Heartland

They are also useful in tracing old tramroads which also assisted those 2018 extended tour notes

Re the post The London & North Western Railway Company owned the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company. The industries in the Black Country tended to be set up by the Canals. It was easier for the Railway Companies to build interchange basins, like in the photo, and use canal boats to collect cargoes, for transhipment to the railways in these interchanges. 🙂 ER NO QUITE ROIT The London & North Western Railway DID NOT own the BCN, but under the London & Birmingham Railway Arrangement Act did guarentee share dividends. The Industries in the Black Country were often close to waterways, but that was only a proportion and some were on hills and served by tramways and the term"Black Cpuntry" only covered a specific area , As counties were concerned it was an area that covered East Worcestershire and South Staffordshire and a part that once belonged to Shropshire. Prior to the canals the turnpikes and earlier highways provided road transport to the mines, charcoal iron furnaces and glassworks Because of the proliferation of waterways canal and railway interchange became common in order for goods to be interchanged between canalside works and railway basin. The model of the Midland Railway basin seems to be based on that at Wolverhampton which was served by the BCN (Wrley & Essington) The Frood Branch as mentioned in previous posts seems to have had an incline section. My original post came about through organising the RCHS Wrexham Weekend 2018, whose extended tour notes have had a copy deposited with the National Library of Wales. I did look at the Tithe maps as part of that study copies of which have been reproduced above by Bucaneer. They provided a useful study of the extent of the canal

What happened to the Bridge from Liverpool to Ireland via the IoM? There was also a tunnel suggested As to HS2 there is some remarkable bits of engineering in progress with tunnel boring machines at work and a bridge building machine for the long viaduct at Colne Brook. I wonder what people thought about about the construction of the Great Central through Leicester beside the navigation with towering brick viaducts changing the local area ?

I seem to recall the BBC Report showed a drained pound on the Huddersfield- was that the case?

I have heard that the freight to Leeds is or isn't going to restart! John Dean junior has Battlestone ready to go according to JohnV. However when we moored at the Jolly Farmers moorings the man in charge of the fishing was congratulating himself on stopping it! When I told him it was probably back on he nearly had a fit, I pointed out it's a full commercial navigation and moving freight is far more important than fishing, he walked off 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Pity you did not have any tar and feathers with you !

What data will be looked for in this census. Will it be to collect all the boaters details including persons on board, dogs, cats meerkats etc ? Why is the current licence information not sufficient for their records ? Are their ulterior motives ? How many live aboard persons who may not have a licence is perhaps yet another factor !

Both positive and negative opinions it would appear. Yet the reference to the Severn is encouraging may be there is still potential for the increase in traffic there As to waste collection, it must be rememembered that Tyseley Destructor is beside the canal (Grand Union) as is one in Wolverhampton (BCN). There is probably potential for moving "local" waste by waterway if this case is examined. It just takes somebody to start up traffic as experiment. Sometimes experiments last for long time ! On a negative side as Mr Magpie Junior, might confirm consultant costs for such preparatory investigations can kill off a project.

How far north of Stourport can boats safely go ?

May be lateral thinking is needed there is traffic that can go by waterway, especially when it is not time critical. There are types of goods that could be stored in a canal boat hold until required. There is also the movement of waste and rubbish to a recycling facility which could be more widely adopted It would an interesting exercise to see if bringing of waste from domestic and industrial sources to a canal depot could be a commercial operation if that waste could be separated and broken down for resale. May be even Tracy could sleep on this thought !

As this is CRT waters the engineering marvels are limited to their control. There are others such as in Scotland But what of Wigan Flight on the Leeds & Liverpool and Burnley Embankment There is also the less obvious Sheepwash Embankment on the BCN main line The lock flights on the Worcester & Birmingham descending from Tardebigge The list could be quite long As to Little Venice that is a modern term perhaps the original name of the canal would be better And for the pedants Little or otherwise- the principal Venice, or Venezia, is in Italy, a fascinating and heritage laden place, but not really CRT waters. although greater Birmingham does have more miles of canal than Venice, so they say!

It is important to recognise these structures as part of the industrial past and the need to convert coal into coke for the local iron smelting industry, placed on the off side of the Lancaster Canal they are five in number and credit must be given to the work of those that restored them.

You might need to add a bit more detail and some specifics to get a sensible reply. Riperian rights might be mistakenly be linked to development rights and Oxfordshire Council has quite rightly picked up on the transgression. Unfortunately in other parts of the country some do flagrantly abuse planning rights. Sadly it is against forum rules to single out specific examples! So it is not possible to add details in this case.

The use of doors in bridges on Birmingham Canals was important to save property damaged by fire resulting from enemy bombing in the war. As noted from a previous post the fire at Kappa had fire crews drawing water from the Grand Union where the bridge design enabled the threading of the fire hoses through to the water. So Tracy did make a valid point. There used to be fire doors in the old Lancaster Street Bridge, I seem to recall and in the past ,also I remember, an iron urinal to one side of the bridge (which used street sewers, NOT the cut as an outfall). But then the road was widened for the A34 improvements. It would be of interest to see where the water came from to put out the Princip Street fire.

The BBC reported this case and there is another image, slightly blurred, which shows the decking and shed Simon built. Placed alongside the Thames south of Oxford, I did wonder how much was actually visible from the river and who might actually see it to complain. There are also similar structures dotted around on privately owned land, I seem to recall. This is in stark contrast to certain areas of Birmingham, where certain individuals can seemingly do what they want and those that object are ignored. May be this is also the case elsewhere?

Contact sport- that is what some Go Boats do in Brum !