Canal Chain Propulsion

[Derek R.]

Harecastle has been mentioned, but also the Islington Tunnel was wire rope hauled. Wide beam steam tug as recently seen on old videos. In one shot where the camera has been set up on the bows of the tug, the wire rope can be seen. No rope visible though as the tug emerges from the portal?

[pearley]

19 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

The "Floating Bridge" chain ferry connecting East and West Cowes across the River Medina on the Isle of Wight is still extant, the latest incarnation having been commissioned in 2017, with a 40 year life expectancy.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowes_Floating_Bridge

But has trouble when the tide is running and had to have another boat alongside to stop it being pushed to far sideways at great expense to the council. The previous ferry had no problems.

 

My wife has relatives who live either side of the river so we are kept up to date with its current status.

 

Here's a link

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-hampshire-54449549

Edited October 24, 2020 by pearley

[cuthound]

4 minutes ago, pearley said:

But has trouble when the tide is running and had to have another boat alongside to stop it being pushed to far sideways at great expense to the council. The previous ferry had no problems.

 

I have only travelled on the old ferry but heard that the new one has had more than its fair share of teething troubles as well as being unable to operate when the tide is running.

 

Progress eh? ?

[Pluto]

The idea for a canal tunnel at St Quentin dates back to around 1728 as part of a route for coal from northern France to Paris. The idea for the tunnel was taken up again in the 1770s, when a series of experiments were carried out into to power needed to propel a boat through a tunnel which were published as Nouvelles experiences sur la resistance des fluides in 1777. The tunnel was only completed after Napoleon took charge, and even then it was poorly built and had to have considerable repairs before it could be used in safety. Thwere is an interesting article about the planning and construction of the canal in Pietro Redoni, Along the Water…, in History and Technology, 2, No.1, 1985, pp77-110.

[Tam & Di]

There were bicentenary celebrations in 2011, but I can't immediately find the booklet I got then which included drawings of the original toueur (tug) I describe. Napoleon and Josephine had an inaugural trip through apparently. These two pre WW1 cards illustrate the amount of traffic there used to be. It is interesting too that although the toueur is decribed as electric and the overhead cables are clearly visible there is what appears to be a large chimney. We have been through and been beguiled by cooking smells from the tug on occasion, but I can't imagine that was the reason for this smokestack. ?

 

I do also have a card of similar date showing the same overhead cables on the canal at Charleroi in Belgium.

 

Tam

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Tam & Di

[Pluto]

An article from Fluvial, 2001, with the tunnel horse tug.

[Bee]

Have to say I don't know much about the engineering of chain hauled boats but the tugs at Riqueval seem to be steerable. The chain passes over rollers at the ends of the boats and the rollers are on booms that seem to be movable. Can't imagine that they were very nimble vessels and can't really think of much use for it. We have been hauled through a number of times and usually the tug is a couple of feet away from the edge but last time it ground its way along the towpath side and so did the half dozen boats behind it, I expect the tunnel had a few ripped off fenders left bobbing along after we'd passed through.

[Tam & Di]

1 hour ago, Bee said:

Can't imagine that they were very nimble vessels and can't really think of much use for it. We have been hauled through a number of times and usually the tug is a couple of feet away from the edge but last time it ground its way along the towpath side and so did the half dozen boats behind it, I expect the tunnel had a few ripped off fenders left bobbing along after we'd passed through.

It did go right across the summit and through the little tunnel at Lesdins as well, so would have to have some degree of steerage.

 

Pluto's post does note, as I observed, the "ambiance" of the tow, with cooking, drinking and music taking place. Unfortunately Di would always forget, and take to putting a kettle on or boiling up bones for a soup which meant my eyes would just about adjust to the gloom and then the wheelhouse windows would steam up.   ?

 

The secret (for a fairly heavy craft, at least) is to always use 30m of line from the offside of your own bow to the offside of the vessel in front - anything shorter means you get dragged to one side or the other by the boat ahead. Automoteurs don't have any great problem as they are too wide to move far, but pleasure boats do suffer sometimes. Little yachts don't often have enough line to make up 30m anyway.

 

Tam

Edited October 24, 2020 by Tam & Di

[Pluto]

On the chain used in Germany, the company operating on the Elbe purchased chain from C Bloomer of Bromwich and H Parkes of Tipton. British iron was of superior quality to that made in Germany, with chain also coming from Kärnten, in Austria. The chain was made of 1 inch dia iron.

 

In operation, there was a movable arm at either end of the tug along which the chain was led. This meant that the end not under tension could be laid down where required, so going round a bend it would be laid on the outer side of the bend in the deeper water. The chain had to be cut and reconnected if two tugs were to pass in opposite directions.

[David Mack]

57 minutes ago, Pluto said:

The chain had to be cut and reconnected if two tugs were to pass in opposite directions.

Wouldn't it have been easier for the tugs to swap tows and turn back?

[Pluto]

The Kettenschiffahrt book suggests that to pass it took about 20 minutes for the tug travelling upstream and about 45 minutes for that travelling downstream. It seems that some tugs were later given propellors for travelling downstream to make things easier, but I haven't translated the section dealing with this fully.

[Tam & Di]

It is extremely difficult to imagine how they would do it. The best I can think of is that the two tows approach each other and the chain is then cut astern of the tug B travelling upstream, with a cable of some kind attached to each of the cut ends. Train B then continues on its way.

 

The cable attached to the lower section is passed to tug A travelling downstream which allows that to reconnect itself once the other train is clear. The two ends can then be winched together onto tug A's deck for the blacksmith to make good (which might explain the time differential). It does leave unanswered what happens to train A while it is disconnected and subject to the current

 

At least the current would be one problem they would not have to deal with on a canal. We visited the towage museum at Riqueval, but I don't recall any explanation of such niceties there. I don't suppose Robert Louis Stevenson had anything to say on it either   ?‍♂️

 

 EDIT:

I was called away to eat a delicious dinner and posted the above with insufficient thought. The chain can't be cut behind the tug travelling uphill, as the other one can't disengage itself. So the cut must be between the two of them. I'll give further thought on it after dinner, but please do feel free to put me right.   ?

 

Tam

Edited October 24, 2020 by Tam & Di
a bit of nonsense

[magpie patrick]

13 hours ago, Tam & Di said:

It is extremely difficult to imagine how they would do it. The best I can think of is that the two tows approach each other and the chain is then cut astern of the tug B travelling upstream, with a cable of some kind attached to each of the cut ends. Train B then continues on its way.

Logically if the chain is cut astern of the tug going upstream, that tug hasn't yet passed the downstream-bound tug

 

I can't see any way of doing it other than cutting the chain between the tugs (or on board one tug that then "lets go" of both ends)

 

I assume the repair of the chain would be done onboard one of the tugs - judging by Pluto's timings, possibly the downstream on

 

I also assume the river wasn't mad busy with tugs - doing this several times a day would have been a PITA, although I suppose if a tow met three at once going in the opposite direction a way would be found to let them all pass in a single splice

[Tam & Di]

16 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I can't see any way of doing it other than cutting the chain between the tugs (or on board one tug that then "lets go" of both ends)

I realised almost immediately that the cut has to be between the two. Doing it actually on board as you suggest could work, probably the one going downstream; it could be cut and then rejoined with some temporary shackle once the downhill tug was free, allowing the uphill tug to continue. Once the 'shackle' cleared the uphill vessel's drive winch a cable could be attached to both sections, and then when the train is out of the way the downstream tug can get itself back onto the chain and make a proper repair.

 

Given the weights of chain involved and the flow of the current it must have been a tricky operation at the best of times. But then men were men back in those days  ?

 

Tam

 

 

[Bee]

The acoustics in the Riqueval tunnel are quite good too. We went through  once with a Danish boat in front and they played what we thought was some sort of traditional folk music. It was awful. A dig around our CDs found 'Elgars top hits' or something like it, put that on full blast and it was pretty impressive. What we really needed though was some Floyd and something to smoke....

[Pluto]

A very quick Google translation, slightly improved, of the tugs passing.

 

During continuous operation, the chain steamers upstream and downstream had to pass each other. Each time it was necessary to separate the chain. This maneuver was not allowed to take place in river bends or in rapids because of the hindrance to the rest of the navigation. It worked as follows (Figure 5.1): After giving a signal, the downstream tug stopped to get out of the chain first. To do this, one opened the chain on its rear, i.e. downstream arm, after having secured the water-side (lower) piece of chain with the chain catcher from falling off. The lower end of the chain was allowed to sink into the water on a short rope, while to the upper end of the chain, which remained on the ship, a weaker chain of 10 to 12mm dia link thickness, the so-called interchangeable chain, was attached. Then the steamer slowly drove a few meters down until the changeable chain was wound onto the chain drums and reached the front boom. Now the sunk lower end of the chain, which was now at the height of the front boom, was lifted and shackled to the upper end of the chain outside the standing boom rollers. The drag chain thus formed a whole again and could be thrown off. The steamer was held on the changeable chain.

A short whistle signaled to the waiting upstream tug driver that he should continue his voyage. As soon as the two ships lay alongside, they tied to each other, and then the upstream tug took the downstream tug a little way upwards. First the chain was lifted out of the water. After they had been loosened from the tow chain, both ships drove slowly on until the chain shackle, with which the two ends of the chain had been connected to the downstream tug, reached the rear boom of the climber. The chain was cut again and its waterside end passed over to the downstream tug on a line, where it was hung on the rear boom. Now the downstream tug allowed himself to drift downstream so that it could place his front arm next to the rear arm of the upstream tug. The upstream tug took over the exchangeable chain and connected it to the upper end of the drag chain that remained with him. Both steamers were now one behind the other on the drag chain or on the exchangeable chain. The valley driver continued downhill as far as possible as far as the loose chain in his chain case was enough to make room for the towing train, because the upstream tug could now continue the journey. In order to remove the changeable chain again, the downstream tug then drove upstream again until the drag chain came over the drums. It was now pulled through to the rear boom and connected to the lower end of the drag chain that was suspended there. Then the downhill rider could continue.

The chain was originally supposed to be separated with the help of shackles, the so-called chain locks, which were inserted into the chain at regular intervals. The downstream tug would then have initiated the encounter maneuver by first driving back a little to find such a chain lock. That wasn't just time-consuming, it soon became apparent that the bolts of the shackles were rusted and could not be loosened. Therefore, one simply smashed any chain link by placing it upright on the boom with pliers and compressing it with a few powerful blows with a sledgehammer so that it was torn open at a point notched by wear and completely widened with the crowbar ( Figure 9.2). The chain was put together with a new shackle, of which each chain steamer always had one. A supply was carried.

[Tam & Di]

Thanks for that; we weren't so far out then. It was not something I'd thought about before, and it was an interesting exercise.

 

Tam

[Pluto]

It is the additional piece of chain which is the more unexpected requirement.

 

This is a model of a Russian chain tug in the waterway museum at Nizhny Novgorod. The design is very similar across Europe. 

[Derek R.]

Facinating footage of the Netherlands from the 1920's into the 90's. Shipping; loading; floods and ice, a few chain ferries in there too:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OB6ZCp2xnQ

 

[magpie patrick]

20 hours ago, Pluto said:

This maneuver was not allowed to take place in river bends or in rapids because of the hindrance to the rest of the navigation.

 

Overall fascinating, although I'm still getting my head round it

 

The statement I've snipped suggests there was also non-chain traffic on the river, possibly quite a lot of it - a complication I hadn't considered

[1st ade]

4 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

The statement I've snipped suggests there was also non-chain traffic on the river, possibly quite a lot of it - a complication I hadn't considered

Brings a whole new meaning to the signal "Restricted in my ability to manoeuvre" - or would they be considered "at anchor"?

[Tam & Di]

Chain tugs obviously overlapped the introduction of self-propelled vessels. We bought "Friesland" (then named Drie Bruggen) out of trade from a lock keeper in Friesland in 1987; he had been a boatman but had lost several fingers in an accident. His boat when he traded was an 80m unpowered craft, and skippers of these vessels just called upon the services of "seeking tugs" - freelance tug services - to get a tow to the destination. This was still a common mode of transport at that time, but I've not heard that it still happens now.

 

A similar thing happened pre WW1 at Saint Mammès where the Canal du Loing joined the Seine. The barges would be individually owned and towed by horses/mules on the C. de Loing and others that fed into it, and then assembled into a tow at Saint Mammès to continue to Paris.

 

Tam

Edited October 26, 2020 by Tam & Di

[Pluto]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Overall fascinating, although I'm still getting my head round it

 

The statement I've snipped suggests there was also non-chain traffic on the river, possibly quite a lot of it - a complication I hadn't considered

You need to remember that there was a considerable volume of rafted timber using the German rivers, particularly the Main and Rhine, with the wood being sold in Holland. The rafts could be a quarter of a mile in length, and worked by a couple of hundred men, with the owner of the timber and his family living in a house built on the raft. This could be slid off the raft in Holland and sold for further use. Sorry for the poor image, but it does show the house on board. It is taken from a book on rafting in Germany, Flößerei in Deutschland by Hans Keweloh, published in 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0426-8.

 

Some of the unpowered boats which had been towed upstream by the tug could also have drifted downstream to avoid towage charges, possibly depending upon the river flow. Rafting declined in the 20th century, and some families moved onto boats. One of the families I know in Dorfprozelten am Main have examples of raftsmen's tools and bindings on the wall in their house.

[Dav and Pen]

The tunnel tug on the Burgundy canal is different in having its machinery hidden. It must have been pretty hairy working on that considering the tunnel is very low. It’s now encased in concrete in the only decent drydock in the area. Some genius at vnf no doubt.

[Pluto]

The same tug in 1995.