Hauling stuff

[Bob Blues]

Is it possible to make a living moving goods on the Canal? Do people still do it

 

Bob B

[Smelly]

Is it possible to make a living moving goods on the Canal? Do people still do it

 

Bob B

 

Coal boats manage and there are a couple of NB's that I've seen carrying but I wouldn't imagine there's a living in anything other than servicing leisure boats.

[Bob Blues]

The reason I ask is I have been thinking about buying a working boat trying to get companies to shift stuff by canal instead of the road. I don’t think there is room for another coal boat so just wondering if there was a business case to try this.

 

Bob B

 

 

Edited to Add, I see the problem being once you build up a good client base then being told I cant shift your stuff now because of BW stoppages

Edited July 13, 2011 by Bob Blues

[muddywaters]

Can coal boats servicing leisure / live aboard boats really be classed as carrying cargo.

I always think of them as more of a mobile shop

[matty40s]

There are more nd more waterfronts being developed which can only be a possible source of work.

 

Berkhamstead is currently having a development of an old canal hire base into expensive housing. There are no HGV allowed in the narrow streets and it is only accessible via the canal for bulk products. 3 deliveries a day via canal from Bourne End is providing the construction materials.

There must be many sites where working boats could be an asset, both removing waste and delivering heavy materials and plant.

[Bob the welder]

Is it possible to make a living moving goods on the Canal? Do people still do it

 

Bob B

hi .how will you cost the jobs . time or milage . say you got a job 25 tons sand. salop to london .150 mils at 3 mph.thats 50 hurs .at min wage.£6.80 thats £340.how dos that compare with road haulage.bob

[bargemast]

hi .how will you cost the jobs . time or milage . say you got a job 25 tons sand. salop to london .150 mils at 3 mph.thats 50 hurs .at min wage.£6.80 thats £340.how dos that compare with road haulage.bob

 

 

Hello Bob,

 

I don't think that sand is a good exemple, as you'll never have to go 150Mls to fetch it. If instead of sand you would have 25T of golddust the trip would be better paid, but you may not arrive at your destination with the 25T you departed with.

 

Heavy machine-parts, or as said before building materials for a site that needs the goods next or very close to the water sounds like a far more feasable cargo.

 

Peter.

[Laurence Hogg]

Is it possible to make a living moving goods on the Canal? Do people still do it

 

Bob B

 

In the West Midlands there are a number of possible short haul cargoes. Whilst these are attractive the big problem is where to load and offload. Virtually all the public wharfage has dissapeared or is now unsuitable so you either have to tranship to a lorry or invest in makinng new wharfage, BW seriously looked into this on at least a couple of occasions but it went nowhere.

 

Long distance traffics would need to be very specialised to pay. One traffic that come to mind is nuclear fuel rods, these pass my house every day by rail, they would be even safer on the water.

[journeyperson]

I was delighted when I saw Tench entering Middlewich last month fully loaded with building materials:

 

 

I went to ask Matt if he was actually working the boat. He said unfortunately not, he had just been asked to load up to demonstrate the carrying capacity for the boat festival.

 

There are specific situations where delivering materials to a canal side development by boat is cost effective, or possibly the only method, but I doubt anyone could compete with road or rail as a rule.

[bargemast]

Matt's trip with the building materials as cargo in the hold of Tench, was surely very nice to see and it may have opened some eyes of possible future clients for transport of this sort of cargo for real. One can only hope !

 

In Paris, there are loads of building material suppliers along the river that are all delivered by barge, most of the stuff is on pallets, and the barges that do those deliveries are equipped with Hiab-cranes, so they are able to load and unload themselfs, and limit costs that way, and they are all very busy.

 

Peter.

[gary955]

I could see some mileage in this for companys that want to be seen to be "green" What a fabulous bit of publicity to have the cloths printed up in the companys logo, proudly pointing out the movement of goods by water.

Not cost effective as haulage. But priceless as advertising. You must have seen vans driving about with advertising hordings on. If companies will pay for that then why not on a canal boat? Much more picturesque and green. The slower pace and sheer unusualness will attract more attention for the advertiser and the cost of fuel for a canal boat for the day will be a fraction of the cost of a van.

What a fantastic way to earn a living. I might look at this myself!

[bargemast]

I could see some mileage in this for companys that want to be seen to be "green" What a fabulous bit of publicity to have the cloths printed up in the companys logo, proudly pointing out the movement of goods by water.

Not cost effective as haulage. But priceless as advertising. You must have seen vans driving about with advertising hordings on. If companies will pay for that then why not on a canal boat? Much more picturesque and green. The slower pace and sheer unusualness will attract more attention for the advertiser and the cost of fuel for a canal boat for the day will be a fraction of the cost of a van.

What a fantastic way to earn a living. I might look at this myself!

 

 

For sure that it would be a good support for publicity, but I think that it won't be all that easy to find a business willing to invest decent money for their publicity on a canalboat, instead of on vans, as the canalboats will only be seen by a restricted number of people, and the vans drive around everywhere, so will be seen by many more potential clients of the advertised products.

 

On a bigger river like the Thames, where she go's through London with many more people, and in towns where the canal or river go's right through the centre it may work.

 

For a building material business, or other users of transport by water, it may be very good publicity, if while there good are transported by water, they have big publicity sheets with their name on saying: "WE TRANSPORT OUR GOODS BY WATER, THE GREEN WAY, THE BEST WAY", or something with the same meaning.

 

Peter.

[bottle]

You must have seen vans driving about with advertising hordings on

 

Yep.......................................................and they are usually in the major towns on the busiest roads or near shopping centres.

 

Canals are very seldom in these places.

[alan_fincher]

Matt's trip with the building materials as cargo in the hold of Tench, was surely very nice to see and it may have opened some eyes of possible future clients for transport of this sort of cargo for real. One can only hope !

 

In Paris, there are loads of building material suppliers along the river that are all delivered by barge, most of the stuff is on pallets, and the barges that do those deliveries are equipped with Hiab-cranes, so they are able to load and unload themselfs, and limit costs that way, and they are all very busy.

A barge on the Seine has a carrying capacity out of all proportion to the maximum of 20 or so tonnes that can realistically be carried on a canal motor narrow boat, (a butty can carry a bit more).

 

Realistically it is the very low tonnage that can be carried by narrow boat that makes it highly unusual for anybody to actually be taking serious loads and making a living out of it - I also don't count loading up bagged coal from a lorry, and then selling it around the system as being "carrying" in the true sense of the word.

 

Occasionally a narrow boat can compete for real carriage over a shortish length where not many locks are involved, (the sometimes use of Arundel + butty on the Denham gravel traffic being such an example), but I can't see making proper money out of narrow boat carrying being a realistic prospect for many.

 

Incidentally matt parrott's Tench was not that unusual at the Braunston show - quite a few other boats were carrying near full loads, and also making a very impressive sight. None are involved in serious regular carrying contracts, though, nor likely to be, in my view - the economics are just against it.

[bargemast]

A barge on the Seine has a carrying capacity out of all proportion to the maximum of 20 or so tonnes that can realistically be carried on a canal motor narrow boat, (a butty can carry a bit more).

 

Realistically it is the very low tonnage that can be carried by narrow boat that makes it highly unusual for anybody to actually be taking serious loads and making a living out of it - I also don't count loading up bagged coal from a lorry, and then selling it around the system as being "carrying" in the true sense of the word.

 

Occasionally a narrow boat can compete for real carriage over a shortish length where not many locks are involved, (the sometimes use of Arundel + butty on the Denham gravel traffic being such an example), but I can't see making proper money out of narrow boat carrying being a realistic prospect for many.

 

Incidentally matt parrott's Tench was not that unusual at the Braunston show - quite a few other boats were carrying near full loads, and also making a very impressive sight. None are involved in serious regular carrying contracts, though, nor likely to be, in my view - the economics are just against it.

 

 

Hello Alan,

 

of course, I understand that it's hard to compare a narrowboat with it's limited loading capacity with the barges in Paris. I'm a bit spoilt being Dutch where lots of transport go's by water, as there's navigable water almost everywhere in this small country, and the economics of the country would hardly exist whithout the transports by water, and this in boats of all possible sizes.

 

In Italy, in a town like Venice they still make a good living with transports by boats smaller then the narrowboats, but of course only because of the way the town is built, with water everywhere.

 

Because of the lack of sufficient dregging the canals in the UK, the fully laden narrowboats will run into problems everywhere, and can't be sure of there day and hour of arrival, which makes it even harder to get contracts for moving goods, or materials.

 

Through my (ex-bargees) eyes, everything is transportable by water, and I'm very sad to see that in reality this is completely different for many reasons in the UK.

 

Peter.

[Bob the welder]

Hello Bob,

 

I don't think that sand is a good exemple, as you'll never have to go 150Mls to fetch it. If instead of sand you would have 25T of golddust the trip would be better paid, but you may not arrive at your destination with the 25T you departed with.

 

Heavy machine-parts, or as said before building materials for a site that needs the goods next or very close to the water sounds like a far more feasable cargo.

 

Peter.

not thinking so much of the payload .but the cost of runing a boat for long haul. bob

[Steilsteven]

Is it possible to make a living moving goods on the Canal? Do people still do it

 

Bob B

 

I've always liked to think that it was possible but there are too many obsticles.

 

Some years ago, David Blagrove and myself were approached by a farmer whose land bordered the Thames above Oxford.

He had some acres of trees suitable for chipping to make bio fuel and liked the idea of transporting it by water but didn't know where to.

At the time,the only possible user of this was Slough power station. Trouble was, the power station was about 5 miles from the nearest point on the Thames where it could be unloaded.Nevertheless, I continued researching the possibilities (especially because the contract represented 18 weeks of continuous trips for a pair of boats )and got agreement with the owners of the land where we would off load, obtained prices for grab loaders to provide the final part of each journey, got agreement from Slough power station and costed it all out. The price for doing the job had to be no more than the cost of road transport. There was no urgency for the transportation, save that it had to be completed within the 18 weeks.

 

I was able to confirm that we'd be able to meet both of these criterior and told the customer this,bear in mind that all this took some weeks to achieve, only to be told that they'd decided to go for road transport instead.

 

Had we got the job, we would have made some money but not a lot.The only reason we would have made any money was because all the crewing would have been done by volunteers so it wouldn't have been viable as a business proposition.

 

Had the power station been waterside and equiped for unloading of boats, then it would have made a nice earner for someone.

Contrary to popular belief, road transport is very expensive when compared to water transport providing that the comparison is on a door to door basis. As soon as you have to add in transhipment and forwarding costs it kills it stone dead.

 

Keith

[furnessvale]

 

Long distance traffics would need to be very specialised to pay. One traffic that come to mind is nuclear fuel rods, these pass my house every day by rail, they would be even safer on the water.

 

New nuclear fuel rods all move by road. Only spent rods, which are highly irradiated, move by rail, mainly because of the size and weight of the containment vessel which would be too much for the narrow canals.

 

Even so, the nuclear industry used to move some of the spent fuel by road (perhaps they still do). I used to watch it sneaking through the centre of Carlisle city at the dead of night so as not to upset the residents (if only the public knew!).

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[bargemast]

Transport by narrowboat is only possible if there's no, or only very little road transport needed to get the cargo to its destination, if that's not the case, the client prefers just road transport in most cases.

 

On this side of the Channel, there's still a possibility to make a decent living, even with a small 39m, 350T barge.

 

Friends of mine just did a delivery of a 126T transformer that they loaded in Nijmegen (NL) + 52T of sand to level the barge a bit better, and that they had to deliver to Bray sur Seine (FR) when they arrived there, they had to wait more then a week before they were ready to unload them.

 

In the meantime a team of people was working on the assembling and preparating of a 112 wheeled trailer, that was hauled by a 3 rear axled 660Hp tractor, and connected at the back of this trailer was a 2 rear axled 440Hp tractor.

 

To crane the transformer out of the barge and on to the trailer, they had a 700T road going crane that came all the way from Belgium, together with 2 articulated lorries that transported the weights of the crane.

 

My friends received around 12.000€ for the watetransport, and what the only 35km road transport must have cost, one can only guess, but surely more the twice the water transport price, and maybe a lot more.

 

 

I know that all this has nothing to do with the hauling in the UK, but I thought that maybe some of you wouldn't mind seeing a few photo's of what's happening here.

 

 

 

 

Peter.

[mykaskin]

There is some money to be made from ideal carrying situations for narrowboats, but really only just enough to live on. It can only really become a business if someone is willing to subsidise the job. For some routes money can be got from freight transport/facilities grants - though this has undergone a change recently. Often the money has to be found by the customer, and because of the extra work and cost involved in setting up it's just easier to stay with what they know.

 

The problem is subsidizing of the roads by the governments and all non transport users. The canals don't have quite the same ratio, otherwise they would be all continental sized ship canals. This would obviously change the character of the canal, however I suggest that it could be possible to carry very good loads by just digging many of them deeper, and raising the levels on canals which were built with a shallower depth (every inch is another ton), with an increase in the reservoirs, but none of the thats going to happen.

 

Occasional loads can be carried where the customer is happy to pay extra for the publicity, but there isn't enough of them for even one boat, let alone the many out there.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Edited July 14, 2011 by mykaskin

[FadeToScarlet]

New nuclear fuel rods all move by road. Only spent rods, which are highly irradiated, move by rail, mainly because of the size and weight of the containment vessel which would be too much for the narrow canals.

 

Even so, the nuclear industry used to move some of the spent fuel by road (perhaps they still do). I used to watch it sneaking through the centre of Carlisle city at the dead of night so as not to upset the residents (if only the public knew!).

 

George ex nb Alton retired

 

But surely a great deal of the size and bulk of a nuclear flask wagon container is to give it strength against high speed rail accidents? I'm certain that you could make a narrowboat sized container because of the much lower stresses it would be exposed to in an accident.

 

Whether anyone would want to move fuel rods by narrowboat is a different matter, I suppose!

[alan_fincher]

But surely a great deal of the size and bulk of a nuclear flask wagon container is to give it strength against high speed rail accidents? I'm certain that you could make a narrowboat sized container because of the much lower stresses it would be exposed to in an accident.

Phylis ?!?

[FadeToScarlet]

Edit to add- the flask itself looks just about narrowboat size, but you'd have to male smaller ones that weigh less than 50 tons!

 

 

Phylis ?!?

 

Having seen the video of the flask surviving the class 46 unscathed, my money's on the flask over the yogurt pot!

[Bob Blues]

Thanks for all the input,

 

Regarding Cost, It is difficult to estimate how to cost a trip especially as you can return empty. However, I think the Green Cost will be considerably lower. The diesel usage will be considerable lower and pushing that to a company where they can actively promote on their advertising "Reducing the Carbon Footprint".

[Steilsteven]

Thanks for all the input,

 

Regarding Cost, It is difficult to estimate how to cost a trip especially as you can return empty. However, I think the Green Cost will be considerably lower. The diesel usage will be considerable lower and pushing that to a company where they can actively promote on their advertising "Reducing the Carbon Footprint".

 

Even better, they could seek Carbon Credits by making it a Carbon Project.

 

Keith