davidg
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Posts posted by davidg
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3 hours ago, Heartland said:
Another for the little grey cells
Getting strong clues from the buildings visible in this one😁
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1 hour ago, billh said:
The canal to railway use works the other way as well: Shunter's pole, for coupling wagons ( and applying brakes as shown) makes an ideal tool for decluttering props on boats without a new-fangled weed hatch.
The tool in use is a brake stick, a specialised tool for use as a lever to apply brakes. A shunter's pole is a longer round pole with a pig's tail hook on the end for lifting three link couplings over coupling hooks and deftly twisting the pole to disengage the pig's tail.
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1 hour ago, rusty69 said:
Do you mean KJ/Kg?
or even kJ/kg☺️
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Coombe Hill Canal?
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061869 without the 100km reference
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2 hours ago, matty40s said:
You are welcome to Richard, I will see if I can scan a better copy. As a clue for others, the bridge overhead has been lowered since the photo and plans are in place to use it again in anger.
It is the GCR bridge at Loogabarooga then. The factory must have changed between the 1929(?) Aerofilms photo I found and the date of your photo.
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12 hours ago, David Schweizer said:
Do you mean the picture in my post which Tim quoted?
Yes.
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9 hours ago, magnetman said:
Callisto is a Harland and Wolff Boat.
Is this not a Yarwoods motor in the picture?
If you are talking about the picture in Tim's post follow the rivets of the gunwhale angle as they approach the fore end. Yarwoods boats aren't like that.
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On 16/12/2023 at 14:06, peterboat said:
Less water per lock cycle I am afraid, they displace more water so less water must be used, I say this because I cant remember the last time I saw 2 narrowboats sharing a lock! Iproduced the evidence the last time this came up and can again. So in reality maybe they should pay less?
As the person who derailed this thread by objecting to this and subsequent similar claims I will attempt to put this to bed so contributors can get back to discussing the Schleswig-Holstein question. Some of this will be repeating what others have said and some of it is down to semantics, I hope that most (all? ...please) will be motherhood & apple pie*:
First a definition: water used is the amount of water which must be added to a pound to maintain the water level. This is all the reservoir keepers (when such a thing existed) care about: how hard and for how long do I have to turn the valve on for?
Secondly, said reservoir keepers don't care if the pound is full of water or 99% full of boat shaped holes in the water, so long as the remaining 1% of water keeps that gauge out of the red they can stay in bed.
Part the third: when a lock is operated the amount of water which flows through the paddle holes is w x l x h and is independent of what is in the lock. Please don't argue with this, it just is. If you do wish to argue I'll leave it to others, I can't be bothered to waste my time drawing pictures etc.
Next a digression from locks: imagine a pound with a boat in it. Draw a line across the pound in front of the boat, one side of the line where the boat is side a, other side of the line where the boat isn't is side b. Boat moves from a to b. a now contains more water, b contains less water.
Does the lock keeper have to get out of bed to top b up? No, he doesn't because the boat shaped hole in the water occupies the same volume as the water which isn't there.
a contains more water but does it run over the weir? No it doesn't, because the extra water fills the boat shaped hole which previously existed.
Amazing how that works out isn't it? Does the boat “use” water by moving from a to b? Not by the definition in part 1, the reservoir keeper hasn’t had to do anything to maintain the water levels.
Part 4: If a boat is worked through a lock then a boat shaped hole in the water will be transferred from one side of the lock to another. First the boat enters the lock and the gates are closed, the boat shaped hole in the water is now in the lock but the water levels in the lock chamber and the pound are exactly as they were before the boat entered. No reservoir keepers will be troubled by this. After filling (or emptying) the lock, tipping wxlxh litres of water through the lock (which will trouble the reservoir keeper) the gates can be opened and the boat can move out of the chamber. Now the boat shaped hole in the water is in the other pound but again, neither the level of water in the lock chamber nor the level in the pound have been altered by the act of the boat being moved out of the lock and the reservoir keeper can go back to bed.
There is now less water in the pound the boat has entered (and more water in the pound it has left) but that water has been replaced by the boat shaped hole in the water (or the boat shaped hole in the water has been filled by water).
What all of this means is that everyone is right. Yay!
For the crack-the-egg-at-the-blunt-enders there is less water in the pound the boat now occupies and more in the pound the boat formerly occupied (so by this definition of water “used” larger/heavier boats should pay more for a licence when going up, and less when going down).
For the crack-the-egg-at-the sharp-enders the reservoir keeper doesn’t care whether there are boats or water in the pound, all they care about is how much extra water is needed to maintain the water level which is wxlxh regardless of the size or number of boats worked through a lock.
So, is everyone happy?
*Things we can all agree on, Carver Mead 1981
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8 hours ago, Ianws said:
The original question in 2022 was about licence increases and affordability. It's moved on. The physics is interesting but is it relevant to who should pay for using the canals? At length we have had good arguments that the size or weight of the boat isn't a factor re. water use and locks. Even if this wasnt the case, given a lot of fatties sit in marinas or only travel occasionally, would it be a major issue anyway? Is the extra licence surcharge just because they are living in a larger vessel on c&rt's water (similar to paying more council tax for a larger house)?
Apologies for taking it off track but people were putting forward the argument (probaby tongue in cheek but you never know...) that widebeam boats use less water transiting a lock and should pay less for a licence. Personally I think it's a great argument, I could load my boat with 30 tons of coal* and get a huge licence reduction if it were true. Unfortunately it isn't.
*I think I may have just spotted another flaw in my cunning money-saving scheme,-
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31 minutes ago, agg221 said:
Got it. I had factored in that the volume of water in the lock at the start of the cycle is dependent on the displacement, but not that the amount of water at the end of the cycle is comparably dependent on displacement and therefore the total water transferred is identical.
The only relevant factor remaining as a difference between narrow and wide beam is that generally two narrowboats can share a lock whereas two widebeams can't.
Alec
Well done Grasshopper, you have chosen the path of wisdom. Now spread the word and put an end to this old canard.
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41 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:
I thought that the established formula for water used per lock cycle expended on the weight of the displacement so no difference at all for equivalent 'tonnage'.
Much better than that. The water used in filling a lock (and the water tipped into the lower pound when emptying) depends only on the height difference between the pounds and the lock length x width. The displacement of the boats in the lock makes no difference, you are not filling a completely empty lock with a boat, or 2 boats, or no boats in it.
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8 hours ago, David Mack said:
The Large Woolwich drawing I have (from Laurence Hogg) shows hull side plating to be 1/4" and the bottom plating as 5/16". Engine room casing is 1/8".
Is the correct answer. Funnily enough I said the bottom was 5/16" several dozen posts ago but then I've only owned the boat forty odd years so what do I know.
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Who writes this stuff: "built by Harland & Wolff in 1937 with 10/6/4 plating" even allowing for metric equivalents if H&W put a 10mm bottom on they must have made it thicker than the first ones, mine was only 5/16". Would that 4 figure refer to the 4mm wooden cabin? Which moves us on to "the back cabin is largely unchanged from its days of cargo carrying": well if you count the old wooden cabin having been removed and a new steel cabin put in its place I suppose it is largely unchanged, apart from being made of a different material, a different shape, doors through to the engine room.....😂
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That's typical of the British Waterways refooting work done to the big boats at Bulls Bridge in the 50s. It will be a rare big boat that doesn't have it, mine certainly does.
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Reverse polarity can be dangerous. A friend who worked for H&S at Lucas told me the tale of an electrician working in one of their labs who went to work on the electrical system, turned off the (single pole) mcb and started touching cables.
It didn't end well.
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4 hours ago, blackrose said:
I was wondering about that as well. I used to have a hand crank air cooled Petter engine but haven't seen too many canal boat engines which are kick started.
Someone had to do it....
Jump to 3 minutes orr thereabouts.
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On 03/11/2023 at 15:28, Victor Vectis said:
I don't think so.
I reckon they are of the Corkickle Brake at Whitehaven.
http://www.cumbria-railways.co.uk/corkickle_brake_whitehaven.html
Oops, so it is. I have friends who live close to the incline on the Bowes Railway and I've walked down to it a few times. The photo reminded me of the view from the incline looking down into the Team valley.
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1 hour ago, Stroudwater1 said:
Lovely boat, seems to be looking as good now as 2019. Passed us near Braunston last Saturday , unsure where she was going, travelling at some speed, effortlessly and still under 4mph. What engine does she have? Looked to be water cooled.Gort has a Gardner 2L2, believed to be the original engine. It gets very little maintenance and runs a treat. And if anyone buys it and tarts up the very old paintwork, oil & diesel stained, they deserve shooting, it looks lovely as it is.
(edit) See Ray's photograph.
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My evening is ruined...
101357E is Diggle station
101362&3 are the Danglebahn in Wuppertal101416 is Old Trafford in the days when Northern or their predecessors could be bothered to lay on some trains. Used it several times in the 70s.
101504 is Chinley
101507, 8 & 10 are Tunnel End, Marsden with 101509 being the Diggle end of the tunnel.
Obviously 101548, 9 & 50 are on the FR, the first two at Porthmadog and the last at Dduallt with 101556 at Tan y Bwlch
Given that the ORR are getting very twitchy about working at height at the moment I wonder what they would make of the ladder in 101560.
101566 is one of the inclines on the Bowes Railway. Springwell? As is 101569.
101598 is a VOR train leaving Aberystwyth
102006 is Whitehaven Bransty. The others round there are up the Cumbrian coast
102067 onwards are the Oxford canal. Around Hillmorton, leaving Marston Doles, Little Bourton, Banbury, Claydon Middle. Is 102076 reversed? Napton? Suttons and Shipton Weir
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Is that you on The Earl in 101544E? And crossing Church Street in Welshpool
101546E is in the yard at Llanfair. If only we had a coaling stage like that now, coaling up ZB2 presents an athletic challenge. And I wonder which wag put the express passenger headlamps on the Beyer.
101551E is crossing Brook Street in Welshpool
101552E is the Banwy Bridge after the Royal Engineers had rebuilt it following the collapse in 1964. I think the third coach is the one that we borrowed from Sittingbourne for the gala this year.
101553E looks like the narrows in Welshpool
Obviously 101554E is Sylfaen. Looks like when there wasn't a run round loop so the Sylfaen shunt had to be performed using what looks like Chattenden to release the train engine. One of our current drivers tells stories of being left to do this as a thirteen year old - different times.
And can I share these onto the WLLR members & supporters facebook page please.
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1 hour ago, DShK said:
The trouble is, no one seems to be making them properly anymore. Certainly not openly commercially.
I'd like to try but I've got too much on my plate realistically at the moment!
Part of the problem is people aren't prepared to pay what is a reasonable cost to make them. I used to make them at WFBCo and I know how long it took me to make one, Simon at Brinklow Boat Services makes them occasionally and it takes him a similar time. Add on the cost of materials ( how much is stainless now? ) and I reckon paying a reasonable labour rate to a self-employed person who has overheads (rent, insurance, tools,.......) to meet you would be looking at north of £300 for a chimney, a bit less for an exhaust pipe. If you can find someone semi-retired making them in their garden shed for cash it will be less but I've got more interesting things to do with my spare time.
Thinks: must chain my chimney to the roof.
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50 minutes ago, dave moore said:
Not all traditional chimneys are flimsy crap. The one made for us by Dave Parrot is still with the boat more than 20 years later. Stainless steel, copper rivets, solid brass and aluminium D section around the top. A proper job.
20 years is nothing Dave. I still have my Pete Thompson chimney bought in 1982, one digit of the number stamped in the hook rivets has completely disappeared, the 4 is just hanging on. Like Dave Parrott's, a proper job.
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21 hours ago, dmr said:
This has been a good thread and made me think very hard about locks.
So.....
The sideponds turn a staircase into a conventional flight of locks.
A conventional flight of locks uses only a single lock of water for the entire flight, either up or down, as long as its done correctly.
???
If you think about the way the water moves around the thing which separates a conventional sidepond, as found on the Grand Junction/Atherstone etc. from what happens at Foxton/Watford/Bratch is that where there is a conventional sidepond the sidepond is filled from, and empties into the same lock, you only need 1 paddle to operate it. The sidepond can save up to half a lockfull of water. The limiting case of saving half a lockfull would require a sidepond with infinite surface area. Filling such a sidepond would present a challenge but once you've got past the initial fill then happy days😀
This isn't the way the the "side ponds" at Foxton etc. work. We could call them something different to avoid confusion, how about "pounds over at the side" until someone comes up with a snappier name.
For a conventional staircase a matrix can be constructed representing water usage for the four possible states of operating sequence: boat up followed by boat down, boat up followed by boat up, boat down followed by boat up and boat down followed by boat down.
Following boat: up down
Previous boat: up 1/1 0/5 Where the numbers represent the number of lockfulls drawn off
the top pound/number of lockfulls tipped into bottom pound by
down 5/0 1/1 the following boat. Let's assume a five lock staircase.
What the "pounds over at the side" allow you to do is to be borrow the water from the sideponds temporarily in the down folowed by up case because you don't have to fill the top four locks and then fill the top lock again from the top pound. This water can then be replenished in the up followed by down case by only tipping the bottom lock into the bottom pound, the rest can go into the "pounds over at the side" (someone please come up with that snappier name🙂), replenishing the water stored there. What you then end up with is:
Following boat: up down
Previous boat: up 1/1 0/1
down 1/0 1/1
Which is the way a conventional flight of five separate locks works. This requires the level intermdiate pounds to be allowed to fluctuate, if any of the water goes over the weirs then all bets are off.
Too much spare time at the moment🙂 Feel free to correct my numbers if you think they are wrong.
Engine history
in General Boating
Posted
During my area training I went to the main exchange in Bradford. The standby generators there were big units, 6+ cylinders (didn't pay much attention to these), which started on compressed air. If they failed to start there was a donkey engine to recharge the air in the receiver which was a Lister JP2, that did attract my interest as I wondered how many more of these well maintained, low hours engines there were dotted around the phone network.