Pluto

This shows the locks in 1976, when a drain from the new road system was installed. I don't think there would be anything of much use to the K&AC restoration.

I was told by a boatbuilder who served his time on the L&LC in the 1940s that boats had a moulded breadth up to 14 feet, and that barges were over 14 feet. The moulded breadth is taken over the outside of the frames, which on wooden L&LC boats was 13 feet 9 inches to allow for the three inch thick rubbing strake. However, as the steel boats only needed an inch either side to allow for the skin and rubbing strake, making their moulded width just over 14 feet, then they should really be called barges. There was also a variation across the canal, with those working in Yorkshire being happy to be called bargemen, as bargemen there were skilled enough to work down the Humber. In Lancashire, being called a bargeman was more of an insult, as most bargemen only handled their craft around the docks, so were not considered as skilled as those on the canal.

Bacat barges at Doncaster in 1975, and their size.

You may have heard of the trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932, but they were behind the times, with a mass trespass taking place on L&LC property in 1911. Some documents outlining the case, which was won by the local trespassers, are below.

Access to L&LC towpaths was reviewed in 1961, with the following report being produced. The halfpenny day ticket dates from 1908, one bankranger having been hit on the head by two old ladies who thought he was begging when he asked for their half pence to walk on the towpath.

This is what a wide boat should look like, with the correct type of narrow canal boat.

This 1954 BW map of the C&HN gives dimensions for all the locks at that time, and shows the variations along the navigation as a result of progressive, but incomplete, enlargement of the locks.

Details regarding the protection of water supplies, if considered a problem, should be included as a clause the at least one of the Acts for a canal.

The French had it sorted in 1900; either use three women or an electric tractor.

A 1923 photo of the bottom gates on a lock on the Aylesbury Arm from the Waterways Archive collection.

From the few 18th century descriptions I have see, boats tended to be double-ended, so changing the position of the rudder could have been an easy solution.

One problem with canals is that there are often no specifications for what has been built, making it impossible to produce accurate job specifications for work today. Another is that engineers are taught about modern methods of construction, and sometimes do not understand the historical aspects of the technology they are trying to repair. When there were staff who stayed with a business for many years, the necessary knowledge was built up through on-the-job learning. Todays management systems seem to disregard this knowledge, with management thinking that everything is written down, often because they have never done the job they are managing. I am not saying that all we need are long-serving staff, but that the balance between academic and on-the-job learning has become distorted, with the latter becoming undervalued. It is a national problem, not just a CRT one.

Most canal reservoirs take the whole input from the catchment area. The level can be controlled by a valve in the dam itself, but this is only used in an emergency or for maintenance. Any excess water flows over the spillway. Of the L&LC reservoirs, only Slipper Hill has a feed controlled by a sluice next to a weir in a stream (other small streams feed directly into the reservoir), and Barrowford takes any excess off the summit. All the others take the full runoff from the catchment area without any controls.

It is almost certainly a result of English canals being built with private capital and no government involvement, while elsewhere governments either built or controlled the planning of canals so there was no restriction on passing from one canal to another.