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Pluto

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Everything posted by Pluto

  1. It is surprising how little traffic was originally expected on canals. Designing the reservoir system for the Rochdale, Rennie worked on 750 tons per week across the summit. As a wide canal with boats carrying 40 tons, that works out at 38 passages per week, or less than 6 passages per day, if the boats returned empty. More reservoir space was built subsequently, but the Rochdale later lost supplies when the canal company sold most of its reservoirs in the 1920s.
  2. The deep lock is the original one as, when first opened in 1774, water came directly from the River Douglas at Dean. The two shallow locks were built because of water supply problems following the construction of the canal from Dean to Wigan circa 1780. What worries me more is that BW are looking to lower water levels in order to reduce leakage on a canal that already needs dredging. They have applied for permission to lower Bank Newton bywash by a couple of inches to lower the level of the Marton Pool. This length has already had its depth reduced when the wooden boards on the bywash were removed some time ago. BW are trying to cut maintenance costs in the short term by lowering water levels, something which will be virtually impossible to reverse. Lowering water levels will cut leakage for a short time, but leaks will inevitably start again over time, making their whole scheme futile. Surely addressing current leakage is much cheaper than the dredging which will ultimately be necessary if water depth is reduced. What is happening on the L&LC could spread to canals nationally as a cheap short term solution to leaks, with water depths being reduced even more.
  3. According to the Heritage Boat Associations' Cool Metal - Clear Water, there are four boats still with Bolinders: 45M (built 1928, E-type 15hp), 50M (built 1928, E-type 15hp), 75M (built 1937, E-type 15hp)and 78M (built 1939, E-type 15hp).
  4. At Greenberfield yesterday, I saw a cow cooling off in the canal using a simplified 'bucket and chuck it' method, sort of just the chuck it. And what about the ducks and fishes.... perhaps we should stop complaining and go back to nature.
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  6. What about the Grand Canal boats in Ireland? There must be some there. I can certainly remember the yard at Tullamore being full of Bollinder bits in the early 1980s.
  7. It is 05/2010/10290 and in progress. I found it by putting Leeds & Liverpool Canal in the search area. Consultation was in February, but I am not sure if anything further has been done.
  8. I have just found out that BW are proposing to lower the level of the by-wash at Bank Newton Top Lock in order to lower the level of Marton Pool to reduce leakage. The weir has already been lowered by the removal of the wooden boards, and the plan will result in a further reduction in water level. Should such cheaper methods of reducing leaks be allowed, given that it is financially impossible to raise levels once they have been lowered. Surely leaks should be stopped rather than levels lowered as leaks at water surface level happen continually. Lowering water levels will only address the problem for a few years, and afterwards leaks will return. Have water levels been lowered elsewhere on the system, and if so did anyone complain. It certainly seems the thin end of the wedge, creating lower standards of maintenance, and long term problems, particularly for those with deeper boats. The application can be seen via http://www.planning.cravendc.gov.uk/fastweb/welcome.asp Enter planning no. 05/2010/10290
  9. The Old Dock, as it became known, was Liverpool's first dock, built by Thomas Steers and opened about 1715. It was filled in around 1810 and the site used for the Custom House, and later for the Law Courts. Steers is one of our most important canal engineers as he built the first summit level canal in Britain, the Newry Canal, using ground paddles, the first time they had been used in Britain. e was engineer for the Douglas Navigation, the Mersey & Irwell Navigation, was almost certainly involved with the Weaver Navigation, and surveyed the Calder & Hebble Navigation and the Boyne Navigation, besides training Henry Berry, who built the Sankey Navigation.
  10. British Racing Green is actually any green you want as the exact shade is not specified. Some ERAs used a very light green in the 1930s, and it was still British Racing Green. Bentley, of course, was a railway engineer, so his cars do tend to over-engineering and excessive weight. The Blower Bentleys were also over stressed and never that reliable. Ahh, they don't make em like that anymore.
  11. Just to remind people about this anniversary. The L&LC Society are taking heritage short boat Kennet to Blackburn on Saturday starting from Aspen Bridge 110 and arriving circa 11am on Saturday, and then returning to Clayton circa midday, stopping at Rishton, Church and finally Clayton at 3pm where a local community group are having a canalside festival from 1-30 to 5-30. On Sunday, we will continue back to Barden Marina, stopping at the Weavers Triangle Visitor Centre for a couple of hours during their opening time in the afternoon. Kennet will also be visiting Leeds for the Waterfront Festival on the 17/18 July and then going down to Goole for the 100th berthday of the keel Sobriety, where several other northern heritage boats will be attending. Kennet is operated by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal Society, and we are always looking for new members, especially if they want to help with Kennet. A Friends of Kennet has also been set up to assist and to look for funding. More details should be on the society web pages at www.llcs.org.uk
  12. I did suggest to some BW staff that they should look for Lottery funding for such facilities, particularly given that they could access sports funding. Towpaths are an excellent place for runners, one of my partner's sons telling me how useful it was to have mileposts along the route he was running so that he could check his pace. Taps for water meant he did not need to carry large amounts with him, and the chance of a shower at the end would make travelling home more comfortable, especially for other passengers if using public transport. He also felt safer running on the towpath as, besides lack of traffic, there were other users should you have a problem. BW could even get sports funding to replace missing mileposts. Given the cost of such facilities, surely it would be better to make them more widely available. Perhaps BW cold have have a runners licence, with those holding such a licence being able to purchase a BW toilet block key.
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  16. I should have said the disused lock at Dean was a regulating lock rather than equalising. It was authorised by the L&LC 1770 Act as part of a scheme to allow Douglas Navigation sailing flats to continue down the navigation without lowering their masts after the canal aqueduct at Parbold was built. A flight of locks down to the Douglas below the aqueduct would have completed the scheme. The canal from Dean to Parbold was legally part of the Douglas Navigation, joining the main line of the L&LC at Parbold, which accounts for the right angle bend there. The continuation of the main line through Leyland and the Ribble Valley was never built, the canal passing through Wigan instead. The sections of the canal from Dean to Wigan and Burscough to Sollom were also built under the 1720 Douglas Navigation Act. The water supply from the Douglas was used until the late 1960s, when pollution in the river caused major damage to wildlife in the canal. The river water was like a black slug passing down the canal to Liverpool. Since the water treatment works at Hoscar opened in the late-1970s, Douglas water has improved in quality and is now used as one feeder for the canal.
  17. The mention of oak shelves Colne Library did make me think how Richard acquired the timber. In the mid-1970s, Chertsey was moored in Burscough. Two of the Lawsons, a well-known local boating family, operated a reclaimed timber yard next to Great Score swing bridge, and I suspect that the timber came via them. Richard and I did get some oak from a pile of lockgates which the local section inspector, Bill Mason, said we could have. The bonfire afterwards was quite spectacular, and we loaded the scrap ironwork onto Chertsey for delivery to a convenient scrap yard. I am still owed for my share!
  18. The mention of oak shelves Colne Library did make me think how Richard acquired the timber. In the mid-1970s, Chertsey was moored in Burscough. Two of the Lawsons, a well-known local boating family, operated a reclaimed timber yard next to Great Score swing bridge, and I suspect that the timber came via them. Richard and I did get some oak from a pile of lockgates which the local section inspector, Bill Mason, said we could have. The bonfire afterwards was quite spectacular, and we loaded the scrap ironwork onto Chertsey for delivery to a convenient scrap yard. I am still owed for my share!
  19. As successor to the L&LC, who obtained the right when they purchased the Douglas Navigation, BW have the right to water from the Douglas. The amount they could extract was reduced when Rivington Reservoirs were built by Liverpool Corporation c1860, and the authorised extraction at Scholes was equal to ten lockfulls per day. Water could also be fed into the canal by the equalising lock at Dean, though when this was closed the supply entered the canal via a pipe below Appley Lock.
  20. Historically, the Liverpool Pool was always well supplied because of the volume of coal traffic from the Wigan area to Liverpool's canalside gas works. The canal company made a significant amount of money from water sales, though most was used for cooling the exhaust from steam engines to create a vacuum, and this water had to be returned to the canal. The warmed water encouraged children to swim in the canal, so it's probably a good job that steam engines are no longer used. Canals have always been an important local source of water as most towns would not have had a piped water supply at the time canals first opened. When the L&LC opened to Blackburn - it's the 200th anniversary in June and the L&LCS will be taking heritage boat Kennet to Eanam on the 19th to commemorate the event - one local brewery was prosecuted for using canal water, though I'm sure it put some body in the beer.
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  23. On the short boat Kennet, we currently require those moving the boat to be members of the L&LC Society as it makes insurance easier. The person in charge also requires some sort of official paperwork to show they can steer, which could be thought a bit daft as several members without such paperwork worked professionally on short boats, but that's the delights of bureaucracy for you.
  24. A properly designed hot air engine should work at around 80% efficiency. I don't think much research is being done at the moment, the last real university interest was probably by Dr Organ in the 1980s at Birmingham University.
  25. Once you have such a product, the last thing you should do with it is burn it in the top of a cylinder. Internal combustion is, and always will be, inefficient compared to external combustion where it is possible to design efficient combustion spaces. One of the simplest ways to use such technology is the hot air, or Stirling cycle, engine, a virtually silent and highly efficient way of producing rotating energy. Kept to their simplest form, they are not a responsive engine for rapid changes in speed, but are ideal for boats or generators. They can also be produced using existing manufacturing plant, so why aren't they used. Perhaps because they were first designed circa 1820, and no PR or marketing person would want to promote old technology, even if it is better than what we use now.
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