'DIS' markers

[Pluto]

As Tam says: Nothing like a bit of fact . . etc.

 

Thanks Mike, the bye laws make interesting reading. This is the kind of thing I call definitive knowledge.

 

 

Derek

I should have mentioned that there are in fact L&LC Byelaws from several different dates on my downloads page, 1823, 1876, 1908 and 1932.

[Derek R.]

I should have mentioned that there are in fact L&LC Byelaws from several different dates on my downloads page, 1823, 1876, 1908 and 1932.

 

Yes indeed, I did take a look at the 1786 and the others, I think the 1932 was just a two page addendum but all worth looking at. Particularly of note was the law stating all gates and paddles to be closed on leaving a lock.

 

Derek

[magnetman]

snip>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Insurances and compensation culture is a very modern device instilled in our younger generations to the extent that such things are a necessary fact of life. Insurance is only 'necessary' (disregarding compulsory legal requirements for the moment) when the person responsible for artefacts possessions or goods cannot find within their wherewithal sufficient funds to replace said items artefacts etc. that they are responsible for in the event of them being damaged, destroyed or otherwise lost. Basically - if you need to insure it - you cannot afford it. Otherwise, insurance (your radio breaking down, against going bald, cat being cooked in the microwave etc.) merely breeds carelessness and contempt but makes insurance companies exceedingly wealthy. But that's another bucket of worms.

 

PS I was refused insurance against baldness.

 

Derek

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

Insurance, modern??

 

Not too sure about that.

 

What is the purpose of canal company byelaws if not to protect said company from financial outlay in the event of accidents?

 

was it just a request to boatmen to 'be good or we will smack your bottom'?

 

 

Is your pacemaker insured by the way, because I have disposed of the liability by sending you my elfin safety warning email

 

 

 

And yes I do agree that insurance is a device invented by insurance companies to enable their directors and to a lesser extent their shareholders to drink good quality wine and drive nice motor cars with good tyres.

[Derek R.]

The Byelaws as apply to British Waterways currently, and dated 1954 with amendments to 1976 do not in any part mention Lock Distance Posts.

The only mention with regard to vessels approaching locks is much the same as those in the L & LC byelaws:

 

(e) Fill or empty any lock of water for the admission of any vessel

to the lock when there is another vessel approaching the lock

from the opposite direction and within two hundred yards thereof

and the level of the water in the lock is suitable for such

approaching vessel to enter the lock.

 

There must be byelaws that appertain to earlier times, so I'll keep looking.

 

Derek

[Derek R.]

Insurance, modern??

Not too sure about that.

 

What is the purpose of canal company byelaws if not to protect said company from financial outlay in the event of accidents?

(snip)

 

Well, not so much insurance as such, more the 'compensation culture'. The purpose of Byelaws was to ensure no-one misbehaved in any way to cause harm or injury to any part of the works or their appointees. Forfeiture of money through fines was the result of minor misdemeanours, and transportation the most severe. Little or nothing to do with insurance. Any employee failing to abide by the byelaws might well find themselves out of work, or in the Workhouse - family and all.

 

With regard to accidents, and I've mentioned this somewhere else (forgotten which thread), but the blowing up of the barge in 1874 on the Regent's beneath Macclesfield Bridge as a result of a spark from the steam tug igniting gunpowder in the barge, cost the G.J.C.C. somewhere in the region of £84,000 in compensation for damages resulting. The widow of the barge Captain, one Charles Baxton of Loughborough, after eleven months following the accident was eventually awarded £5 from the company, in full discharge of any further claims against the company. A similar situation existed when a company steam tug boiler blew up at Yardley Wharf. Two enginemen were killed, and after approaches to the company they gave £5 to one of the families to compensate for funeral expenses as the family were in 'a very poor situation'.

 

Insurance has always been a fiddle, as deftly worked by Mr. Montague Tigg and co-directors of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan Company in Dickens's 'Martin Chuzzlewitt'. A loan company, but lizards both, and closely related.

 

Hard times.

 

Derek

Edited December 16, 2009 by Derek R.

[alan_fincher]

I’m reopening this much fought debate, as a walk the other day actually allowed me to view a couple of the surviving Grand Union "Lock Distance" markers.

 

Not many seem to survive, but we managed to find two in the same pound, between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead, namely the one between lock 58 ("Sewage") and lock 59 (Top Winkwell).

 

Here they are....

 

Marker for approaching Sewage Lock 58, from below, (going North).

 

 

Marker for approaching Winkwell Top Lock from above, (going South).

 

 

We tried, without too much success, to pace out the distance from the respective locks. It didn't seem to be constant between the two, nor in either case an obvious number of yards. My best guess is that the Sewage Lock marker is about 180 yards from the bottom gates of that lock, and the Winkwell one maybe 190 yards from the top gates of that lock. (I’ll try and take a GPS with me next time, to get the (fairly) exact location of each post, but neither seemed to be quite as much as 200 yards from the nearest lock gates - perhaps they measure to the middle of a lock ?)

 

Either way, by the time you add the length of a lock, it seems there must have been approaching a quarter of a mile between the uphill and downhill markers for an individual lock.

 

I simply do not buy any idea that says it would have been possible to judge whether a boat passing one marker had, (or had not), done so before a boat passing the other marker, approaching the lock from the other direction.

 

It would be nice if someone could find reference to the Grand Union "Lock Distance" posts is any old bye-laws or navigation rules. I'm afraid I can't accept the "whip crack" story - it would have been completely unprovable and unenforceable, and I doubt many whips were being cracked when these moulded concrete posts were first installed at these locations, (I would still guess in the 1930s....)

[Mister Allnut]

Just an observation but if I was a working boatman, time being money, I wouldn't waste it getting involved in a punch up when giving way,even if I was in the right, would be quicker. The ones I've seen on the Oxford are iron, don't know how old. Maybe as suggested horse drawn traffic needed more time to stop so an indication as to distance to next lock. Purely conjecture.

[WJM]

"I simply do not buy any idea that says it would have been possible to judge whether a boat passing one marker had, (or had not), done so before a boat passing the other marker, approaching the lock from the other direction."

 

 

I think you misunderstood that suggestion. The marker is there for the lock-wheeler, stood at the lock ready to go into action. If the lock needs turning, the wheeler was not allowed to do so if the approaching boat had already passed the marker. The markers only need to be visible from the lock, not from each other. At 200 yards, the approaching boat would be there in minutes, so turning the lock would be ridiculous. Given that there were probably lots of arguments, 'Why did you turn it, I was only minutes away?!", the presence of a defined marker ended the argument.

Edited January 21, 2010 by WJM

[alan_fincher]

I think you misunderstood that suggestion. The marker is there for the lock-wheeler, stood at the lock ready to go into action. If the lock needs turning, the wheeler was not allowed to do so if the approaching boat had already passed the marker. The markers only need to be visible from the lock, not from each other. At 200 yards, the approaching boat would be there in minutes, so turning the lock would be ridiculous. Given that there were probably lots of arguments, 'Why did you turn it, I was only minutes away?!", the presence of a defined marker ended the argument.

 

Fair enough.....

 

I think we have had multiple variants on this, though - it has certainly also been suggested that they had some relevance to boats approaching from both directions, and who got to their marker first, (that's what I think is usually argued in the "whip crack" argument).

 

My first reaction is that even with 200 yard separation between lock and marker, the canal companies would still not have wanted a lock turned, if it were ready for an approaching boat in the other direction, (that could be clearly seen, but not yet within 200 yards).

 

I say that, because one of the biggest ongoing problems on the GU was always water shortage, so sanctioning the turning of a lock when a boat coming the other way would quickly reach it sounds rather odd.

 

But if you take the BW bye-law that Dave Mayall quoted....

 

25.

No person shall:

a. Open or close or attempt to open or close the gate of any lock

except by the means provided for that purpose or before the

water is level on both sides of the gate.

b. Draw or operate any sluices until the lock-gates are closed.

c. Operate or leave open any sluice so as to waste water.

d. Operate any sluice otherwise than by means of the handle or

other device normally used for that purpose.

e. Fill or empty any lock of water for the admission of any vessel

to the lock when there is another vessel approaching the lock

from the opposite direction and within two hundred yards thereof

and the level of the water in the lock is suitable for such

approaching vessel to enter the lock.

f. Cause or allow any vessel to remain in a lock longer than is

necessary for the convenient passage thereof.

 

then it would appear that by the 1960s it was permissable to turn a lock against approaching boats if they were visible but over 200 yards away.

 

That would therefore support the argument that this might have been the intention of these markers, (rather than the "no overtaking" reason that Tam was told).

 

I still don't think the markers are quite a full 200 yards from the locks to which they relate, though, but I'd need to estimate it better!

Edited January 21, 2010 by alan_fincher

[luctor et emergo]

"I simply do not buy any idea that says it would have been possible to judge whether a boat passing one marker had, (or had not), done so before a boat passing the other marker, approaching the lock from the other direction."

 

 

I think you misunderstood that suggestion. The marker is there for the lock-wheeler, stood at the lock ready to go into action. If the lock needs turning, the wheeler was not allowed to do so if the approaching boat had already passed the marker. The markers only need to be visible from the lock, not from each other. At 200 yards, the approaching boat would be there in minutes, so turning the lock would be ridiculous. Given that there were probably lots of arguments, 'Why did you turn it, I was only minutes away?!", the presence of a defined marker ended the argument.

 

 

Without an independant adjudicator present, the mere presence of a small, concrete marker won't stop a lock wheeler from turning the lock anyway. It still comes down to who is the bigger lock wheeler. (or who carries the larger windlass... ).

 

 

Having followed the debate, I feel that the 'no overtaking' option seems the most plausible. I don't think cracking the whip would have made the slightest difference, because it could be done before crossing the post. There is absolutely no way in which either boat could prove it cracked it's whip at the correct point. And what if the wind carries your whip crack away from the lock?

 

As for post in odd, non relevant locations, is it not possible that even in those days there were 'jobsworths' ("the instructions states that a post must be placed before a lock..." ) , or contractors paid by the post ( "I knows that there 's no point putting a post 'ere lad, but 't canal company pays us per post....")