Volswingies

[enigmatic]

Lets face it, most boaters find locks quite interesting but nobody likes jumping off the boat for swing bridges, which unlike locks aren't for our benefit but that of ungrateful drivers and the sort of farmers that erect barbed wire fences on the offside to make it more difficult to step off and shut the gate for them.

Especially not whilst single handed, and especially not on the Leeds and Liverpool where they seem to have been designed as some sort of obstacle course

or the New Junction which would be a lot less tedious if you could speed through the flatness with someone else moving the road out the way every few hundred metres

 

Are CRT recruiting volunteers for the wrong thing  

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Lets face it, most boaters find locks quite interesting but nobody likes jumping off the boat for swing bridges, which unlike locks aren't for our benefit but that of ungrateful drivers and the sort of farmers that erect barbed wire fences on the offside to make it more difficult to step off and shut the gate for them.

Especially not whilst single handed, and especially not on the Leeds and Liverpool where they seem to have been designed as some sort of obstacle course

or the New Junction which would be a lot less tedious if you could speed through the flatness with someone else moving the road out the way every few hundred metres

 

Are CRT recruiting volunteers for the wrong thing  

 

Well if I lived a bit closer I would happily play with the big hydraulic lift bridges on the New Junction canal all day long.

 

Not forgetting Barnby Dun of course, many more vehicles to stop there.

[enigmatic]

Just now, M_JG said:

 

Well if I lived a bit closer I would happily play with the big hydraulic lift bridges on the New Junction canal all day long.

 

That's the thing, I reckon some people genuinely would quite like it, just hard to appreciate good engineering when you're having to speed through it and rush to tie up whilst a queue of cars appears. 

 

A friend of mine living near the Heyfords mentioned that his kids absolutely loved opening the small lift bridge in the village. After the second beer, he added that he also liked the idea of the CRT key for himself so he could half-open it and use it for bike jumps!

[Rob-M]

They are trying to get volunteers to help run the swing bridges on the Gloucester Sharpness canal to extend the opening hours.

[jpcdriver]

Been through Barnby Dun a couple of times this year and there are volunteers there sometimes - usually in the morning.

[Mac of Cygnet]

I quite often  got passers-by to operate the L&L bridges for me.  They were generally delighted to play with the electrified ones, but less keen on the manual for some reason,  although I was quite gratified by the occasional ad hoc volunteer for these too.

 

Edited to say that I once almost decapitated a cyclist on the New Junction as he came racing through the closing barriers, head down, earphones in.  He came off the bike quite spectacularly, but didn't seem to make much of it - perhaps it happened to him regularly.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Mac of Cygnet

[sigsegv]

On 21/05/2023 at 21:44, enigmatic said:

e people genuinely would quite like it, just hard to appreciate good engineering when you're having to speed through it and rush to tie up whilst a queue of cars appears

Wait isn't that the best bit of swing bridges? Watching cagers pile up while you casually amble along in your life at 3mph?

[David Mack]

23 minutes ago, sigsegv said:

Wait isn't that the best bit of swing bridges? Watching cagers pile up while you casually amble along in your life at 3mph?

Gets embarrassing when, having opened the bridge, you go back to the boat and then go hard aground...

DAMHIK

[Mac of Cygnet]

21 hours ago, sigsegv said:

Wait isn't that the best bit of swing bridges? Watching cagers pile up while you casually amble along in your life at 3mph?

Best 'pile up' I achieved was at Fool's Nook on the Macc - an entire classic car rally.  I had actually owned three of the models. It was all very interesting.

[Grassman]

On 23/05/2023 at 10:44, David Mack said:

Gets embarrassing when, having opened the bridge, you go back to the boat and then go hard aground...

DAMHIK

 

The most embarrassing swing bridge incident we had was in Skipton. I dropped the wife off and she put the key in and pressed the button. Once the barriers were down nothing happened. It was school turning out time and there was an immediate build up of impatient kids waiting to cross, and a long line of cars too. It took her about 3 minutes to realise that the electronics were only to operate the barriers and that the bridge had to be opened manually, by which time the air was rather blue with angry kids and motorists!

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

The most embarrassing swing bridge incident we had was in Skipton. I dropped the wife off and she put the key in and pressed the button. Once the barriers were down nothing happened. It was school turning out time and there was an immediate build up of impatient kids waiting to cross, and a long line of cars too. It took her about 3 minutes to realise that the electronics were only to operate the barriers and that the bridge had to be opened manually, by which time the air was rather blue with angry kids and motorists!

 

Probably not as annoyed as the swing bridge (also in Skipton) where the barriers came down but then the (motorised) bridge didn't open, and couldn't be reset or the barriers opened again. The road stayed blocked for getting on for an hour until a CART employee turned up to open up the cabinet and do whatever was needed to get it working again. He told me this was a regular occurrence, especially in hot weather... 😞

[Jen-in-Wellies]

On 21/05/2023 at 21:30, enigmatic said:

or the New Junction which would be a lot less tedious if you could speed through the flatness with someone else moving the road out the way every few hundred metres

On a couple of occasions,  when travelling with another boat, I've taken to the tow path on a lock bridge wheeling bike to handle the bridges and lock on the New Junction and along the Stainforth & Keadby too, with a guest steerer on my boat. Taking to the road for between Low Lane bridge and either Barnby Dun bridge, or Bramwith lock. Makes the New Junction very simple.

[David Mack]

7 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Probably not as annoyed as the swing bridge (also in Skipton) where the barriers came down but then the (motorised) bridge didn't open, and couldn't be reset or the barriers opened again. The road stayed blocked for getting on for an hour until a CART employee turned up to open up the cabinet and do whatever was needed to get it working again. He told me this was a regular occurrence, especially in hot weather... 😞

A couple of times I have had that happen, and in each case the problem was that the barrier didn't go down quite far enough to activate the switch that allows the bridge opening to happen. Jiggling the end of the barrier in its support can help.

[IanD]

9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

A couple of times I have had that happen, and in each case the problem was that the barrier didn't go down quite far enough to activate the switch that allows the bridge opening to happen. Jiggling the end of the barrier in its support can help.

Tried that several times, and it didn't help... 😞

 

(confirmed by the CRT bloke)