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Scraping the Sides


cheshire~rose

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I suspect I have not been all that observant but this year I learned something about canal maintenance, specifically lock maintenance, that was new to me. 

 

Late last year CRT were in discussion with me about the Pythoneers tackling some "PPM" on the locks this year - that is Planned Preventative Maintenance to those who are not up to speed on the acronyms - I wasn't) I remember thinking - how hard can it be to weild a grease gun to lube the paddle gear ...... 

 

Well of course there is a lot more to PPM than at first meets the eye, clearing weeds from the quadrants and moss from the coping stones for example but scraping the lock chambers? Really? ok well lets play it by ear.......... It seems the build up of agae and weeds on the walls of the lock chamber needs removing from time to time. I didn't ask why, I just accepted that it was part of the maintenance they require. 

 

Then this springtime we took part in the BCN Challenge. I don't recall which flight of locks it was (although it might have been Ryder Green?) but the entire flight was like the hanging gardens of Babylon. I took this picture but some of the locks were much worse:

 

70664596_10157386394049070_1807085130192

 

It became obvious to me that if the agae is not removed it provides a fertile place for weed seeds to germinate and those weeds sometimes have roots that like to work their way between the bricks damaging them. 

 

Yesterday we made a start on the flight on The Chesterfield Canal, starting at Shireoaks. Some locks didn't need any more than a couple of errant weeds removing from the high water line, others had a thick carpet of moss to remove, it was obvious that the position and aspect of each lock predicted how much growth there would be, many of them had one wall almost clean while the other had a thick growth:

 

70344965_2486601124696651_90226976055739

 

71501040_2486601271363303_38653279047662

 

We did 11 locks yesterday going up. On the descent we will do all the other jobs, like greasing paddles, weeding quadrants, cleaning signage, reporting faults, and tidying up milestones too and giving interpretation boards a clean while we are at it. 

 

One of our volunteers asked why we were scraping the chamber walls and the illustration I had of what happens if it is not done made it very obvious to me and, when I shared the photos, to her too. It occured to me that I have been through thousands of locks and never knew this was part of the job that CRT have traditionally done as part of their maintenance routine. It needs a boat to do it and we have a boat - Python! 

 

We dealt with the gate "gardens" too:

 

71026746_2485686501454780_64555969498348

 

Python couldn't hang about to attend Shackerstone and other festivals that are still happening because she had work to do and she is far too mucky to attend any festival now :) 

 

70363125_2486601348029962_23680246180122

 

It was a lovely day to be working on one of the prettiest lock flights in the countryside yesterday:

 

70945221_2485062244850539_67809983137232

 

We had so much fun we will do it again tomorrow (and Sunday) and then again on  27th and 28th; October 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 9th 13th, 15th, 16th, 19th and 20th.

 If we can get ahead with the locks then we will have a chance to get on top of the bits of vegetation further down the canal that have grown up a bit too vigourously since we cut them back last year.

 

Fancy joining us? Get in touch details here:

 

http://www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/volunteers-needed-for-pythons-autumn-schedule/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What did you do with the stuff you scraped off...?

When we came through Botterham staircase last year there was a team scraping the lock walls and everything was allowed to drop in the lock. I thought that wasn't a particularly good idea especially the amount that dropped behind the gates.

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On ‎20‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 19:08, cheshire~rose said:

I suspect I have not been all that observant but this year I learned something about canal maintenance, specifically lock maintenance, that was new to me. 

 

Late last year CRT were in discussion with me about the Pythoneers tackling some "PPM" on the locks this year - that is Planned Preventative Maintenance to those who are not up to speed on the acronyms - I wasn't) I remember thinking - how hard can it be to weild a grease gun to lube the paddle gear ...... 

 

Well of course there is a lot more to PPM than at first meets the eye, clearing weeds from the quadrants and moss from the coping stones for example but scraping the lock chambers? Really? ok well lets play it by ear.......... It seems the build up of agae and weeds on the walls of the lock chamber needs removing from time to time. I didn't ask why, I just accepted that it was part of the maintenance they require. 

 

Then this springtime we took part in the BCN Challenge. I don't recall which flight of locks it was (although it might have been Ryder Green?) but the entire flight was like the hanging gardens of Babylon. I took this picture but some of the locks were much worse:

 

70664596_10157386394049070_1807085130192

 

It became obvious to me that if the agae is not removed it provides a fertile place for weed seeds to germinate and those weeds sometimes have roots that like to work their way between the bricks damaging them. 

 

Yesterday we made a start on the flight on The Chesterfield Canal, starting at Shireoaks. Some locks didn't need any more than a couple of errant weeds removing from the high water line, others had a thick carpet of moss to remove, it was obvious that the position and aspect of each lock predicted how much growth there would be, many of them had one wall almost clean while the other had a thick growth:

 

70344965_2486601124696651_90226976055739

 

71501040_2486601271363303_38653279047662

 

We did 11 locks yesterday going up. On the descent we will do all the other jobs, like greasing paddles, weeding quadrants, cleaning signage, reporting faults, and tidying up milestones too and giving interpretation boards a clean while we are at it. 

 

One of our volunteers asked why we were scraping the chamber walls and the illustration I had of what happens if it is not done made it very obvious to me and, when I shared the photos, to her too. It occured to me that I have been through thousands of locks and never knew this was part of the job that CRT have traditionally done as part of their maintenance routine. It needs a boat to do it and we have a boat - Python! 

 

We dealt with the gate "gardens" too:

 

71026746_2485686501454780_64555969498348

 

Python couldn't hang about to attend Shackerstone and other festivals that are still happening because she had work to do and she is far too mucky to attend any festival now :) 

 

70363125_2486601348029962_23680246180122

 

It was a lovely day to be working on one of the prettiest lock flights in the countryside yesterday:

 

70945221_2485062244850539_67809983137232

 

We had so much fun we will do it again tomorrow (and Sunday) and then again on  27th and 28th; October 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 9th 13th, 15th, 16th, 19th and 20th.

 If we can get ahead with the locks then we will have a chance to get on top of the bits of vegetation further down the canal that have grown up a bit too vigourously since we cut them back last year.

 

Fancy joining us? Get in touch details here:

 

http://www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/volunteers-needed-for-pythons-autumn-schedule/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well done, that is brilliant work.

It's great seeing enthusiastic people looking after the canals, and doing it voluntarily. Again, thank you.

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On 20/09/2019 at 19:08, cheshire~rose said:

was like the hanging gardens of Babylon

Yesterday, the keeper at Diglis Severn Lock, directed us to the wide lock, rather than the narrow (always makes me smile, because the narrow is wider than a wide on the canals!), which is unusual, and the first time I can remember even seeing this one used, let alone going through it myself.  When we got inside, it became apparent that it indeed seldom sees action.  There is nothing short of a small woodland growing on those walls, I mean trees and all!

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4 hours ago, Dog said:

Well done, that is brilliant work.

It's great seeing enthusiastic people looking after the canals, and doing it voluntarily. Again, thank you.

100% well done all

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 20/09/2019 at 19:08, cheshire~rose said:

 

 

 

71501040_2486601271363303_38653279047662

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you didn't get caught without a hard hat on :D Please note there is  smillie

Edited by ditchcrawler
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On 20/09/2019 at 19:47, pearley said:

Perhaps you can bring Python over to the Huddersfield Narrow when you've finished.

We would love to but the travel time for volunteers would be ridiculous!

 

Séan McGinley, CRT regional manager always said his long term aim was to have a "Python" on every canal he manages. Of course that was when he managed The East Midlands and he went some way towards cloning Python when he assisted The ECP&DA get hold of Pentland to do similar works on The Erewash. Now he is in charge of Yorkshire and The North East the Chessie is his only narrow canal and so little Python clones may not be quite so much use to him :)

 

I suspect that if there is any group who wanted to take on maintaining a stretch of canal using volunteers who needed a boat then an approach to the regional manaager citing the Python project as an example may not fall on completely deaf ears? It may not happen overnight but the benefit of us using our own boat is that we do not need CRT to oversee our task force days.

 

 

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21 hours ago, Dog said:

Well done, that is brilliant work.

It's great seeing enthusiastic people looking after the canals, and doing it voluntarily. Again, thank you.

Thank you.

 

It really is very tough all this volunteering mularky!

 

Really tough....

 

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I am supposed to be stepping back a bit this year but I am struggling to stay away - why should every bugger else have all the fun?

 

Yesterday we walked 2 miles in the pouring rain to reach the remote place that we had left Python  the day before and got soaked before we started but after a coffee we got the grappling hooks out and dealt with a fallen branch and the banter had started! We all went home aching a bit, smiling a lot and feeling we had done something worthwhile.

 

More to do tomorrow

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16 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

100% well done all

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you didn't get caught without a hard hat on :D Please note there is  smillie

Thank you

 

We do have hard hats but only use them when working above our heads (like using pole saws for example) The boat is so full of PPE that there is hardly any room for biscuit supplies!

We are getting a feel for this work and we have already realised that shorter handles on the scrapers would be a benefit so two people working opposite sides of the boat don't poke each other in the back with a handle lol. If we give our steerer a paint scraper they can do a bit next to the boat while they are waiting for the team in the hold to get stuff done.

 

23 locks scraped so far, we will get the coping stones and other jobs jobbed as we descend next week.  Tomorrow we revisit the tunnel portal we assited the WRG in clearing back in 2016:

 

http://www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/wrgies-at-the-tunnel/

 

It's time we gave it a short back and sides again before nature reclaims it. I think we have a team of 15 giving their day tomorrow, 10 of them coming from Virgin Media to do their bit

 

I will try and get some before and after photos

 

 

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We met him on the way down the locks the other day. He said he had cleared the (single) bollard to tir to and we thanked him :)

 

Andrew Denny was up there with Granny Buttons at the weekend and another boat also passed us on the top pound - it's gettng as busy as Picaddilly circus in the rush hour!

 

Thorpe Top Treble goes on winter stoppage on 14th October so peace will resume soon

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3 hours ago, cheshire~rose said:

We met him on the way down the locks the other day. He said he had cleared the (single) bollard to tir to and we thanked him :)

 

Andrew Denny was up there with Granny Buttons at the weekend and another boat also passed us on the top pound - it's gettng as busy as Picaddilly circus in the rush hour!

 

Thorpe Top Treble goes on winter stoppage on 14th October so peace will resume soon

That was probably R&WBC member Ian on Dingo, with his lady Chris.  We were with them on Saturday morning at 'Albert Dock' and they were planning to moor near top lock to go to The Parish Oven for Sunday lunch.

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18 hours ago, Grebe said:

That was probably R&WBC member Ian on Dingo, with his lady Chris.  We were with them on Saturday morning at 'Albert Dock' and they were planning to moor near top lock to go to The Parish Oven for Sunday lunch.

Yes it was him, our neighbour at Clayworth, he took one look at Python coming and knew he had to try and give us the channel bless him :) 

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We had a wonderful day yesterday with a group of volunteers from Virgin Mobile Business. 

 

I promised some before and after photos: 

Well we had a strong team so split them up, half to deal with the wharf and half to try and tackle the self set ash trees on the towpath embankment.

The team has just disembarked at the wharf here and the towpath team are getting the hang of what height vegetation is acceptable along the towpath. :

71898024_2499010130122417_36708224982214

 

This vegetation was a bit too low for safety 

 

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After we finished it looked like this:

 

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Notice the lack of self set ash trees on the bank and the height of the overhead vegetation along the towpath. 

 

We also tackled the buddleia that was growing out of the wall supporting the ramp down from the bridge. this is before:

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This is after:

 

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And this is the wonderful team who did the work (there are three people missing from this photo, myself(I was taking the photo) and our two steerers - (who had plenty of practice at testing out Python's superb reversing qualities needing to reverse back from the end twice and then back to the visitor mooring from the bridge and got a round of applause)

 

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I think that anyone who uses the canals has a responsibility to keep it tidy. Even if it means picking up litter and rubbish left by others. Whenever i go through Stamp End at Lincoln in particular, i take time to clear away rubbish and debris. I even try to collect it as I travel along. Same as i do when out walking my pooches and collect bags etc left behind.

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