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C&RT's most useless signs and money wasted


Midnight

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37 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

Sorry I'm been a bit slow 😀 Getting ready for the assault on the Ashton 18/Rochdale 18 so been in that Silly Town/Silly Pub micro pub in Droylsden .

Anyway, don't  give CRT ideas or every balance beam will get a blue sign "Sit here and get some wellbeing". I am always slightly impressed by boaters who lie on the beam as the lock fills.

 

They always strike me as demonstrating their inexperience. I doubt they have ever had a boat-threatening incident in a lock, or they would not lie on the beam failing to pay attention. 

 

I was nattering with someone once at a lock when they said "Oh look, is your boat normally that low in the water?" At which instant there was a huge bang as the bow fender chain (which I had fortunately 90% hacksawed through) snapped and the boat popped up 18" higher out of the water. 

 

And I've never lain on a balance beam since, preferring to watch my boat like a hawk. 

 

(Whatever a hawk watches a boat like...)

 

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4 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

They always strike me as demonstrating their inexperience. I doubt they have ever had a boat-threatening incident in a lock, or they would not lie on the beam failing to pay attention. 

 

I was nattering with someone once at a lock when they said "Oh look, is your boat normally that low in the water?" At which instant there was a huge bang as the bow fender chain (which I had fortunately 90% hacksawed through) snapped and the boat popped up 18" higher out of the water. 

 

And I've never lain on a balance beam since, preferring to watch my boat like a hawk. 

 

(Whatever a hawk watches a boat like...)

 

 

Yeah, that's why i'm impressed, I stand there watching the front button ride up the gate waiting for something to go wrong, people who lie on the balance beam must be so good that nothing can go wrong 😀,

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1 minute ago, dmr said:

people who lie on the balance beam must be so good that nothing can go wrong 😀,

 

It's the ones who do one click on the paddle then go and sit down for five minutes before the next click that annoy me.

 

It usually takes half a dozen clicks before the water starts moving ...

 

No need to put the kettle on, there's time to make a loaf of bread!

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Today I spotted two lockies replacing what looked like perfectly good black and white  lock signs with new black and white lock signs but with a sunken tyre logo instead of a Swan. I asked why no blue signs lockie says "I don't like blue". That lockie should be the next Chief Executive of CRT.

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15 hours ago, dmr said:

 

Yeah, that's why i'm impressed, I stand there watching the front button ride up the gate waiting for something to go wrong, people who lie on the balance beam must be so good that nothing can go wrong 😀,

Now you've done it- blue signs next week "Do not lie on the balance beam whilst the boat is descending or ascending the lock"

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4 hours ago, Midnight said:

Now you've done it- blue signs next week "Do not lie on the balance beam whilst the boat is descending or ascending the lock"

 

Yes awesome opportunity identified there, EIGHT signs per lock, one on each side of every balance beam! 

 

Now I know there are approx 2,000 miles of track, but how many locks are there? My finger in the air guess would be about 3,000 but does anybody know for sure? 

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4 hours ago, Midnight said:

Today I spotted two lockies replacing what looked like perfectly good black and white  lock signs with new black and white lock signs but with a sunken tyre logo instead of a Swan. I asked why no blue signs lockie says "I don't like blue". That lockie should be the next Chief Executive of CRT.


The black and white signs can look quite smart, at least on those rare occasions when the signs are useful.

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To be fair, the "just in case" signs are a bit like insurance - we pay out eye watering amounts each year hoping we never need it, and probably well aware that if we do need it the insurance company will find at least six very good reasons why a) they don't need to pay out and b) six very good reasons to increase your premium next year.

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14 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Yes awesome opportunity identified there, EIGHT signs per lock, one on each side of every balance beam! 

 

Now I know there are approx 2,000 miles of track, but how many locks are there? My finger in the air guess would be about 3,000 but does anybody know for sure? 

But a significant proportion of locks do not have 4 balance beams. Are you guilty of narrow beam prejudice?

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On 26/09/2021 at 13:25, PD1964 said:

We’re getting all new signs in this area SSYN, they say exactly the same as the old ones they’re replacing, the only difference is the new round CaRT logo has replaced the old CaRT log on them. I wonder how much the branding change of logo’s has cost? Not just paying the Graphic design company but the replacement of every sign on the system.

 Why couldn’t they just get some new logo vinyl stickers and place them over the old logo? Total waste of money when the navigation is declining.

Small vinyl stickers was what they did when they replaced the last BW bullrushes logo with the CaRT swan one, but that was with the black/white colour scheme. I recall at the time that CaRT was formed that they specifically said they would not be replacing all the signs that referenced BW, but that turned out to be a lie.

Would anyone else care to estimate the cost replacing all the signs with blue sinking tyre ones, plus all the newly installed ones? I'd make a guestimate of five signs per mile of canal on average, so 10,000 signs as an order of magnitude number. The cost of the sign themselves will be marginal. I'd guess that a team of two could replace perhaps five per day on average. More for signs screwed to a wall, or a straight replacement. Fewer if a post hole needs to be dug and concreted. So 4,000 person days at perhaps £200 a day all in (wages, employers NI, management, back office, van), £800k as a low estimate. Probably over a million in reality. That is quite a few sets of lock gates.

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It's worse than I thought. I walked round the outside of the facilities block here and counted 8 blue signs. None of the blue signs are providing the most useful information, like which are the doors to the elsan sluice, the disabled, women's and men's loo/showers. These are all older black and white ones. In total, seventeen signs. There are still a lot of older signs around. Four on the gate to the boat jetty, all old black/white with a vinyl CaRT swan over the older BW bullrush logo.

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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20 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

It's worse than I thought. I walked round the outside of the facilities block here and counted 8 blue signs. None of the blue signs are providing the most useful information, like which are the doors to the elsan sluice, the disabled, women's and men's loo/showers. These are all older black and white ones. In total, seventeen signs. There are still a lot of older signs around. Four on the gate to the boat jetty, all old black/white with a vinyl CaRT swan over the older BW bullrush logo.

They are more interested in the Signs on the Tinsley flight then maintaining the locks and landings. The flight is so unkept and becoming a mess, considering there has been 2x resident lock keepers there for years it’s laughable, what are they paying these people to do all day when there is no boat movement most days.

  This is the Twitter Tweet I sent to CaRT about the state of the quadrants on the flight and the joke of a Tweet reply they sent back, with no reply to my last Tweet pointing out what the quadrants are.😂

 

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Edited by PD1964
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7 hours ago, PD1964 said:

The flight is so unkept and becoming a mess, considering there has been 2x resident lock keepers there for years it’s laughable, what are they paying these people to do all day when there is no boat movement most days.


I think you're being a little hard on them judging by those images. It's just a little vegetation, the blocks are still well proud. I wouldn't look twice at a lock like that, it's hardly a hazard.

 

On 14/10/2021 at 12:26, Jen-in-Wellies said:

£800k as a low estimate. Probably over a million in reality. That is quite a few sets of lock gates.

 

It's really tragic. I think what makes it so much more tragic is that it's not just wasted money, it's that anyone with any taste at all sees the blue signs as a blight on the old infrastructure. But the signs DO stand out and that's what they are for.

 

I reckon it's a branding exercise for them to try to raise funding from donations, because that initiative was such an abysmal failure. And completely unsurprising IMO. The public doesn't realise that the canals are managed by a separate organisation, I certainly was oblivious before I started boating.

 

Perhaps cart is counting on awareness being enough to get people to open their wallets, but I have no doubt that any future initiative would fail spectacularly as well - even if people know that cart is a charity. Public space kind of feels like it ought to be free. Cart is counting on people caring more about them than the other 1000's of charities with objectively more worthy causes. It just isn't going to happen no matter how many sinking tyres they display around the network.

Edited by jetzi
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At least the quadrants are still useable. On my last visit to Stratford-on- Avon a couple of decades ago (on a day trip, not by canal) I noticed that, on the lock gates between the canal basin and the river, the gaps between the bricks of the quadrants had been filled in with cement, level with the tops of the bricks to produce a completely smooth surface. This was no doubt to reduce the trip hazard for the many tourists, at the expense of making life difficult for canal users wishing to operate the lock gates. I did stop and help a boater who was having trouble getting enough purchase to open the gates, and the smooth surface certainly didn't make it easy. There had been no problem with grip when I had been through the lock by boat myself in the 1970's. I don't know what the present situation is. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
typos
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40 minutes ago, DanielnDorothy said:

I agree

The thing is this is a manned flight and has been for years. There has been live in lock keepers that only work this flight and nowhere else. So there is no excuse for the locks to be in this state as few boats use it.

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On 13/10/2021 at 20:57, manxmike said:

To be fair, the "just in case" signs are a bit like insurance - we pay out eye watering amounts each year hoping we never need it, and probably well aware that if we do need it the insurance company will find at least six very good reasons why a) they don't need to pay out and b) six very good reasons to increase your premium next year.

 

(b) only applies if you believe in resurrection.   :wacko:

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13 hours ago, jetzi said:


But the signs DO stand out and that's what they are for.

 

I reckon it's a branding exercise for them to try to raise funding from donations, because that initiative was such an abysmal failure. And completely unsurprising IMO. The public doesn't realise that the canals are managed by a separate organisation, I certainly was oblivious before I started boating.

 

Perhaps cart is counting on awareness being enough to get people to open their wallets, but I have no doubt that any future initiative would fail spectacularly as well - even if people know that cart is a charity. Public space kind of feels like it ought to be free. Cart is counting on people caring more about them than the other 1000's of charities with objectively more worthy causes. It just isn't going to happen no matter how many sinking tyres they display around the network.

 

 

I think that the raising of the public's awareness is not so much about attracting donations but more to do with trying to secure future part funding from the government which I believe is currently around £50m per annum. It's up for review soon, and given the fact that when CRT was set up in 2012 the government said it wanted it to eventually be self funding (like the National Trust they said),  CRT are having to do their utmost to justify future government financial support by plugging their cause. Hence all their spiel about well being and canals for all etc. 

 

How can it be like the National Trust who charge entrance fees and car parking, when  90+ percent of canal users are using their towpaths free of charge and not paying a penny towards their upkeep? It's crazy that CRT should have to fight so hard and waste so much money on signs and other 'awareness' measures. Our canals provide an amenity for people to enjoy and should therefore always have a significant contribution from either local or national government. 

 

I know towpath improvements is sometimes funded by local authorities or the likes of Sustrans, but mostly it's CRT who have to bear the cost of the upkeep and maintenance.

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28 minutes ago, Grassman said:

I think that the raising of the public's awareness is not so much about attracting donations but more to do with trying to secure future part funding from the government which I believe is currently around £50m per annum. It's up for review soon, and given the fact that when CRT was set up in 2012 the government said it wanted it to eventually be self funding (like the National Trust they said),  CRT are having to do their utmost to justify future government financial support by plugging their cause. Hence all their spiel about well being and canals for all etc. 

 

True, it's not only direct voluntary donations, there are also the "donations" the public makes via the govmt grant.

 

 

  

21 minutes ago, Grassman said:

90+ percent of canal users are using their towpaths free of charge and not paying a penny towards their upkeep? It's crazy that CRT should have to fight so hard and waste so much money on signs and other 'awareness' measures. Our canals provide an amenity for people to enjoy and should therefore always have a significant contribution from either local or national government. 

 

I know towpath improvements is sometimes funded by local authorities or the likes of Sustrans, but mostly it's CRT who have to bear the cost of the upkeep and maintenance.


While I do agree with you, the vast majority of visitors to the waterways (cyclists, amblers and ramblers) have no need for the waters to be easily navigable with services. Yes there are the gongoozlers but boats if anything inconvenience these groups.

 

Cart is in the difficult position of needing the majority public to justify/raise funding, but with the minority boaters needing the lions share of the money. That's why I think boaters should support at least a modest increase to license fees. We've had the conversation before that raising boat licenses high enough for boaters to actually pay their own way would price many off the canals, which is unfortunate, but I feel we have to strike a more reasonable compromise if the canals are going to remain navigable for the next 100 years.

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19 minutes ago, jetzi said:

We've had the conversation before that raising boat licenses high enough for boaters to actually pay their own way would price many off the canals, which is unfortunate, but I feel we have to strike a more reasonable compromise if the canals are going to remain navigable for the next 100 years.

 

Yet new boaters are flooding onto the canals in droves with their monster £250k brand new widebeams. You suggest raising the license fee would put people off, but it looks to me as though that might not be a bad thing as the canals are markedly rammed full of boats these days in many areas that were once quite unpopulated.

 

Re-balancing the fee structure might be a better way forward. Base license fees on boat value, like Council Tax on houses perhaps. Mr and Mrs Moneybags with their £150k or £250k new builds who could easily afford £10k or £15k a year would then start contributing proportionally. It does seem iniquitous to me that a young couple in an old 60ft ex hire boat they paid £18k for, have to pay nearly the same licrense as a widebeam worth ten times as much and taking up almost twice as much canal 'real estate'. 

 

Just an idea for everyone to shoot down...

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27 minutes ago, jetzi said:

While I do agree with you, the vast majority of visitors to the waterways (cyclists, amblers and ramblers) have no need for the waters to be easily navigable with services. Yes there are the gongoozlers but boats if anything inconvenience these groups.

 

I disagree.  Boaters are the Mickey and Minnie characters for CRT's Disneyland - we are the entertainment.

 

Gongoozlers gather at locks as soon as a boat turns up, and I often see families turn around and walk back to a lock to watch the boat go through it.

 

Cyclists out for a pootle - not the high speed idiots - often stop to watch locks or bridges being operated.

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Working through a lock will nearly always end up engaging with any bystanders as they are interested in knowing how it works or asking questions about living on a boat.  I'll always encourage children to push a gate especially when single handing.

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25 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Yet new boaters are flooding onto the canals in droves with their monster £250k brand new widebeams. You suggest raising the license fee would put people off, but it looks to me as though that might not be a bad thing as the canals are markedly rammed full of boats these days in many areas that were once quite unpopulated.

 

Re-balancing the fee structure might be a better way forward. Base license fees on boat value, like Council Tax on houses perhaps. Mr and Mrs Moneybags with their £150k or £250k new builds who could easily afford £10k or £15k a year would then start contributing proportionally. It does seem iniquitous to me that a young couple in an old 60ft ex hire boat they paid £18k for, have to pay nearly the same licrense as a widebeam worth ten times as much and taking up almost twice as much canal 'real estate'. 

 

Just an idea for everyone to shoot down...

 

The cost of a boat should have no bearing on its licensing value. I can understand the equation of size (footprint). 

 

 

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