Shroppie Stoppage

[mayalld]

Because I seldom come across them, and to stop me trawling through the books, where are they all please, Dave.....

 

Hawkesbury ("Sutton Stop")

Autherley (although the level difference there seemed marginal)

I don't know the Macc, but does Hall Green count as a stop lock.

And what's Dutton Stop lock about, (never been there either!), as it's not I think close to a junction......

 

List, please !

 

You have the list complete. There are four stop locks left.

 

• Sutton Stop - necessary, because you can't lower the level to on the Oxford without making it too shallow, and the amount of dredging required would be prohibitive, you can't raise the level on the Coventry without flooding Coventry.
  
• Hall Green - yes, it is a stop lock. No way you could lower the bottom pound of the Macc, and if you raised the summit on the T&M, the tunnel would become impassible. It is probable that the fall on this lock will increase in years to come.
  
• Autherley - Marginal level difference, so not sure about necessity.
  
• Dutton - The junction between the T&M and Bridgewater is end-on inside Preston Brook Tunnel. Again, maintaining tunnel headroom is key here. The level difference here is also marginal, and this is probably the stop lock that it is easiest to reverse (and it has been done by BW on occasion).
  

[casper ghost]

You have the list complete. There are four stop locks left.

 

• Sutton Stop - necessary, because you can't lower the level to on the Oxford without making it too shallow, and the amount of dredging required would be prohibitive, you can't raise the level on the Coventry without flooding Coventry.
  
• Hall Green - yes, it is a stop lock. No way you could lower the bottom pound of the Macc, and if you raised the summit on the T&M, the tunnel would become impassible. It is probable that the fall on this lock will increase in years to come.
  
• Autherley - Marginal level difference, so not sure about necessity.
  
• Dutton - The junction between the T&M and Bridgewater is end-on inside Preston Brook Tunnel. Again, maintaining tunnel headroom is key here. The level difference here is also marginal, and this is probably the stop lock that it is easiest to reverse (and it has been done by BW on occasion).
  

 

[mayalld]

 

Please sir, it wasn't me that said flooding Coventry would be a vast improvement!

[journeyperson]

• Dutton - The junction between the T&M and Bridgewater is end-on inside Preston Brook Tunnel. Again, maintaining tunnel headroom is key here. The level difference here is also marginal, and this is probably the stop lock that it is easiest to reverse (and it has been done by BW on occasion).
  

 

I thought it was maintained to mark the frontier between the public and the private sector.

Edited August 25, 2009 by journeyperson

[Top cat]

Ignoring all of the historical implications of what you are suggesting, and the removal of a spectacle for the gongoozlers, do you suggest dredging from Hawksbury to Braunston, Napton and Calcutt locks to lower the canal by 6"? Or raising all of the banks and spill ways from Hawksbury to Atherstone, Coventry Basin and the end of the Ashby to raise that by 6"?

 

Richard

 

I would have thought you would have split the difference changing each canal by 3".

 

As for the historic bit well it can remain as off line moorings like the old loops on the rest of the canal

 

TC

[alan_fincher]

I would have thought you would have split the difference changing each canal by 3".

 

As for the historic bit well it can remain as off line moorings like the old loops on the rest of the canal

 

TC

We could also get the nasty wiggles out of some of those horrible contour canals too.

 

Should only need a few embankments, cuttings and tunnels.

 

Should speed things up quite a bit, I'd have thought.......

[Night Hawk]

Actually it would be nice to move various stretches of the cut just a few feet further away from some hideous back gardens.....we've seen some dreadful 'poop deck of the Titanic' style B&Q finest tat! You've all seen them! And as for some of those amazing lawns cut shorter than a Brazillian waxing!

[fender]

The winding hole is inside the BW yard. The pub name needed for the treasure hunt clue was outside. Scouts had gone ahead to find the answer as I battled down the last three hundred yards of overgrown weed infested swamp they call a canal. They climbed into the yard to assis with the winding.

 

They were once connected?

 

lol I thought the same about the Shrewsbury/Bradley but didnt want to comment in case I got piddled!

 

You have the list complete. There are four stop locks left.

 

• Sutton Stop - necessary, because you can't lower the level to on the Oxford without making it too shallow, and the amount of dredging required would be prohibitive, you can't raise the level on the Coventry without flooding Coventry.
  

 

They managed to flood Coventry city centre with virtually the entire 5 and half miles of waterway from Hawkesbury a good few years back so we've already had an attempt at that sort of thing!

Edited August 25, 2009 by fender

[Top cat]

We could also get the nasty wiggles out of some of those horrible contour canals too.

 

Should only need a few embankments, cuttings and tunnels.

 

Should speed things up quite a bit, I'd have thought.......

That was done on the N Oxford some time ago

 

TC

[fender]

[*]Hall Green - yes, it is a stop lock. No way you could lower the bottom pound of the Macc, and if you raised the summit on the T&M, the tunnel would become impassible. It is probable that the fall on this lock will increase in years to come.

 

Wasn't Hall Green a two way lock built to stop water from either the Macc or the T&M entering the other's waterway?

[Hairy-Neil]

Worse! The pub was shut!

 

Richard

 

I should think so, it was about 6.00 AM.....

 

 

You have the list complete. There are four stop locks left.

 

• Sutton Stop - necessary, because you can't lower the level to on the Oxford without making it too shallow, and the amount of dredging required would be prohibitive, you can't raise the level on the Coventry without flooding Coventry.
  
• Hall Green - yes, it is a stop lock. No way you could lower the bottom pound of the Macc, and if you raised the summit on the T&M, the tunnel would become impassible. It is probable that the fall on this lock will increase in years to come.
  
• Autherley - Marginal level difference, so not sure about necessity.
  
• Dutton - The junction between the T&M and Bridgewater is end-on inside Preston Brook Tunnel. Again, maintaining tunnel headroom is key here. The level difference here is also marginal, and this is probably the stop lock that it is easiest to reverse (and it has been done by BW on occasion).
  

 

Dukes Cut perhaps?

[mayalld]

Wasn't Hall Green a two way lock built to stop water from either the Macc or the T&M entering the other's waterway?

 

Yes, sort of!

 

It wasn't so much a 2 way lock as 2 locks built very close together (Bratch style, but one down, one up).

 

The gate recesses for the other lock can still be seen in the narrows downstream of the operational lock.

 

The other lock was de-gated many years ago, at the point where it became the case that the T&M would never again be higher than the Macc due to subsidence in the tunnel.

[T.A]

So whats happening with the stoppage?

[Night Hawk]

I was gonna ask that....Judging by the bright yellow laminated posters BW's now put up all over the cut displaying a nice picture of Shebden with several 'large' holes in the bed, I hear from Lynda the BW lady at Hurlston that 'it's gonna take a while....we need to know where all the leaked water went!'

[Tiny]

Somebody has just suggested doing away with one of the (very) few remaining stop locks on the system, because it is "silly"!

 

Quite apart from the fact that the 4 remaining stop locks actually remain because it isn't practical to remove them, all the others having long since been de-gated, it seems to me that degating any more of them would be institutuional vandalism!

 

One stop lock I would love for them to get rid of is the one at Autherley. This bugger was tarted up with wide gates some years back - instead of thinner ones that gave more room. Due to mud flows the gates don't open right quite often. (At one time BW were cleaning out mud once a week.) There is often no-where to moor on the Shroppie side due to the hire fleet changeovers. And, as most of the water for the S&W and the Shroppie enters these canals within a few hundred yards from Barnhurst water treatment works and as flow vary so do the levels in the Shroppie and S&W to the point that sometimes the levels are the same there seems little point in having the lock there.

[Proper Job]

Dukes Cut perhaps?

I would have thought that Dukes constitutes a stop lock. Although there is always a marginal difference in levels, its fundamentally there to compensate for the varying level of the river Thames.

 

I should think so, it was about 6.00 AM.....

Was it as late as that. We should have got up earlier!

[mayalld]

I would have thought that Dukes constitutes a stop lock. Although there is always a marginal difference in levels, its fundamentally there to compensate for the varying level of the river Thames.

 

In which case, it isn't a stop lock!

 

Locks with normally shallow falls, which can increase to significant falls when the river is in flood, and whose purpose is to ensure that a canal section remains at a constant level are Flood Locks, not Stop Locks.

[Chertsey]

Hawksbury could be improved by converting it to a T junction and getting the levels right and dispensing with the silly lock.

 

TC

Saw Hawkesbury this afternoon and thought it would be improved by being deconverted

[casper ghost]

So whats happening with the stoppage?

 

Well i've spoken to a BW chap today who's been told 4-6 weeks minimum.

 

I left Norbury Monday lunchtime and headed the long way around, there wasn't much traffic and i'm now moored at Burland on the Llangollen. Mind, I did leave at 6:00 am each morning

[Hairy-Neil]

In which case, it isn't a stop lock!

 

Locks with normally shallow falls, which can increase to significant falls when the river is in flood, and whose purpose is to ensure that a canal section remains at a constant level are Flood Locks, not Stop Locks.

 

Dukes Cut Lock is also the junction where jurisdiction changes from Oxford Canal Co. to the Thames commissioners. I would say it depends which way the gates hold the water. If the lock prevents the Oxford Co's. water being lost to the Thames then it's a stop lock. If it prevents flood water from the Thames inundating the Oxford then it's a flood lock......

 

 

Saw Hawkesbury this afternoon and thought it would be improved by being deconverted

 

 

[mayalld]

Dukes Cut Lock is also the junction where jurisdiction changes from Oxford Canal Co. to the Thames commissioners. I would say it depends which way the gates hold the water. If the lock prevents the Oxford Co's. water being lost to the Thames then it's a stop lock. If it prevents flood water from the Thames inundating the Oxford then it's a flood lock......

 

The Thames is higher, so it is a Flood Lock

[Tiny]

Well i've spoken to a BW chap today who's been told 4-6 weeks minimum.

 

I left Norbury Monday lunchtime and headed the long way around, there wasn't much traffic and i'm now moored at Burland on the Llangollen. Mind, I did leave at 6:00 am each morning

 

If that means in October maybe the new region will have to pay for the repair as they all change on 1st October and the Shroppie moves out of the Border Counties unit (which will then be run by the current finance officer for that unit).

 

One wonder why they need so long to fill some holes and rewater - guess its all the pre-work investigations, planning documents and other stuff they do now - which often costs more and takes a lot longer than the actual work.

[Kelvinman]

No no no - the delay is most likely caused by BW having to undertake a risk assessment - you know - what MIGHT go wrong - in order to satisfy the elf and safety police. Once they've done that it probably has to be approved by Mr Brown (or Darling) or whoever, sent back for a further review (the politicians way of avoiding making a decision). This process should be complete within (say) 6 months. Then it has to go to tender. Being a big job it most likely has to be advertised in Brussels (and Strasbourg, Paris, Berlin, Madrid etc etc) with a 3 month period for clarification of the tender documents. Then another 3 months for the potential contractors to send in their tender, another 2 months or so for the tenders to be examined and the contract awarded.

 

THEN (and only then) can the work begin. So maybe the Shroppie will be open for Easter 2011?

 

Cynical? Me?

Edited August 29, 2009 by Kelvinman

[Timleech]

And what's Dutton Stop lock about, (never been there either!), as it's not I think close to a junction......

 

Dutton is for the T&M/Bridgewater junction, which is at the other end of the (Preston Brook) tunnel.

 

It's still a junction between two separately owned waterways. For quite a long time the Bridgewater was maintained at a high level, maybe even above design level, to facilitate the grain traffic to Kelloggs in Trafford Park. During that period, I think 1960-ish, I'm told that all gates were removed from the lock as the levels were very similar. That experiment didn't work because it led to too much variation in levels at the Middlewich end of the pound (the Bridgewater level here at Dutton can drop by up to 6" if we have a sustained Westerly or SW wind for a couple of days). Then a single top gate with extra-long balance beam and extremely large paddle was fitted, turning it into a sort of 'flash lock'.

Next the end of the Kellogs traffic more or less coincided with a severe breach at Bollington which put whole the future of the canal into doubt. After that breach was eventually repaired the Bridgewater was consistently maintained at a lower level, presumably because of nervousness about further breaches combined with no commercial traffic to look after. The increased drop at Dutton caused problems with the single gate - a potentially lethal winch was fitted as a temporary expedient - so a new set of bottom gates was fitted (made by MSC, incidentally!). Since that time the average Bridgewater level has gradually crept up, my cynical belief being as a way to delay dredging, so that sometimes the difference is only a couple of inches. Despite that, as the earlier experience showed, the lock is still needed.

Those who advocate its removal should think back just 18 months or so to when there was a serious problem on the Bridgewater (outside BW control) with a leaking sluice which led to the whole canal dropping by two or three feet. The presence of the stop lock saved the T&M from the same fate

 

Tim

[AMModels]

Dutton must stay as its the perfect excuse to pause and watch Tim working hard.