Rubbing posts/strips on the Shroppie Bridges

[David Mack]

22 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Maybe I was being a little too obtuse.

 

No, but they are the modern version of :

 

 

Chariot wheel to knock the other competitors out of the race ?

 

 

 

The packet boat Duchess Countess had a knife on the bow to cut the tow rope of any boat which got in the way.

Image from https://roaringwaterjournal.com/tag/duchess-countess-canal-boat/

[magnetman]

Nice photo. 

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

The packet boat Duchess Countess had a knife on the bow to cut the tow rope of any boat which got in the way.

Image from https://roaringwaterjournal.com/tag/duchess-countess-canal-boat/

I wonder if the blade ever got used

[IanD]

49 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I wonder if the blade ever got used

I seem to remember reading that it was symbolic rather than useful -- but the book saying this is on the boat so I can't check...

Edited December 16, 2023 by IanD

[Hastings]

There's been some comment that there are grooves quite low down on the cast iron bridge guards.  One reason will be that fly-boats, the primary (and extremely prolific) traffic till 1921, were drawn in the main by smaller horses than were often used elsewhere.  This is because of the height/profile of the Shroppie bridges; a normal height horse just won't fit.  The boatmen called them half-legged horses, as you can see in Jack Roberts excellent book "Shropshire Union Fly-Boats".  He was a fly-boat captain before the first world war.  The very recent recreation of fly-boating with Saturn uses a wonderful small horse, Flower.  I suspect that the operators knew to do this.

 

I've boated up and down the Shroppie on and off for nearly 60 years, and I've never seen or heard of replacement bridge guards.  I'm convinced they are original, though I think it was David Mack who made the point earlier, they were probably installed when stonework started suffering, probably later in the 19th century, rather than when the canal opened in 1835.  

Edited December 18, 2023 by Hastings
spelling error

[Pluto]

I have just come across this, suggesting the protection was added after construction, in the Engineer's reports for the Lancaster Canal:

William Crosley reporting to the Lancaster Canal committee in 1819… I am having cast iron guards made for the abutments of the bridges on the towing path side, these I trust will answer the purposes intended better than rollers and will not I think be more expensive.

[Hastings]

23 hours ago, Pluto said:

I have just come across this, suggesting the protection was added after construction, in the Engineer's reports for the Lancaster Canal:

 

William Crosley reporting to the Lancaster Canal committee in 1819… I am having cast iron guards made for the abutments of the bridges on the towing path side, these I trust will answer the purposes intended better than rollers and will not I think be more expensive.

This ties in with my suggestion that Shroppie bridge guards were not installed at building, but were (in modern parlance) a retro-fit feature. Until the canal had been used for a while, one wouldn't know exactly what was needed, or where.  

[magnetman]

Its interesting to think of the costs. 

 

One imagines the vertical rollers were nice for the ropes but if they were wooden and seized up then they would get cut in half quickly. 

 

This is a cost to the canal company. Stock of spare oversize rolling pins needed + labour. 

 

If you can transfer the damage to the rope then the cost is borne by the Boat operator. Stock of spare towing line.

 

So the cast iron guards will wear ropes away quicker but cost the canal company less overall than the labour intensive rollers. 

 

Is that the idea? 

 

 

[David Mack]

7 hours ago, magnetman said:

If you can transfer the damage to the rope then the cost is borne by the Boat operator.

But only relevant if the canal company is not also the boat operator. Did the canal companies operate their own fleets at this time?

[Pluto]

27 minutes ago, David Mack said:

But only relevant if the canal company is not also the boat operator. Did the canal companies operate their own fleets at this time?

Not originally, with canal company owned fleets developing to combat railway competition from around 1840.

[Hastings]

2 hours ago, Pluto said:

Not originally, with canal company owned fleets developing to combat railway competition from around 1840.

True, but on the Shroppie it developed to the stage by the last quarter of the 19th century that most boats were 'company boats'.  SURCCo is believed to have operated several hundred boats - in numbers of boats terms, it was probably bigger than GUCCCo and FMC ever were.

[Pluto]

In terms of tonnage carried, with figures from the Royal Commission in 1907, the GJC carried 1,140,000 tons, the SUC 1,100,000 tons, and the L&LC 2,450,000 tons. Obviously not all was carried by canal company boats, with coal tonnage on the L&LC being slightly more than general cargo, while the wide boat traffic on the southern GJC was probably much more significant than narrow boat traffic. I do have details for the L&LC fleet, though it is difficult to say exactly what the fleet consisted of at any particular time as old boats were sold off and new ones added. I have one contemporary suggestion that there were 1000 boats operating on the L&LC, though only 200 or so of those would be general cargo boats from the company fleet. As an aside, the FMC did look to having a few L&LC boats, but the traffic seems not to have developed.

How intensively the boats were used is also an important aspect. This graph shows the work of an L&LC boat in 1907 which suggests that it was not waiting for long periods.

2014 boat movements colour.pdf

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

In terms of tonnage carried, with figures from the Royal Commission in 1907, the GJC carried 1,140,000 tons, the SUC 1,100,000 tons, and the L&LC 2,450,000 tons. Obviously not all was carried by canal company boats, with coal tonnage on the L&LC being slightly more than general cargo, while the wide boat traffic on the southern GJC was probably much more significant than narrow boat traffic. I do have details for the L&LC fleet, though it is difficult to say exactly what the fleet consisted of at any particular time as old boats were sold off and new ones added. I have one contemporary suggestion that there were 1000 boats operating on the L&LC, though only 200 or so of those would be general cargo boats from the company fleet. As an aside, the FMC did look to having a few L&LC boats, but the traffic seems not to have developed.

How intensively the boats were used is also an important aspect. This graph shows the work of an L&LC boat in 1907 which suggests that it was not waiting for long periods.

2014 boat movements colour.pdf 568.31 kB · 4 downloads

Do the dotted sections indicate an unloaded movement? If so, they managed a pretty good load factor.

[Pluto]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

Do the dotted sections indicate an unloaded movement? If so, they managed a pretty good load factor.

Yes, it was a very efficient service from the 1870s to the First World War. Around 1880, the Lancs & Yorks Rly were laying staff off in Burnley because the canal had taken part of their traffic.