moving up at locks

[Chertsey]

Many hire boats can't remove the tiller.

 

My rule of thumb is that if the stern rope is out, and nobody is holding it, then they are moored.

Or inside having a wee.

[LoneWolf]

My rule of thumb is that if the stern rope is out, and nobody is holding it, then they are moored.

 

Or inside having a wee.

 

Or down the weed hatch removing the rest of the stern rope from the prop

 

 

To see what happens when people suddenly join an unknown queuing system one could sit outside the Shroppie Fly. with boats casting off from both sides, the water point & coming under the bridge from the lock above it gets quite interesting at times

[alan_fincher]

Or down the weed hatch removing the rest of the stern rope from the prop

Like it!

 

To see what happens when people suddenly join an unknown queuing system one could sit outside the Shroppie Fly. with boats casting off from both sides, the water point & coming under the bridge from the lock above it gets quite interesting at times

 

Two places we queued this summer needed a bit of discipline from people, and I'm sure there are plenty of others.....

 

1) Waiting for Wardle Lock, at the start of the Middlewich Branch of the Shroppie. Boats queuing in both directions on the T&M, with no space left for further arriving boats to tie up without blocking a bridge.

 

2) At Calcutt bottom lock, where a Marina entrance joins just below the locks, but the queue goes back well before that, so boats leaving the marina can't easily get to the back of it.

 

Occasaionally people turned up apparently unaware that they weren't going to be next into the locks concerned (!), but once the situation was pointed out to them, all behaved like true Brits, and knew their place!

 

At both these locations, though, I reckon the throughput at the bottleneck locks could have been increased massively by people actually thinking about their actions, and working in an efficient manner.

 

The approach to Wardle Lock of the T&M is a classic case of where a change in behaviour can massively improve things. There is actually space for an "uphill" boat to wait below it, between the bridge at the junction and the lock. If the next boat to go up takes up that position, there is minimal delay between the downhill boat coming out, and that waiting boat going in to the lock. But if "the next boat up" waits out on the T&M main-line, there is a long delay while the downhill boat faffs around making it's turn on to the T&M, followed by a much longer one while the uphill boat manages to finally get away from the edge, shunt to and fro several times, still failing to line up with the bridge, and finally get itself to a lock, which has now sat unused for many minutes......

 

When we pointed this out to queuers this year, fortunately they then started to adopt the much faster way of working - a classic case where a volunteer lock-keeper on duty might avoid the hold-ups, I think.

[Hairy-Neil]

The real point seems to be that as a nation we understand queueing.

 

 

I'm not making it personal, simply pointing out that nobody else seems to see it as an issue.

 

 

 

The only places where a system of working out who is next is used are;

• The pub
• The barber

In one of those places it works OK.

 

Has anyone else noticed that Wetherspoons airport bars use a queueing system....

[mayalld]

Like it!

 

 

 

Two places we queued this summer needed a bit of discipline from people, and I'm sure there are plenty of others.....

 

1) Waiting for Wardle Lock, at the start of the Middlewich Branch of the Shroppie. Boats queuing in both directions on the T&M, with no space left for further arriving boats to tie up without blocking a bridge.

 

2) At Calcutt bottom lock, where a Marina entrance joins just below the locks, but the queue goes back well before that, so boats leaving the marina can't easily get to the back of it.

 

Occasaionally people turned up apparently unaware that they weren't going to be next into the locks concerned (!), but once the situation was pointed out to them, all behaved like true Brits, and knew their place!

 

At both these locations, though, I reckon the throughput at the bottleneck locks could have been increased massively by people actually thinking about their actions, and working in an efficient manner.

 

The approach to Wardle Lock of the T&M is a classic case of where a change in behaviour can massively improve things. There is actually space for an "uphill" boat to wait below it, between the bridge at the junction and the lock. If the next boat to go up takes up that position, there is minimal delay between the downhill boat coming out, and that waiting boat going in to the lock. But if "the next boat up" waits out on the T&M main-line, there is a long delay while the downhill boat faffs around making it's turn on to the T&M, followed by a much longer one while the uphill boat manages to finally get away from the edge, shunt to and fro several times, still failing to line up with the bridge, and finally get itself to a lock, which has now sat unused for many minutes......

 

When we pointed this out to queuers this year, fortunately they then started to adopt the much faster way of working - a classic case where a volunteer lock-keeper on duty might avoid the hold-ups, I think.

 

It used to have one (the formidable Maureen)

[alan_fincher]

It used to have one (the formidable Maureen)

It still needs one !

 

(Never met the formidable Maureen, but clearly she was someone to be reckoned with).