davidg

Boing! As I said earlier, the "side ponds" at Watford & Foxton do not save water at all. You empty the complete contents of the upper lock into the "side pond" and completey fill the lower lock from the "side pond" in exactly the same way as you would if it were a normal pound between the locks. edit: I should qualify that by saying no water saving compared to having five separate locks

Welshpool & Llanfair is less than a mile from the canal in Welshpool and you can stop for a beer in The Old Bakehouse on the way. Only problem is getting the boat there.

And the overflows in the sideponds perform the same function as a normal lock bywash. I once strode up to the sidepond paddles on one lock somewhere up the fields after one of the kids on the camping boat asked me how they worked. I still have the chrome plated windlass I used with the cracked plating around the slight bend in the handle. No way was the paddle shifting. Too much effort to maintain them.

The sideponds at Watford & Foxton fulfil the role taken by the pounds which separate normal locks. They are not water saving sideponds at all. The difference is that you can't boat up and down them. Just think fill before empty as you would for a normal pound. Edit: Just to clear up any ambiguity in "fill before empty", I meant fill the lock which draws water from the pound before you empty the lock which puts water in the pound. Same as you would for a pound you can boat along so the emtying water doesn't pour over the bywash, or overflow in this case.

That's how to do it. The reactions of anyone hanging about in the pound below holding on to their boats with bits of string were....interesting😀

Likewise. Esme had a vast amount of knowledge of his length of the Oxford Canal and could list long-forgotten wharves and other features. The camping boat I used to steer would stick coming down the top lock at Marston Doles and Esme had an unerring ability to know when I would be returning to Stockton and appear by magic to do the neccessary with the paddles to get me out, Easy to do if you had someone on the top paddles who knew what they were doing.

I would refer m'learned friend to my earlier answer to a different photo in this thread: Lydney

Considering that the original Hasty was built of wood and the "replica" is steel the word "fairly" is doing some heavy lifting there Ian. 😉 The tee stud and stem iron are old by the way, the stem iron having been salvaged from the wooden boat Clevanda.

Yes, it is Sharpness and the boat is one of the second Lapwing or Wave

I was thinking place though it sounds like you might know all three.

I've borrowed this from another forum I frequent so no peeking as it has already been answered there.

Make the cheque out to HTAFC Player Recruitment Fund but do it quickly, the window closes tonight.😀

At risk of telling you stuff you already know, steam was used extensively in the textile industry both to drive machinery via line shafting and flappy belts - I can just about remember the last mill to use mule spinning in the Colne Valley where a neighbour's father worked and yes, we were allowed into the room where the mules were and somehow survived - and in the cloth processing. At the front end it would be used in the washing and dyeing of the yarn and at the back end in the finishing* room. I assisted on the rotary press - a 4ft diameter drum heated by steam under which the pieces (the lengths of woven cloth, 60-70yds long) passed, effectively a giant iron - during one holiday job and spent what would nowadays be called a gap yah running the blowing machine where the piece would be rolled round a perforated 4ft dia. drum between layers of a fine heavy cotton (I think) cloth - called a blowing wrapper - and steam under pressure blown through it from the drum to encourage felting of the cloth. So even after the machinery was converted to electric motors there was still a need for steam, George Mallinsons at Linthwaite had two(?) oil fired Lancashire boilers running until the mill closed around 1980. I would guess the boiler works serviced this need for steam. I can ask my dad next time I see him if he knows anything about it. He's 91, lived in the Colne Valley all his life and worked in the textile industry from school to retirement apart from national service. *My dad's occupation is listed as cloth finisher on his marriage certificate.

10163E looks like Tring

Lydney

And there was I hoping for palm trees, yachts and femmes fatales. I've seen it in the films.

Bermuda

There is a later through carriage from Stockport Edgeley (d 6.33pm/a 8.48pm) and even later on Saturdays (d 10.50pm/a 12.25am). I guess they both connect with London trains at Stockport. The up through carriage to Euston leaves Colne at 8am and arrives at 2.38pm. For David: The London departure of the through carriage is 9.35am which confirms it leaves Euston attached to The Comet, not The Lancastrian which departs earlier. This is all in the 1961 timetable but could, of course , change from year to year.

Going way off topic but... I think the rear coach has a corridor connection and is probably the through coach. A quick dive into timetable world London Midland 1961 timetable shows a through carriage arriving Colne at 3.41pm weekdays which appears to come off the Comet at Stockport at 1.22 though it's not obvious from the timetable, it kind of gets lost round Manchester. The question is: what were Edgeley thinking putting a Jubilee out on a job like that? I know they have form in that department, famously sending a Scot to shunt Shallcross yard at Whaley Bridge - I'd love to know what the driver & fireman said when they booked on for that job and saw the loco allocation board - but really...

I've used this stuff in the past: https://www.pipestock.com/effast?gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm5KTlef6_wIVEsHtCh3MxQqsEAAYASAAEgISHPD_BwE Much more solid than domestic solvent weld and easier to get fittings from solvent to bsp to hosetails. I use Spa Plastics in Coventry but this outfit supply online.

The H&B.

It depends which side you go. One side of each pair fills/empties much quicker than the other. It isn't the same side at each pair and no I'm not going to say which side on a public forum because: a) It can be dead handy for overtaking people if you know🙂 b) You have to pay your dues by being overtaken and scratching your head at the top/bottom working out what just happened rather than finding out the lazy way on t'internet🙂🙂

The outlets are on the same side as the paddle. The water flows out, under the boat if there is one in the lock, hits the opposite wall and boils up there; you can see this happening in sequence down the lock when you lift a paddle. They are wonderful, controllable and quick - Hatton in 90 minutes, what would Canalplan say?

Being completely unhelpful, I have seen a photo of a boat operated by a Milnsbridge carrier (black & white obviously) somewhere but can't remember where. It is out there somewhere...

And the canal crossed the road three times in half a mile.