I had a good walk from Resolven to Ysgwrfa yesterday, a couple of photos below - took loads and will keep adding uploads as and when time permits. The canal is now derelict, and probably looks like many canals did in the 40's and 50's. The first lock at Resolven is probably useable as the gates were replaced in 2007, the others are not as they have the 1990 gates on. In some cases these older gates have been heavily patched indictating attempts to keep the canal going. On this evidence gates fall apart after 34 years! There is also silting which has led to reed growth and between them the channel is impassible in places.
There are only three miles of canal, and there were never many boats on it - two separate trip boats which may or may not have traded at the same time. Nevertheless in the late 90s the canal at Resolven was buzzing on a summer Sunday, with trip boats, canoes*, towpath walkers and gongoozlers indulging in coffee or ice cream.
*There is still canoe hire from Resolven in season, although only the pound the canoes are on is passable
There are seven locks on the length - one at the start described above, then a pair after about a mile, a single lock after about another mile and then three up to the end at Ysgqwrfa. Having seen boats go through all seven about 30 years ago it's a bit sad.
Some of these would allow an interesting (to some) analysis of lock gate failure - most of the joints have rotted (which squares with CRT Bradley saying that it tends to be the joints that go - this seems to be true even on gates that aren't used) but in some instances the cross beams have snapped, they must be very rotten to do that with virtually no load other than the weight of the gate.