A day Gongoozling at Braunston

[Captain Pegg]

28 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

 

Can you find any historical examples at all of wide beam boats active on the stretch of the GU between (say) Stoke Bruerne & Braunston, (other than dredgers, maintenance craft and tunnel tugs).

 

I'm familiar with one picture of a wide beam horse drawn trading boat in Stoke Bruerne Top Lock, but can't immediately think of any others.

If it were even only a fairly rare practice, I would still expect some more photos to exist depicting it.  My personal take is that if such photos are almost non existent, then it was not likely to have been very commonplace

 

I think it was mostly prior to photography, and it could be that the legal requirement for 12' 6" from Berkhamsted to Birmingham is solely a result of the existence of the wide boat Progress.

 

Read the articles in Narrow Boat magazine on wide boats on the Grand Junction. They seem to suggest that wider boats were perhaps the norm or common in the very early days of the canal although it's a bit ambiguous. But also that Thomas Clayton (Paddington) operated wide boats to Long Buckby and FMC operated three wide boats to a transhipment depot at Braunston prior to WW1.

 

As a proportion these are tiny numbers of craft but I think the notion that there was any intention on the part of the GJC company to not allow or support the operation of wide craft would be wrong. BWB tried to restrict it north of Berkhamsted as much as they could in latter days but had the GUCCo gained control of routes to the Warwickshire coalfield and had the funds to widen the Leicester line why wouldn't the GUCCCo have operated larger craft throughout? The GUC vision was a broad beam network. It would be economic madness to invest in that and not operate larger craft.

 

The GJC isn't built to a fundamentally different specification either side of Berkhamsted - although it has been maintained to a different standard latterly - and it isn't fundamentally different in scale to the Regents or the L&L on which wide boat carrying was firmly established. Both of these have operational pinch points, I'm sure you've read about lighters blocking Islington tunnel.

 

I would contend that the reasons for a historic lack of wide boats using the northern GJC is about economic rather than physical factors.

 

Mostly though I think the ability for an owner to operate a craft that is within the legal parameters for the waterway concerned is something all canal enthusiasts should support. The current arrangements for Blisworth and Braunston seem pretty reasonable to me.

 

Did tugs operate trains of horse boats in both directions simultaneously?

 

      

Edited April 26, 2023 by Captain Pegg

[magnetman]

If the GU was a full broad  canal including Northampton and the Leicester section it could have a bigger chance of surviving long term due to increased use and the possibility of freight transport.

 

None of this will happen but I sometimes think peope who have a negative reaction to the wide beans may be blinkered.

 

Equally the current wide beam issue is a symptom of the undefined nature of the waterways. I bet if there were a lot of commercial boats about the people who like floating apartments would evaportate.

 

I somehow doubt the skippers on commercials give much of a toss about how well you are tied up at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

I remember someone on here writing something like "I really hate other people using my trainset but there is no way I would be able to afford this trainset without them". Wise words me thinks.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by magnetman

[alan_fincher]

2 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

Did tugs operate trains of horse boats in both directions simultaneously?

 

I  very much doubt it.  I'm not sure which but believe some of the tugs were significantly wider than narrow boats they were towing.  Hence potentially two tugs could not have passed in the tunnels

 

[Captain Pegg]

2 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

 

I  very much doubt it.  I'm not sure which but believe some of the tugs were significantly wider than narrow boats they were towing.  Hence potentially two tugs could not have passed in the tunnels

 

I have taken this thread off course so it’s polite to say to @Owls Den that observing the goings on and the variety of craft at Braunston is always a pleasure. And you certainly pictured a variety. If you’d have been 10 days earlier you’d have spotted a lovely little narrowboat in the dock at the end of the arm to add to your collection.

 

I suspected that tunnel tugs operated one way in turn. Not just because of the logistics of passing but also because there may only have been one tug, or only one in steam.

 

Prior to tugs, legging was the order of the day, and again I’m not sure that leant itself easily to narrow boats passing in the tunnel.

 

So it may be that two way traffic in the GJC tunnels is actually a privilege of the motor boat era. An era that until recently saw minimal wide beam traffic.

 

That’s the thing with tradition. Your first experience - such as there are no wide boats north of Berkhamsted - is the way you tend to think things always were. In reality it changes over time and such things tend to move in cycles.

[Ray T]

6 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

 

Can you find any historical examples at all of wide beam boats active on the stretch of the GU between (say) Stoke Bruerne & Braunston, (other than dredgers, maintenance craft and tunnel tugs).

 

I'm familiar with one picture of a wide beam horse drawn trading boat in Stoke Bruerne Top Lock, but can't immediately think of any others.

If it were even only a fairly rare practice, I would still expect some more photos to exist depicting it.  My personal take is that if such photos are almost non existent, then it was not likely to have been very commonplace

 

Does the trial with Progress & butty Eagle count? Progress was, of course used at the official opening of the double locks with the Duke of Kent in 1934.

 

Is this the wide boat at Stoke Bruerne the one you mean?

 

What about Tranquil Rose? Been around from approx 1975.

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Ray T

[David Schweizer]

20 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

Not my words. I haven't checked the exact words that were used but it's David Blagrove's account of his conversations with Leslie Morton. Let's face it, he'd be the person to know. The more obvious reason for the GUCCCo purchasing narrowboats at that time was that they hadn't fully completed the widening to Birmingham (and never did) and most of the sources of long distance traffic on the fomer GJC were only directly accessible by narrowboats. They presumably built what they thought they needed for the intended traffic. Over ambitious as it turned out but surely the more critical factor is the intended lifespan (in terms of economic payback as much as physical) of the fleet rather than the size of it. Wide boats would have been potentially economically viable with widening of the Leicester line and the route to the Warwickshire coalfield which was the ambition.

 

Both Thomas Clayton (Paddington) and FMC operated wide boats on the northern GJC in addition to other small private operators. Very small numbers of craft in relation to narrowboats of course.

 

I find it hard to believe I'm telling you or Alan anything you haven't forgotten, I'm sure you've both got - or once had - the same reference material.

 

 

I knew both David Blagrove and Leslie Morton, but have no recollection of either of them ever referring to any plan to use wide boats on the G.U. I have not seen such an ambition stated in any published information, and would be interested to learn of your source.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by David Schweizer

[Captain Pegg]

11 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

 

I knew both David Blagrove and Leslie Morton, but have no recollection of either of them ever referring to any plan to use wide boats on the G.U. I have not seen such an ambition stated in any published information, and would be interested to learn of your source.

 

 

I realised you would have known them. I don't have it to hand at present but I recall it is from David Blagrove's Bread Upon The Waters.

[Silent Flight]

14 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

have taken this thread off course so it’s polite to say to @Owls Den that observing the goings on and the variety of craft at Braunston is always a pleasure.

Thankyou, and nae bother. It’s turned into a interesting discussion with some cool pics!

[dogless]

Tranquil Rose used to be a regular visitor to the Saltisford Arm but can no longer pass through the Warwick Fly Boat bridge (below the lock) due the the bridge shifting.

 

It has been secured with steel supports but has restricted passage.

 

Rog