delphnine

There is a plan in Dudley Archives dated 1839 (ref DE/6/12/3/29) of the foundations of the proposed lock. It is in very poor condition but does show two gates hinged in opposite directions; the gate nearest the junction hinges towards the Dudley No. 1 Canal and the other hinges away from the Dudley Canal. The scale of the plan is an interesting sixth of an inch to 1 foot. A rough measurement of the plan shows the distance between the gates to be around 45ft. As others have surmised, the arrangement was to prevent losing water in either direction in the event of a breach. (quite common in those days due to mining. I do not know when the gates were removed but if they were still there in the 1940s it could have been useful in the event of bombing. I was involved in the restoration work at Parkhead in the early 1970s and do not recollect seeing any evidence of the gates. Attached is a sketch taken from the map.

I am looking to restore some of the paintwork on Sagitta which is currently tied on the Dudley Canal at the Dudley Canal and Tunnel Trust site. The current livery is the 1930's light blue/ dark blue which I believe is Cambridge Blue and Oxford Blue. Is this correct? Anyone translate this to a Pantone or BS colour?

I have some pictures of Cygnus in (I think) the winter of 1963/64. She was paired with Towcester. Both boats were in BW colours but were working for Willow Wren and crewed by myself and my brother. We were carrying coal from Newdigate to Coln Valley and then down to Brentford for grain to Wellingborough. I will dig out the pictures that I took and digitise them if you are interested. I could use e mail to get better resolution photos if you wish, send me an e mail. My e mail address is delphnine@btinternet.com

On a recent journey I had a Fenner tyre coupling fail. Fortunately, thanks to RCR, I was able to continue within a couple of days. The failure was caused by the clamping screws that tighten the taper lock bush onto the shaft becoming loose and the bush banging against the keyway everytime I changed gear until it broke. Two engineers who came to look at it said that they had come across the same problem with this unit on engines from a small Mitsubishi to an RN, and wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. On the other hand, these taperlock shaft couplings appear to be an industry standard with several million in service on all manner of equipment. Who is right? Have any members any experience with these? Would I be better off swapping it for a Centaflex or R&D coupling although on paper, they are less tolerant of misalignment?