Bouba
Well-Known Member
It was also a tv series. They then went to America to do the Loop (the narrowboat went by ship). I have seen a few narrowboats on French canals
Would you?
- Thread starter fisherman
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Bru
Well-Known Member
Ummmm, many such projects got as far as a survey by a well known name. I forget off the top of my head just how many putative projects James Brindley had on the go at one point but it was in the dozens.
Brindley, Telford et al were routinely engaged to undertake surveys for such proposals and rarely did they turn round and say "it's impossible" or "it's a daft idea"! Wouldn't have been good business when you think about it
It was actually William Chapman who first surveyed the route for a proposed Newcastle - Carlisle canal (i had to look that up, i had a feeling it wasn't Telford) which proposal got as far as parliament but was rejected
Several adaptations of the proposal also failed to gain traction as the reality was that the terrain would be challenging and a railway made far more sense. Later, Chapman revived his canal plans substituting plateways and incline planes for canal and locks resulting in a practical proposal at not much more than a quarter of the cost
After further shenanigans that proposal eventually morphed into the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway
Thus we have, in fact, a very good and classic example illustrating the point i was making - even by the early 1800s railways were a far better proposition than canals
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Ummmm, many such projects got as far as a survey by a well known name. I forget off the top of my head just how many putative projects James Brindley had on the go at one point but it was in the dozens.
Brindley, Telford et al were routinely engaged to undertake surveys for such proposals and rarely did they turn round and say "it's impossible" or "it's a daft idea"! Wouldn't have been good business when you think about it
It was actually William Chapman who first surveyed the route for a proposed Newcastle - Carlisle canal (i had to look that up, i had a feeling it wasn't Telford) which proposal got as far as parliament but was rejected
Thanks. Telford was brought in later to give a second opinion and it was more-or-less his modified proposal for the west end which became the Carlisle Canal ... a dead duck from the day it opened, at a time when railways were already technically and economically viable.
I think the fundamental problem is that although the east and west ends are both fairly flat, the middle is surprisingly high. The Newcastle and Carlisle reaches (iirc) about 500' asl near Brampton ... that's a hell of a lot of locks, inclined planes, lifts or whatever.
Bru
Well-Known Member
Back to the reference books !!!
Yes, Telford's opinion was sought, this was frequently the case as the attachment of a famous name to such proposals was politically and commercially extremely beneficial
However, whilst Telford made various suggestions and proposed three possible routes and designs, nothing came of it
Nearly a decade later it was once again Chapman who was engaged to survey yet another new route (albeit the promoters had adopted one Telford suggestion - that the canal should be of suitable dimensions to accommodate Mersey Flats) and it was Chapman who was engaged as Consulting Engineer
Thus, because it is usual for the credit for a canal or railway to be assigned to the Consulting Engineer, Telford's name isn't usually associated with the Carlisle canal unless one digs deeper into its history
And indeed, in truth, Telford had precious little to do with the canal which was almost entirely Chapman's work from start to finish (Chapman is an unsung engineer of the period who receives scant attention despite being responsible for much of the final form of the Irish canals and several major port and dock projects around the UK - Scarborough harbour, for example, in its final and current form is almost entirely his work)
Forgive me for some pedantry about this - as a historian, and particularly an industrial historian with a special interest in canals and railways, it irks me that so much is attributed to the likes of Brindley, Telford, Brunel etc when they actually very often had little or nothing to do with the actual implemented design and construction
Fine engineers though they undoubtedly were, once they were established famous names in their field it became almost de rigueur for them to be "consulted" in order to attach their famous name to a proposal. In reality, their attention to such projects was invariably brief and ephemeral with the actual work being carried out by lesser known but equally competent engineers such as the aforementioned Chapman
Even where the likes of Telford and Brindley were engaged as the Consulting Engineer, they frequently had little actual involvement with the final design and construction being the work of one or more resident engineers
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. I was really just pointing out that my memory of some involvement by Telford wasn't entirely false, and that the Tyne - Solway canal was a little less of a castle in the air then many others, even though only a tiny bit was built and the rest became a railway.
On a related note, it's sad how often Wade gets credit for roads which were actually built by Caulfeild, who usually doesn't even get his name spelled correctly.
Bru
Well-Known Member
Another good example of my pet beef and one i wasn't familiar with - now noted for future reference
fisherman
Well-Known Member
Fred drift. It was reported in a book about the navvy men, that a navvy was unloading a railway wagon into a canal boat at the end of a siding. Unbeknown to him a locomotive had gone out of control on the main line and the signalman turned it into the same siding. The first he knew was when the wagon suddenly jumped into the canal for no apparent reason
Newton's Cradle effect.
Newton's Cradle effect.
Bru
Well-Known Member
further historical pedantry I'm afraid ...
Navvies (derived from navigators) *built* the canals and railways. The term wasn't used (except erroneously) to describe workers on or around either
Somebody unloading a railway wagon into a canal boat would simply have been a labourer
(Of course, some navvies moved on to be labourers, boatmen or railway workers)
Navvies (derived from navigators) *built* the canals and railways. The term wasn't used (except erroneously) to describe workers on or around either
Somebody unloading a railway wagon into a canal boat would simply have been a labourer
(Of course, some navvies moved on to be labourers, boatmen or railway workers)
oldmanofthehills
Well-Known Member
Narrow boats have regularly made the passage down Down the Severn Estury from Sharpness Ship Canal to the mouth of the Bristol Avon and then Up to London via the Kennet and Avon.
All windows shut, Bow well and front hatch sealed and covered.
And all this with the most tidal waters in Europe plus whirlpools. A pilot is advised.
One boat come unstuck waiting for the tide at Portishead pool and dried out with the stern some 15 foot below the bows and it flooded on the rising tide so was sunk/scrapped
All windows shut, Bow well and front hatch sealed and covered.
And all this with the most tidal waters in Europe plus whirlpools. A pilot is advised.
One boat come unstuck waiting for the tide at Portishead pool and dried out with the stern some 15 foot below the bows and it flooded on the rising tide so was sunk/scrapped
fisherman
Well-Known Member
I'll see your pedantry and raise you a book title, it was a book about the navvy men, however erroneously titled.
I recommend the books by Pat McGill, starting with 'Moleskin Joe'. ............'There's a good time coming, though we may not live to see it'
mikefleetwood
Well-Known Member
Wasn't there a canal linking the upper Tamar to Bude? I think there are still traces on old maps.
Fanny Haddock
N/A
I must have been a Victorian mad man in my previous berth [sic]. I was thinking more along the lines of enforced conscription of the unemployed into indentured servitude, & cutting new canals out by hand. Far better to have them out in the open air than sitting at home putting on weight.
I suppose you could have had canal to train to canal vectors to bridge the missing sections but then the railway tunnels & bridges would have had to have been heightened.
I think there's a attitude problem. A tendency towards building to pokey little, minimum standards, unlike the way it's done in the US or Europe. I read also that the railway companies owned most of the canals and saw no reason to invest in a competing form of transport.
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Bru
Well-Known Member
Yep but it was mostly a tub boat canal with numerous inclined planes apart from a short stretch at the Bude end (in other words it wasn't a conventional canal of the sort we're familiar with today)
oldmanofthehills
Well-Known Member
In England we suffered from being almost the first to build long networks of purely artificial canal routes - as opposed to rivers with occasional canal bypass of rapids - and the first powered railroads. So our infrastructuire is more cautious and simpler. When they saw how well we did, others copied us on a larger scale. Hardly minimum standards in UK but bold to the point of financial recklessness - Brunels projects went bankrupt or similar maybe 3 times
oldmanofthehills
Well-Known Member
Bit like the Somerset Coal Canal then.
Bru
Well-Known Member
Er, fraid not!
We were actually a bit late to the canal game. The Canal du Midi in France and the Newry Canal in Ireland, to cite but two examples, both predated the first canal in England to wit the Sankey Canal and involved significant entirely artificial canal construction
And the Sankey Canal was itself a canalisation of the existing Sankey Brook
The first true canal in England, the Bridgewater, was directly inspired by the Canal du Midi which was visited by the Duke of Bridgewater and from his own papers sparked the idea to build a canal from Worsley to Manchester
We do though have a strong claim to the first railway! Although which of various contenders can actually claim to be the first largely depends on where you place the goalposts!
Charlie Boy
Well-Known Member
When ‘Narrow dog’ came out I had a conversation with Tony Brooks about this. Back then he was a big authority on this stuff, probably still is. He seemed to regard a Channel crossing as a fuss about not a lot. The important thing was to seal the boat, and particularly the windows (with ply) and pick the weather carefully.
"Tony Brooks' marine courses and advice"
"Tony Brooks' marine courses and advice"
Bru
Well-Known Member
When you can't say anything nice, say nothing
oldmanofthehills
Well-Known Member
The germans invented the plate railway (man or ox hauled), the british invented the locomotive and that changed the game, plus modifying the rail and investing in vast networks.
Canals are ancient but no one had a large network crossing great distances. Britain has very few long navigable rivers, perhaps only the Thames and Severn and the latter is fraght at the estuary. France, Germany and Holland have loads. So copying the Canal du Midi in smaller scale gave a major boost to British business and then they flourished, but sadly mostly with the smaller width suited to The Bridgewater and the riverine cut offs. I would love to see the Frome Canal aka Stroudwater Canal restored but it was never big enough or long enough to viable except for a breif period. But then it linked through to the Thames watershed to give fastest way to London for goods and folk.
Bru
Well-Known Member
Britain didn't need large navigable rivers. We're an island and our equivalent of the Rhine, Danube etc was our coast
With the notable exception of Birmingham, virtually of our major conurbations were accessible to at least coasting vessels (such as sailing barges, flats, keels etc)
There were sound economic reasons for the relatively small size of England's inland canals. They were as big as they needed to be for the trade they were intended to carry and as small as they could be to keep construction costs to a minimum
Bear in mind that 80% of the cost of the Canal du Midi was contributed by the state and to a greater or lesser extent this set the pattern for continental canal development. In contrast, the English canals were financed almost entirely by private enterprise
With the notable exception of Birmingham, virtually of our major conurbations were accessible to at least coasting vessels (such as sailing barges, flats, keels etc)
There were sound economic reasons for the relatively small size of England's inland canals. They were as big as they needed to be for the trade they were intended to carry and as small as they could be to keep construction costs to a minimum
Bear in mind that 80% of the cost of the Canal du Midi was contributed by the state and to a greater or lesser extent this set the pattern for continental canal development. In contrast, the English canals were financed almost entirely by private enterprise
