What are these canal features?

[Captain Pegg]

8 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

Here possibly - dead straight and a bridge nearby

 

It was the width of the island that struck me - although I realise that the ones west of Spon Lane aren't quite as big as those nearer the city centre

 

I have a suspicion it may be near to Salford Junction and the view has been obliterated by Spaghetti Junction.
 

From memory - as I think @Rob-M was referring to us encountering it with motor and butty in the dark - the island you show above is located at the end of an embankment where the canal still remains above the surrounding land.

 

JP

[ditchcrawler]

45 minutes ago, john6767 said:

That image is of  Bromford Junction, not the Soho Loop.  The toll island at Bromford, whilst solid and not a H shape like others, is much wider that the one in the the sunk boat image.

 

The one with the sunk boat does look to be the proportions of the Tame Valley ones, but that also has two towpath, but perhaps it could be the one that today in almost under Spaghetti Junction just before Salford Junction?

I took this last month on the Tame Valley 

What about the one just down from The Bumble Hole

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Where is that? I don't think it's the new main line but I can't place it as being anywhere else

The island is a lot narrower and only one towpath

 

Bottom of the Tame Valley Canal, according to this and following posts. Only the canal and the island remain, the buildings having all been demolished for Spaghetti Junction:

 

[Captain Pegg]

3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

What about the one just down from The Bumble Hole

Good point. There’s a toll island on the Dudley No 2 at Windmill End. It’s definitely not the one in the picture though.

[magpie patrick]

5 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Good point. There’s a toll island on the Dudley No 2 at Windmill End. It’s definitely not the one in the picture though.

From memory it's off centre as well - I'd always wondered if the wider channel was a bypass for boats that had already paid the toll elsewhere

[MoominPapa]

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

From memory it's off centre as well - I'd always wondered if the wider channel was a bypass for boats that had already paid the toll elsewhere

Which begs a question I've sometimes wondered. How was the toll paid? Was it strictly cash only? Most of the passing boats would belong to companies and be handled by their employees. Giving boat crews cash to pay tolls is a bit of an accounting nightmare and an invitation to have it stolen, spent on wine, women and song, or otherwise leaked. Did regular trades therefore pass on credit, with ledgers totalised at the end of the week or month and a bill sent to the company owning the boats?

 

 

MP.

 

[David Mack]

10 minutes ago, MoominPapa said:

Which begs a question I've sometimes wondered. How was the toll paid? Was it strictly cash only? Most of the passing boats would belong to companies and be handled by their employees. Giving boat crews cash to pay tolls is a bit of an accounting nightmare and an invitation to have it stolen, spent on wine, women and song, or otherwise leaked. Did regular trades therefore pass on credit, with ledgers totalised at the end of the week or month and a bill sent to the company owning the boats?

 

 

MP.

 

And similarly, storing cash in a toll house would be a security headache for the canal company.

[Captain Pegg]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

From memory it's off centre as well - I'd always wondered if the wider channel was a bypass for boats that had already paid the toll elsewhere

It is. In this case there is also a former toll narrows a bit further along the canal.
 

I took this photo while crewing the BCNS/CCT ex-GUCCCo boats Atlas and Malus. The owner didn’t share our crew’s opinion that it wasn’t a clever to place to moor on the grounds that we could go round the outside. I don’t think he’d considered depth. Certainly we’d always chosen the obvious channel on every occasion I’d been that way until that day. It turned out to be OK but you don’t wander off line on the Dudley No 2 by choice, particularly not with a large and more deeply draughted boat.

 

 

[Sir Nibble]

On 09/09/2020 at 02:18, Bewildered said:

A better option for boater would be a drive through pub. You would need winding holes either side and measured out in half pint drinking time intervals. 

The jolly sailor, saltford.

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Good point. There’s a toll island on the Dudley No 2 at Windmill End. It’s definitely not the one in the picture though.

True but its a different shape, size to the others.

 

Is there also the remains of one on the Anglesea Branch at Catshill Junction looking at the brickwork with one side filled in

2 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 you don’t wander off line on the Dudley No 2 by choice, particularly not with a large and more deeply draughted boat.

 

 

 

I made that mistake coming into a bridge hole on the wrong line last trip. 

[Captain Pegg]

9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Is there also the remains of one on the Anglesea Branch at Catshill Junction looking at the brickwork with one side filled in

I can’t say I’ve noticed that although I know the narrows you mean, but there is a similar situation at Tipton Jn on the Dudley No 1 so I suspect you are correct.

 

In short then toll islands were far from exclusive to the New Main Line, lending weight to the theory that ‘Island Line’ isn’t a reference to the toll islands.

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, MoominPapa said:

Which begs a question I've sometimes wondered. How was the toll paid? Was it strictly cash only? Most of the passing boats would belong to companies and be handled by their employees. Giving boat crews cash to pay tolls is a bit of an accounting nightmare and an invitation to have it stolen, spent on wine, women and song, or otherwise leaked. Did regular trades therefore pass on credit, with ledgers totalised at the end of the week or month and a bill sent to the company owning the boats?

 

 

MP.

 

I thought that the ticket box (drawer) was for keeping the chits handed out at  toll places so that the carrier knew what to pay - and so also did the canal company.

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I thought that the ticket box (drawer) was for keeping the chits handed out at  toll places so that the carrier knew what to pay - and so also did the canal company.

Yes but Braunston didn't have a toll Island, but a narrows by the toll office

[ditchcrawler]

7Min 22 Sec into this video 

 

[Ray T]

On 15/09/2020 at 20:56, ditchcrawler said:

Yes but Braunston didn't have a toll Island, but a narrows by the toll office

Start of the canal widening at the stop lock,  1931.

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Ray T