Clifton and Sandford Locks

[Jaysay]

Those of us wishing to avail ourselves of the new cruising season in 2011 may wish to note that Clifton Lock is hand-winding only when the lock is unmanned, owing to vibration on one of the sluices upsetting the sensors. With the present cutbacks in staff, 'unmanned' is, unfortunately, becoming all too common. The lengthy repairs over the winter were not an entire success at Clifton, perhaps because craneage had to be part diverted to Sandford.
I also understand that repairs to Sandford are struggling and may well over-run, making voyages to Oxford and beyond something to continue to look forward to.
Taken with the protracted repairs to Hurley, the lock repair programme this winter does not appear to have been as successful as one would like.
Ho hum.

 

[Brayman]

In that case I hope the local area management will make sure that Clifton is manned at all times rather than leaving it to be manually wound by the poor boaters.

There will be no excuse for having two lockkeeprs on Days or Culham if there is no one on Clifton.

Perhaps we should provde them with a flowchart to make sure they know how to do it?

 

[boatone]

Those of us wishing to avail ourselves of the new cruising season in 2011 may wish to note that Clifton Lock is hand-winding only when the lock is unmanned, owing to vibration on one of the sluices upsetting the sensors..........

I also understand that repairs to Sandford are struggling and may well over-run, making voyages to Oxford and beyond something to continue to look forward to.

Any further 'local knowledge' news about these issues?

 

[Captain Coochie]

Hand wind a lock How awfully common

 

[oldgit]

Hand wind a lock How awfully common

Oi.........

 

[TrueBlue]

Hand wind a lock How awfully common

Absolutely, old chap. Dash it all, One expects a flunky to wait upon One at each and every lock. Disgraceful.

I blame it all on this Dave chap, even though he went to the Right School - you'd think he'd understand, doncha know.

(Seriously, if you'd ever had to hand wind Sandford, you would realise that the hydraulics - especially now they've been upgraded - are a complete pain in manual operation. Even Clifton top gate is heavy, IIRC, and it's only a small lock).

 

[Brayman]

Those of us wishing to avail ourselves of the new cruising season in 2011 may wish to note that Clifton Lock is hand-winding only when the lock is unmanned, owing to vibration on one of the sluices upsetting the sensors. .

So if the lock keeper is on duty what method does he use? The old controls or the new ones with his own knack of overcoming the problems?

Hopefully there will always be a lock keeper there.

 

[TrueBlue]

So if the lock keeper is on duty what method does he use? The old controls or the new ones with his own knack of overcoming the problems?

Hopefully there will always be a lock keeper there.

When the lock is in attended mode, the 'keeper has total control of the gates and sluices. In this case the head gates sluices were vibrating (a bit like a piece of grass held 'twixt one's thumbs and blown - if you get the analogy). The locky can minimise this by controlling how much and how fast he raises the sluice. On public power the sluices are fixed in phases, so there's no user control.

Anyway public power has been restored, but divers will check on Friday.

Clifton is a low priority lock, there's no summer assistant and reliefs will also be questionable. So it's not a lock that needs to go wrong.

There was no reply from Sandford, so I can't give an update.

 

[Brayman]

When the lock is in attended mode, the 'keeper has total control of the gates and sluices. In this case the head gates sluices were vibrating (a bit like a piece of grass held 'twixt one's thumbs and blown - if you get the analogy). The locky can minimise this by controlling how much and how fast he raises the sluice. On public power the sluices are fixed in phases, so there's no user control.

Anyway public power has been restored, but divers will check on Friday.

Clifton is a low priority lock, there's no summer assistant and reliefs will also be questionable. So it's not a lock that needs to go wrong.

There was no reply from Sandford, so I can't give an update.

Thanks Mike, you beat B1 to it today.

Hope the EA are reading this!