magpie patrick

Having personally pushed hard for the RCHS archive to get off the ground it's really good to see it getting used and giving value! I'll feed this back to the Council and Managing Committee. @1st ade did a fair amount of the behind the scenes work too.

Interesting - I've been out of the loop for sometime now on freight developments but as you suggest @fanshaft may know.

Given the way they land I should imagine that smarts a bit too 😬

I agree - the only time I've seen swans stuck on a road it was the hard shoulder on a motorway viaduct, and the problem wasn't the amount of road, it was the traffic and the swans were terrified. I genuinely don't know whether swans can launch themselves off a ledge, but even if they can, in this instance the crash barrier was in the way. In case anyone is wondering, I rang the emergency services and advised them, potential obstruction even if one takes a callous view ignoring the welfare of the swan. I am very much into swan welfare btw - the whooper swan in migration is a sight to behold

The problem, as shown in the video, is they need a long run up. Swans don't do vertical take off. Many years ago whilst lunching with Magpie the Elder, we saw two swans in a lock in Cassiobury Park - the lock was almost empty and they couldn't get out, I surmised they'd gone asleep in the full lock the night before. I managed to force a bottom paddle up an inch or so with my hands and a few minutes later I opened the gate - they needed no second invitation to leave the lock which seemed to confirm they were stuck!

The canal changes character quite a bit, but whilst it was restored it wasn't restored to any particular standard. Practically what @magnetman says is true but the reason the banks are so wild is that restoration of many lengths didn't consist of much more than dredging the channel and hoping for the best. The infamous Limpley Stoke dry section does have a shelf, but it's beyond the end of your proposed cruise. I don't recommend mooring on the summit - the level drops alarmingly on occasion. Other than that, I've taken a 23 foot cabin cruiser, a 45 foot narrowboat and a 56 foot by 12 foot wide beam over much of the canal (all of it between them) and always managed to moor somewhere

That is awful 😖 😱 On a related note, every study I do these days on a short isolated waterway has to cover the question of keeping any boat safe, the number on reason being arson. There is something about a boat being an unusual sight on a waterway that attracts trouble. It's a crying shame as these locations (including the River Tees) are exactly the places where we want to encourage boats and boating

On the whole CRT don't have that responsibility for precisely that reason. They aren't required to upgrade the bridge, so unless the original can take modern traffic it will have been upgraded by the highway authority. It's usually width that's the issue though - the old hump back bridges can take one heck of a loading. There is a story told of a redundant bridge near Newport, Shropshire being subject to a load test for research purposes - apparently it took a point load of over 200 tonnes before it started to fail. The parapets take less of a loading - I think several drivers lose their no claims bonus on these.

There are several ways on which a navigation authority might apply to close a navigation permanently - these days an order under the Transport & Works Act 1992 might be favoured, that is certainly the most common way of amending rights of navigation now. But that's not the same thing as a default "no need to keep it open" By contrast if a canal is a CRT remainder waterway they need do nothing.

There was but that was on a completely different basis, not least because it's a river and even CRT rivers, where they are the natural channel with thye bed owned by riparian owners, have a right of navigation. In summary, the issue on the Derwent IIRC was whether the act of abandonment of the navigation withdrew all rights of navigation or only those inferred by the enabling act. "(5) …; and any local enactment passed with respect to any such inland waterway, so far as that enactment – (a) confers any public right of navigation over the waterway; or; (b) imposes any duty to maintain that waterway for the purpose of navigation (including any duty to support, or maintain a supply of, water for the waterway for that purpose) shall cease to have effect." This provision needs to be read together with s.115(1), providing: "(1) In sections 105 and 112 of this Act – (a) references to any right of navigation over a waterway or canal include references to any right to use or keep any vessel or craft on the waterway or canal …" One needs to read the sub-section in full Section 17 of the M1Regulation of Railways Act 1873 (which requires the Board to maintain certain inland waterways) shall cease to apply to any inland waterway which on the date on which this section comes into force is comprised in the undertaking of the Board; and any local enactment passed with respect to any such inland waterway, so far as that enactment— (a)confers any public or private right of navigation over the waterway; or (b)imposes any duty to maintain that waterway for the purpose of navigation (including any duty to supply, or maintain a supply of, water for the waterway for that purpose), shall cease to have effect. It is clear that this section does not apply to waterways that are not the board's responsibility

Just putting in my tupennorth... This breach would probably take CRT 2-3 years to get fixed, I think that both Stanthorne and Dutton breaches (which were not that far away) took around the 18 month to 2 year mark, and whilst we all assumed these would be fixed (because that's what CRT do) it took them a while to announce what would happen and when. Even the movement at Marple Locks has taken over a year for each lock to be fixed. I think (and that's all I can say) that this will eventually be fixed - but it may take five years because it's a bigger hole, less accessible and Peel won't have access to funding sources that CRT have because they are a private company. If you think DEFRA say no loudly to CRT wait for the volume of the raspberry they would blow at a private company. That said, unless the financial climate around canals changes, one day there will come something that won't be fixed - in the past there has been talk of priorities, would you let the northern BCN go to save the Shroppie for example? I doubt we will have the luxury of making that choice. If a tunnel collapsed tomorrow how long do you think the repair would take? Would it happen at all?

The canal wasn't owned by Peel in 1971 - I believe the original Ship Canal ownership structure was still in place. In my direct experience (I do have some but not a huge amount) property and infrastructure companies will spend cash that has no chance of recovery in cash flow when they have too. Curiously this sometimes means spending big money but not small stuff. If they are legally obliged to keep a canal navigable and you can navigate it after a fashion then they won't spend, but if it fails completely they will. There's always a risk of due diligence elsewhere on another project finding that they don't meet legal obligations when required. That doesn't mean they'll do it quickly though, and they'll certainly look to minimise cost and maximise external funding. They may also increase their efforts to get someone else to take the canal over.

It snowed yesterday in Frome, and to appreciate the beauty of a snowflake one must stand out in the cold. I looked out of my window, thought "stuff that - they're not THAT beautiful" and settled back in my armchair next to the radiator....

It's a number of posts not a length of time - I think ten, certainly no more than ten. That's because we had a couple of instances of dormant one-post accounts suddenly becoming spambots, they probably always had been and were left primed and ready... Admin can override it and I've put a call to them internally - us mere mods can't. The quickest solution is to engage in some banter on this thread and get the post count up.

Yes, on payment of the appropriate toll (a bit people often forget) This was true of nearly all canal enabling acts but most were either nationalised or abandoned. The nationalised ones lost their right of navigation in 1968 under the transport act.

Beverley Beck has it's own navigation authority who maintain Grove Hill Lock and the Beck up to the town. Many years ago it was Beverley Corporation so it might now be East Riding Council

Not between the Hull City Council area and the legal start of the Driffield navigation, which Bradshaw gives as Struncheon Hill Lock. Between the two, a distance of about 19 miles, is an open navigation - there is a right of navigation but no navigation authority to maintain or manage it.

This is the reason that there is a stop gate at the end of the CRT section of the Ashby, rather than stop planks. It only protects CRT, but as they have about 30 miles of level canal to protect and the canal society about half a mile this is probably fair enough.

Short answer no - my most up to date info is from about ten years ago when working for the Coal Authority on the Worsley to Leigh section when there was certainly a PRN, and I'm not aware of any legislation or order since.

Yes, not being nationalised the Bridgwater wasn't affected by the provisions of the 1968 Transport Act. How much of a lever that is to getting this fixed is another matter. I believe there is also a PRN through Welches Dam for example

A certain Mr Catchpole, once of this parish, had his brand new narrow boat launched on the tidal river Welland, and once they'd untied him and let him set off he found the Morse control lever was backwards. So, not only can it be done, it can be done unintentionally.

Personally I would not get on the side deck of a boat in a lock, if the boat rocks towards the lock wall you may get very badly injured.

There appears to be a lock called "Five Paddle", did it really have an extra one? (I suppose if one included gate paddles it might have one less than the others!)

They key is intriguing, as it includes quite precise information relating to facilities, above, below etc - the fact of their existence would be useful, but such detail is for someone who needs to look for them, so not a typical working boat crew and not an office bod who needs general information. The lack of ownership, copyright etc suggests it wasn't intended for wide circulation If it was drawn by Molly Trail she must have been a dab hand at drafting.