Brilliant....
Technology comes in all guises. It's not all 0 and 1s....
Come kneel with us at UK's Cathedral, er, Oil Rig of the Canal: Engineering masterpiece Anderton Boat Lift
One of the Seven Wonders of the British Waterways, the Anderton Boat Lift, near the Cheshire town of Northwich, is a perfect example of the rise, fall and reinvention of Britain's Victorian industrial heritage. When it first opened in 1875, the lift – referred to by some imaginative souls as the Cathedral of the Canals and the …
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:10 GMT Jason Bloomberg
Re: Brilliant....
It's not all 0 and 1s....
It's more like 'fuzzy logic': Up, down, and fuck knows what's broken now.
There's something fundamentally wonderful about archaic constructs still working no matter how many patches, bodges and kludges have been applied. Like Trigger's broom.
"Make do and mend" has been a proud British tradition.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 14:56 GMT Muscleguy
Re: Similiarly...
It still transfers canal traffic between the two canals.. The tourist trips up and down the wheel (great fun) are not the only traffic.
BTW last I was there the cafe did toasted gluten free sandwiches which were much appreciated by me. We’ve taken several folk there.
BTW if you walk up, over and along there’s a section of, grass covered, Antonine wall nearby which gives a good idea of it. A pleasant walk on a nice day.
I often think of my late engineer father when I go and how much he would have appreciated the energy saving, efficient design. I have to appreciate it for him. Both grandfathers were engineers as well and I suspect they too would have liked it.
There is something Victorian in the size and chunkiness of the structure. Victorian and 21st Century all at once. Almost steam punk. Though the Anderson Boat Lift would make a great outing for a Steam Punk society.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 10:57 GMT Steve Davies 3
Well worth visiting
a great diversion from the hectic M6.
This and the Bridgewater Canal (not named after the place in Somerset but after the Duke of) are well worth a visit.
Halton Lighthouse (also used as a jail) on the Mersey is good as well.
There are lots of other industrial artifacts around the area that are not as well known as this. Get your exploring tinfoil hat on though!
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:12 GMT Willy Ekerslike
Nostalgia
This article brought back memories from the 1970's, when I was a student at Bath University. A friend and I spent many a weekend locating the Combe Hay locks, caisson and inclined plane of the Somersetshire Coal Canal. It wasn't part of any formal project - just curiosity. We found the majority of the locks; we think we found the site of the caisson and its pump-house; we also reckon we could trace the inclined plane. I read that now much of this has been formally mapped and is listed. We took a lot of photos on our trips - unfortunately, all my negatives and prints were lost in one of several house moves since. I'd like to go back and retrace my steps there one day...
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:46 GMT phuzz
Re: Nostalgia
I'd never heard of a 'caisson lock' until today. That is a bonkers idea and you'd never get me in one.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:17 GMT Scott Broukell
I often wonder if a new system of additional, craftily engineered, canals (and plumbing/drainage), could not only be part of a solution to alleviate flooding in some of the worst affected areas of the country, but might also provide low emission transport links in certain localities as well (wind/solar charged electric boats etc.). But then again, I'm no expert in such matters (probably shows), just a thought. A very worthwhile article, thank you.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:40 GMT ForthIsNotDead
You know what, that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.
If it really could be designed as a 'relief' valve for flooding areas, then:
* Provides potential relief in times of extreme flood
* Provides low carbon transport alternative for goods
* Provides additional opportunities for leisure pursuits
* Creates jobs, especially during the construction phase
* The downside? The NIMBYs that would want it anywhere near them (though if it could be used to relieve flooding they could possibly be persuaded).
* We can't do anything cheaply any more. It would take a barrage of consultants 10 years just to conclude that "actually, this could potentially have the potential for potentially being quite a good idea. Potentially.". That's before construction even starts.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 16:11 GMT Phil O'Sophical
If it really could be designed as a 'relief' valve for flooding areas,
The big problem with flood relief is that all you can do is move the water somewhere else. If the outflow is tidal then a high tide at the same time as lots of water enters the system upstream will still cause flooding somewhere. Ultimately you need a sacrificial space somewhere to take the overflow.
It would take a barrage of consultants 10 years just to conclude that "actually, this could potentially have the potential for potentially being quite a good idea.
And then some treehuggers would complain that it was going to drown some frogs, and it would all get cancelled.
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Friday 20th March 2020 17:03 GMT rg287
... we've removed all the landscape features that used to absorb the extra water (marshes & wetlands) and keep building houses in places ta flood..
Along with all the upland woods and forests which trapped water upstream and "flattened the curve" (wait, where have we been hearing that recently?), either sucking up water for the foliage, or just releasing it slowly over the course of days/weeks rather than hours.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:34 GMT PhilipN
Upvote
With today’s mobile phones we do not actually need to be in other places quite so much, or to get there quite so fast, and in any event there is so much to do on the phone to pass the time productively (such as this), I would be happy to see a canal system instead of HS2. Indeed is there not a network of canals (originally) carpeting the entire country which could be revivified with a tiny fraction of the HS2 budget?
Going off topic but now I wonder, since I have not been to those parts of the country for years, have all the railway lines closed in the ‘60’s by diktat of Dr. Beeching been repurposed? Cycle tracks - there won’t be any steep hills? Time was you could get almost anywhere by rail. Or canal.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 16:07 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Upvote
PhilipN,
Lots of the old trackbed exists. For example when they extended the Chiltern Line to Oxford - they didn't actually need to make that many changes. Lots of planning and time to build stations. There's also building work on re-creating the old Oxford to Cambridge line. I believe it will reach Milton Keynes by about 2023. Again that's mostly done in upgrades and links to existing track and re-building the old trackbed. However it hits some big housing developments - where all the track was rippped out - and last time I looked nobody has decided what to do.
When I read about the trams in Manchester, they also used lots of old railway trackbed, plus some tram tracks built on roads.
My town still has much of the trackbed going South from the Chiltern line to join the West Coast mainline. Lots of houses have big steep banks at the bottom of their gardens - and a lot have those bits inside their fences. So I don't know if they own it, or have just nicked it - but clearly with a lot of legal work that bit of the track could be rebuilt. Just not the bit my side of the main road, where the bridge was demolished and flats have been built where that and the junction with the Chiltern line was.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 19:47 GMT Anonymous Custard
Re: Upvote
On the topic of the "lost" railways, there's been a couple of series of the very interesting "Walking Britain's Lost Railways" with Rob Bell basically doing just that. Some very pretty scenery and a lot of fascinating history. Well worth a watch if you're interested in the subject and are in the UK (or can grab a UK IP address).
They're on Channel 5, the most recent run is ongoing and is still on their My5 catch-up service.
https://www.my5.tv/walking-britain-s-lost-railways/season-2
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9025180/
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 20:03 GMT Stork
Re: Upvote
I think one of the reasons for the 60es railway closures was that there was never really justification for a lot of the lines in the first place.
At some stage, I think late Victorian, railway companies only got concessions on condition on building extra railways. So, to get the lines that made money you had to build lines that did not make sense on their own, it was just an operating cost. Add to that railway mania earlier (a bit like .com bubble) and you end up with lines that did not have much traffic, in particular as cars became more common and buses went faster on better roads.
The railway closures happened in other countries too, I think the Danish network was 1.5x what it is now.
PS: All is from memory, I know you will feel free to correct me ;-)
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Thursday 5th March 2020 13:50 GMT Tom 7
Re: Upvote
FlyBe collapse today is an interesting example of why we need things that are 'not needed'. They themselves may not be profitable but they enable far more GDP than it would cost to subsidise them. The M6 was used by practically no-one for quite a while after it opened. Many of the places Beeching isolated (I live in one) would be bustling now and more than paying their way if the trains still operated. Most Devon and Cornwall holiday resorts would be packed with happy tourist rather than the ones who've spent five hours on a couple of miles of the M5.
It always amazes me that people say we should be more like the US in our economy and yet we neglect the very infrastructure that made the US possible and yet seems vital when it just gets people into London 20minutes faster if they happen to live at the appropriate station.
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Thursday 5th March 2020 22:48 GMT PhilipN
Re: Upvote
Exactly so. The supreme irony, not that I understood it that way at the time, was that, thousands of miles of line having been closed to save money, the regular news when I was a kid in the '60's was how much the Government had to kick into British Rail every year. From memory it was into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCXaJ2Ooa4
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Thursday 5th March 2020 13:41 GMT Tom 7
Re: Upvote
A lot of Beeching's old cuts are far beyond actually re-using - houses and businesses built on it, bridges knocked down to allow double decker buses to get round.
Canals are potentially very efficient ways of moving stuff around - around London you'd have to kick a lot of people out of their house boats to re-industrialise them. However while they are efficient energy wise unless companies realise they make a good place to store goods on the move and can take advantage of this over JIT then they will be ignored.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:40 GMT Kubla Cant
Interesting idea.
I'm no expert, either. But half a mile from my house are the Bedford Rivers, two canals constructed in the 17th century to alleviate flooding in the Fens. They aren't much used for navigation, probably because the area they traverse is very rural (and not very picturesque, to be honest).
As far as I know they've worked successfully for 350 years. There was bad flooding in 1947, but that seems to have been caused by failure of a flood bank on the Ouse upstream from the drains.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 16:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bedford rivers
And for those who click on the Wikipedia link above, make sure to click through to the Bedford Level experiment, where Alfred Russel Wallace was able to demonstrate the curvature of the earth. The note that he was criticised for "his 'injudicious' involvement in a bet to 'decide' the most fundamental and established of scientific facts" is particularly good.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 20:38 GMT jake
The issue is ...
... that the places that are flooding are the low points. To drain them you need pumps. More ditches/canals will just move more water to the low points, regardless of how craftily engineered they are. If it were that easy, the Victorians probably would have taken care of it back when labo(u)r was essentially free and environmental regulations nonexistent.
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Thursday 5th March 2020 13:04 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: The issue is ...
The fenland rivers are mostly higher than the surrounding country. The peat in the fields has contracted because of the removal of water, and it was apparently common to set fire to it in the early days to enrich the soil.
Water is pumped up into the rivers from field drains. Originally the pumps were powered by windmills, then by steam engines, then internal combustion, and finally electricity.
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Friday 6th March 2020 13:17 GMT EvilDrSmith
Gets discussed from time to time. Not so much flood relief, to my knowledge, but as a transport link and also a water distribution network (i.e. a 'national grid' for water supply).
Transport I think is tricky, because of security and that the cost of the driver is probably the main cost of transport nowadays, so you pay a couple of hours of a truck drivers' time, or for a couple of days of a bargee.
Perhaps Elon Musk should concentrate on autonomous, electric, canal barges...
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Boat Lifts on the Canal du Centre - Belgium are based on Anderton design
In Belgium we made a bit later the same lifts based on that design from Anderton ( & Edwin Clarck boat lift design in Fontinettes France )
Here it was was Chief Engineer Jean Kraft de Saulx of Company John Cockerill who designed it and made it.
The site is now Unseco protected a pleasure to visit it and drink the local beers
English and Dutch wiki isn't correct
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_Lifts_on_the_Canal_du_Centre
French wiki is more accurate
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascenseurs_%C3%A0_bateaux_du_Canal_du_Centre
and a bit farther away we have the modern and total waste of taxpayers money " Strépy-Thieu boat lift "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C3%A9py-Thieu_boat_lift
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:23 GMT hammarbtyp
Re: Boat Lifts on the Canal du Centre - Belgium are based on Anderton design
and a bit farther away we have the modern and total waste of taxpayers money " Strépy-Thieu boat lift "
Not sure what the basis of that comment is - on the continent rivers are still important transport routes and by providing a link between the Meuse and the Scheldt allowed an increase in traffic. What would be better, building more motorways?
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 12:22 GMT Jim Willsher
Brilliant. I grew up in Little Leigh, which is surrounded by the Trent and Mersey canal, I recall using the boat lift in the early eighties (I must have been aged 8 or 9) on a day trip; this was shortly before it closed when the "save the boat lift" publicity boomed. I then moved to Scotland, but visited the lift last year and was amazed to see not only the lift but also all the surrounding Brunner Mond salt flashes had been transformed to parkland and joined up with Marbury Country Park.
The lift was a magnificent bit of engineering, and I remember following events as it was refurbished and reopened..
One day I'll make that trip from the T&M to the Weaver on a boat again.....
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 19:18 GMT diodesign
Re: Conversion error?
350ft = 106m, fixed.
Don't forget to email [email protected] if you spot anything wrong.
C.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 18:13 GMT Missing Semicolon
Re: Hmm... I think the original design more elegant
Absolutely. The new design really relies on bonkers materials and powerful electric pumps. It's a massive shame they didn't ho for thinner oil and a diddy pump to drive it, in honour of the original elegant design.
I kind of think it's spoilt now.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:19 GMT hammarbtyp
Belgium lifts
I have visited the Canal du Centre at La Louviere in Belgium which dragged my wife to, much to her chagrin( don't feel too sorry for her, she knew who she was marrying :) ). It is not perhaps the most attractive part of Belgium and to get there you end up driving through a industrial estate, but is impressive none the less. You cannot help and be impressed by the engineering efficiency. I believe it still does work
Would also like to add the Strépy-Thieu boat lift which although far newer is also impressive.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 19:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Even better is working out how the thing actually lifts things: in the case where loaded boats are going up the lift but empty ones are coming down then work is being done so where's it coming from? The answer is (or can be) that water is doing the work: more water goes down than goes up so the loss of potential energy by the water is equal to the gain by the boat. An ideal one of these things needs no external power at all.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 13:53 GMT drand
Hurrah for the ABL
I grew up not far from here (Barnton) and the ABL and the rise and fall of industry around the Weaver and Trent & Mersey were a staple of school projects and trips for pretty much every subject. I remember visiting in the mid-eighties and the lift was in a bit of a state but still glorious and inspiring. There was, and still is, a lot of local pride vested in it.
There is also a lovely walk (if the rose tint has not grown too strong) west along the bucolic Weaver valley - all the way to the M56 if you like, which isn't so pretty - through Dutton locks and viaduct, and the old Weaver meanders around Pickering's Cut, where we used to play on the ice in severe winters (until I fell through and my Dad gave me a right bollocking).
Great article El Reg. I shall be reminiscing all afternoon.
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 14:06 GMT Andrew Laird
Niederfinow Ship Lift
Another excellent article in your "Geeks Guide" however in addition to the Belgium and French ship lifts to which you refer, he German ship lift at Niederfinow on the Oder-Havel Canal deserves a mention. Here the height difference in in excess of 30 metres and whereas the renovated Anderton Lift only serves leisure traffic, at Neiderfinow the volume of commercial traffic is such that a new bigger lift is under construction alongside the original. It is due ro open in a couple of years. Further information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederfinow_Boat_Lift
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 15:14 GMT Will Godfrey
Nice to see this reported.
I was a member of the Inland Waterways Association when this was being refurbished, so got to hear about it's reopening. I joined a gaggle of fellow waterways nerds on a coach trip to one of the early 'rides'. At that time we were warned the new pistons were a bit stiff and jerky - which they were! However, no water was spilled out of the cassions. I understand it soon became a nice smooth ride.
Note to self: Must find an excuse to go there again.
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Thursday 5th March 2020 20:37 GMT Rufus_T
Re: One of Severn Wonders
The seven wonders of the waterways are (according to CRT):
1. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - Telford and Jessop's 125 feet high, 1,000 feet long stream in the sky over the River Dee
2. Standedge Tunnel - at 645 feet above sea level, 636 feet below the Pennines it goes under and 3.5 miles in length it is the deepest, highest and longest tunnel on the canal network.
3. Caen Lock Flight - Rennie's flight of sixteen locks in a straight line, with reservoir pounds off to one side between each lock.
4. Barton Swing Aqueduct - When the River Irwell was canalized to become the Manchester Ship Canal, the original Brindley stone aqueduct would have reduced the air draft too much, so Sir Edward Leader Williams designed a replacement that could be sealed at each end and be swung (with the 800 tons of water in it) out of the way.
5. Anderton Boat Lift
6. Bingley Five Rise - A five-lock staircase (where the bottom gate of one lock is the top gate of the next). The steepest flight of locks in the UK
7. Burnley Embankment - A mile-long embankment that carries the Leeds and Liverpool Canal into (or perhaps more accurately over, sixty feet over) the centre of Burnley.
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Tuesday 23rd March 2021 13:43 GMT Lotaresco
Re: One of Severn Wonders
"Standedge Tunnel"
Probably better described as Standedge Tunnels, since there are four of them, two single track and one double track railway tunnels and one canal tunnel all linked by adits. It's a phenomenal work of engineering, the trick of using the canal to drain the railway tunnels is a clever element of the design.
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Thursday 5th March 2020 13:50 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
English Heritage..
ObPedantry:
English Heritage wasn't formed until 1983. The listing was probably done by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (AKA RCHME) - they get merged with EH in 1999 - at which point EH took over the statutary listing process.
In 2015 EH split with one part (renamed The English Heritage Trust) becoming a charity (and carrying on running the EH properties like Stonehenge) and the res staying as a Government body called Historic England.
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Thursday 5th March 2020 15:14 GMT MJI
And a few thoughts from above comments.
Old railway lines and canals, I used to love finding them and examining them, seen such as the Coombe Hill canal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coombe_Hill_Canal
https://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/nature-reserves/coombe-hill-canal-and-meadows
Droitwich canal pre reopening
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droitwich_Canal
Always had an interest in Thames and Severn Canal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_and_Severn_Canal
Small streams off the Thames when I was young, explored some with a cheap old canoe (parents had a cabin cruiser) from where we moored.
Old railway lines, like Forest of Dean, managed to get my bike on a couple, but rather too bumpy for a road bike so did not do much, didn't have a traily.
As to unpaved roads, same sort of thing, I just love to be off the beaten track, still finding them, but many are not obvious, and others blocked from traffic, but I now have a 4x4 for ones I am allowed on.
Cornwall, about 25 years ago my parents won some first class train tickets and gave them to us, we went to St Ives. Managed to get to Penzance, Falmouth, Truro, Looe, by train, Newquay was closed so still need to do that branch.
Helston was really really annoying as some idiot closed the line so could not go there.
We travelled down behind a 47, through Cornwall in 158s and branches were ran by a right mix, Looe was the GWR150 117 set. Home by HST.
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Friday 6th March 2020 15:08 GMT gbru2606
Almost accidentally went down this once...
I took my partner on a trip on the Trent and Mersey for her 40th 10 years ago. It was a first on a narrow boat for us, the lovely Ruby Tuesday from Preston Dock. A beautiful boat with a lovely double bed, kitchen, lounge and log fire. After navigating the various tunnels over the first day or so, we came to Anderton. We couldn't actually see the lift at first. I (wrongly) decided that this was a right turn towards Chester and started heaving our 80ft narrow boat sharply right akin to attempting a hairpin bend. The lift access designed for boats coming the opposite direction. Attempting this ridiculous manouver, the lift came into full view while I also started to noticed the queue of other boaters with mouths agape who had moored up to plan their descent. As the massive construction loomed above and below us, the prospect of entering the lift loosened my sphincter dramatically. And my better half finally convinced me of my madness; that we needed to reverse, do a 360 and Moor up before I thrashed us and the boat together on a River that we had no maps for and knew absolutely nothing about. Apart from that moment of heart-thumping madness and the odd challenging lock, I'd highly recommend a week on the water. I remember once, on our return from another 4-day trip towards Manchester, we rounded a bend to suddenly see see and hear the M6 descent of the bridge over the Ship Canal. It appeared to me as if the World had suddenly gone to war or some other full-blown emergency such was the speed, racket, and number of vehicles pelting in both directions across the 6 lanes.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
