coo. That's neat. Thank you!

It will give you hours of "fun". You can see where all the railway lines disappeared from and what was where your house now is - depending on its age... The old maps only seem to go back to 1885.

 

[JumbleDuck]

It will give you hours of "fun". You can see where all the railway lines disappeared from and what was where your house now is - depending on its age... The old maps only seem to go back to 1885.

It depends on the scale. I've found my house on the 1834 sheet but there is nothing before that. However, it's next to a bridge which appears on Blaeu's map of the area.

 

[ProDave]

Just to add to this thread. We went through part of the Calley last weekend, and speaking to one od the Loch Keepers the Calley has problems too.

They said that one of the gates on Neptunes Staircase is damaged, so they are operating that as a flight of 4 lochs with one pair of gates permenantly open, rather than the flight of 5 lochs is was built as. This imposes severe draft restrictions on what can pass through.

 

[jamie N]

Yup, when we went through last month, they were only able to have 2 'ups', and 2 'downs' a day. There are cracks on one of the gates, within which there are buoyancy chambers, and it's these that are leaking, which puts undesired stresses onto the hinge mechanisms.

 

[Quandary]

Are you sure?
When we transited in September that problem was at Fort Augustus flight. It is certainly a strange feeling being down so deep, way below the sluices but I was impressed that the builders had made the locks and gates so deep that it was possible to do it. The draught restriction was not affecting yachts of normal draught. We had something like 3m+ under us.

 

[NorthRising]

I couldn't possibly comment on any of these individuals, but here resteth the responsibility: https://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/corporate/about-us/meet-the-board/