The parable of the newly painted lock gates

[DeanS]

Having been moored in Castlefield, and wanting a change of scenery, I got the idea in my head to move up just above lock 92 on the Rochdale 9 (yes, the pound that was completely empty a few weeks back). I like the smell of hamburgers cooking at Dukes restaurant on the weekend, and the buzz of the place. So on Friday I reversed into the lock, filled it up.....or tried to.....but it wouldnt get more than 98% full....so I had to let a bit more water down and eventually got it open, pulled the boat back and moored it up. Today I awoke to a group of volunteers who were doing general cleanups of the canal. Throwing hooks in and trying to drag out stuff. I thought...wouldnt it have been easier if they had come down when the pound was empty...they could have just walked around picking everything up...but anyway...no worries....I watched as 2 of them started painting the lock gates....and thought to myself...how long does paint take to dry...cause I need to move my boat back down soon... Without going into a list of funny observations watching volunteers at work.....the time did come when they were all having a snack.....and I decided it was a good time to move my boat. I started filling the lock....and again..it got to 98% and there it stopped. I noticed another boat arriving to come up the Rochdale, so I popped over and let them know I was about to come down, but was waiting for the lock to fill. The guy said...yep, you need to let some water down sometimes.....to which I nodded and said...yep...I think I'll go and do that. I took a walk up to the next pound, and started letting down some water....and then made my way back to lock 92. As I got closer I saw the crew from the other boat (6 of them) all pushing the gates open....and was about to say..."watch out for the wet....." .(..but alas....I was too late......hands...bums...all black and white )

"paint"....I panted....having finally made it back in time to witness the tragedy....

[Pykebird]

Usually they leave that sily tape that says "caution, wet paint" all over the place and it stays there for days!Opps

[billh]

Having been moored in Castlefield, and wanting a change of scenery, I got the idea in my head to move up just above lock 92 on the Rochdale 9 (yes, the pound that was completely empty a few weeks back). I like the smell of hamburgers cooking at Dukes restaurant on the weekend, and the buzz of the place. So on Friday I reversed into the lock, filled it up.....or tried to.....but it wouldnt get more than 98% full....so I had to let a bit more water down and eventually got it open, pulled the boat back and moored it up. Today I awoke to a group of volunteers who were doing general cleanups of the canal. Throwing hooks in and trying to drag out stuff. I thought...wouldnt it have been easier if they had come down when the pound was empty...they could have just walked around picking everything up...but anyway...no worries....I watched as 2 of them started painting the lock gates....and thought to myself...how long does paint take to dry...cause I need to move my boat back down soon... Without going into a list of funny observations watching volunteers at work.....the time did come when they were all having a snack.....and I decided it was a good time to move my boat. I started filling the lock....and again..it got to 98% and there it stopped. I noticed another boat arriving to come up the Rochdale, so I popped over and let them know I was about to come down, but was waiting for the lock to fill. The guy said...yep, you need to let some water down sometimes.....to which I nodded and said...yep...I think I'll go and do that. I took a walk up to the next pound, and started letting down some water....and then made my way back to lock 92. As I got closer I saw the crew from the other boat (6 of them) all pushing the gates open....and was about to say..."watch out for the wet....." .(..but alas....I was too late......hands...bums...all black and white )

"paint"....I panted....having finally made it back in time to witness the tragedy....

So it was you, I did wonder.

I was one of the volunteers there, though not involved with the painting.

The worksite for the day was chosen by the CRT organiser, we are merely worker ants told to do whatever CRT think we might be capable of.

The work we did yesterday was pretty ineffective- the painting didn't really need doing, the grappling junk out of an 8ft deep canal unnecessary. There are far more pressing needs on the Ashton Canal and the Rochdale above Dale St.

Here lies the problem:

It appears to me that the volunteer organiser(s) in CRT and the local CRT management are not in accord when it comes to using volunteer labour- the management ( I stress at local level) present every obstacle they can to dissuade any volunteer effort . We have had every excuse under the sun as why they can't provide a skip or a workboat or a truck for the day to remove rubbish cleared from the canal. Requests to drain pounds on lock flights so we can easily clear known bad spots ( eg some bridgeholes) have so far resulted in precisely nothing, even during the winter quiet season.

CRT need to sort out their internal politics first and then listen to what volunteers are telling them- some with far more experience of canals than they will ever have.

Sorry if it sounds like a rant

Bill

[scrumpylurcher]

That sounds like a justified rant, but without knowing more details it is difficult to place the blame. WE work in a similar way via a CRT Volunteer Team Leader, who in turn comes under a Volunteer Co-ordinator for the region. They decide your skill levels and what supervision you need and work to provide this. The CRT person should have applied warning signs to the beams, usually laminated A4 sheets (we now have our own permanent signs) to warn of the wet paint, but equally the paint used drys very quickly.

THe CRT Volunteer Staff have to liase with management and ground staff to arrange work parties, provide risk assessments and method statements, if that is the stage where the system is failing you need to sit down with the co-ordinator and clarify exactly which jobs you would like to do. THey should be able to explain what you can do, if training or supervision is required provide that and then arrange for the work to take place. If there are reasons why you cannot do certain tasks that should also be explained.

To be fair, these systems are in there infancy, often with staff new to CRT. I can assure you that the system, though not perfect, is working well in the South East and the idea is that the best parts of the regional systems will become the National System. It is often frustrating, but when it comes good it is very rewarding for everybody. Please try to percevere with talking to CRT, in some cases we are trying to changes systems that have applied for a lifetime.

[PiRSqwared]

Burnt Mill lock has volunteer keepers on a Friday. This lock si probably the one which needs the least assistance to go through on the whole of the Stort; it is not particularly deep, the gates are just over a year old, and the bottom gates are opened electrically. Furthermore the amount of traffic up here is very low. I think they probably have no more than 5 or 6 lockings for the whole time they are there. What a total waste of people who want to contribute - how much longer will they want to stand around for a whole day doing practically nothing?

[DeanS]

So it was you, I did wonder.

I was one of the volunteers there, though not involved with the painting.

The worksite for the day was chosen by the CRT organiser, we are merely worker ants told to do whatever CRT think we might be capable of.

The work we did yesterday was pretty ineffective- the painting didn't really need doing, the grappling junk out of an 8ft deep canal unnecessary. There are far more pressing needs on the Ashton Canal and the Rochdale above Dale St.

Here lies the problem:

It appears to me that the volunteer organiser(s) in CRT and the local CRT management are not in accord when it comes to using volunteer labour- the management ( I stress at local level) present every obstacle they can to dissuade any volunteer effort . We have had every excuse under the sun as why they can't provide a skip or a workboat or a truck for the day to remove rubbish cleared from the canal. Requests to drain pounds on lock flights so we can easily clear known bad spots ( eg some bridgeholes) have so far resulted in precisely nothing, even during the winter quiet season.

CRT need to sort out their internal politics first and then listen to what volunteers are telling them- some with far more experience of canals than they will ever have.

Sorry if it sounds like a rant

Bill

 

Nice to see you..LOL.

I wasnt really ranting about volunteers....(I was highly impressed that so many people would give up their time like that). I just had a bit of a chuckle when 6 people pushing gates suddenly all lifted their hands wondering what had inflicted them

 

Here's a pic of what is ACTUALLY under that water.....if they emptied the pound so you could get it.

 

 

Edited April 28, 2013 by DeanS

[furnessvale]

Burnt Mill lock has volunteer keepers on a Friday. This lock si probably the one which needs the least assistance to go through on the whole of the Stort; it is not particularly deep, the gates are just over a year old, and the bottom gates are opened electrically. Furthermore the amount of traffic up here is very low. I think they probably have no more than 5 or 6 lockings for the whole time they are there. What a total waste of people who want to contribute - how much longer will they want to stand around for a whole day doing practically nothing?

Given that a volunteer is just that, a volunteer, I wonder if he/she can specify where or what he wishes to do?

 

Perhaps this volunteer lives near this lock and all he wants to do is assist boats through and grease the paddles. Order him to travel 10 miles and pick litter and you may have one volunteer less and no-one manning Burnt Mill lock either.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[Hair Bear Bunch]

Had exactly that issue on the Wey a few years ago. Somewhere near Papercourt the lock beams were dripping in paint, no signs, and no sign of anybody anywhere! But as luck would have it, I've always had a pair of riggers gloves I always use when locking, swing bridges or ropes are involved.

[PiRSqwared]

Given that a volunteer is just that, a volunteer, I wonder if he/she can specify where or what he wishes to do?

 

Perhaps this volunteer lives near this lock and all he wants to do is assist boats through and grease the paddles. Order him to travel 10 miles and pick litter and you may have one volunteer less and no-one manning Burnt Mill lock either.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

Fifteen minutes south of Burnt Mill (by foot) is Parndon Mill lock, which is an absolute disgrace; leaks like a sieve, poorly balanced gates, stiff paddles, and unlike all the other locks on the River has instructions to close the gates when you leave. In other words, a real challenge to negotiate, especially if you are single handing (the top lock landing is on a bend just above an overflow!!). Why don't they get sent there where they would be of actual use, even if it is only five or six times?

Edited April 28, 2013 by PiRSqwared

[furnessvale]

Fifteen minutes south of Burnt Mill (by foot) is Parndon Mill lock, which is an absolute disgrace; leaks like a sieve, poorly balanced gates, stiff paddles, and unlike all the other locks on the River has instructions to close the gates when you leave. In other words, a real challenge to negotiate, especially if you are single handing (the top lock landing is on a bend just above an overflow!!). Why don't they get sent there where they would be of actual use, even if it is only five or six times?

I don't know why. I merely pose the possibility that CRT may have a local volunteer who only wants to play with Burnt Mill lock. Should they tell him to p*** off because he won't go elsewhere or should they be grateful for his efforts?

 

I have personally cut down towpath edge saplings, before they get big enough to threaten the copings, within several hundred yards of my moorings but I am not going to go and do it on the Macc, even if they are worse.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[PiRSqwared]

A minute a go you implied that the volunteer doesnt choose where to go. A 15 minute walk, or lets be honest about it a slightly different destination to put in the satnav, is hardly the same as going to a totally different canal is it?

[scrumpylurcher]

If a volunteer wants to be covered by the CRT insurance he will have to go where he is directed. The insurance is conditional on you being signed in and carrying out specified duties in specific places. You also need to sign out when you finish.

[DeanS]

I wonder who leaves behind huge metal poles and 20 orange nose cone thingies in a pound...surely CRT should get the local council to come and clear it when it's a canal going through a major city centre...? It cant be THAT difficult to arrange a single day, where each pound is emptied, and the pounds cleared COMPLETELY....once a year?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Having been moored in Castlefield, and wanting a change of scenery, I got the idea in my head to move up just above lock 92 on the Rochdale 9 (yes, the pound that was completely empty a few weeks back). I like the smell of hamburgers cooking at Dukes restaurant on the weekend, and the buzz of the place. So on Friday I reversed into the lock, filled it up.....or tried to.....but it wouldnt get more than 98% full....so I had to let a bit more water down and eventually got it open, pulled the boat back and moored it up. Today I awoke to a group of volunteers who were doing general cleanups of the canal. Throwing hooks in and trying to drag out stuff. I thought...wouldnt it have been easier if they had come down when the pound was empty...they could have just walked around picking everything up...but anyway...no worries....I watched as 2 of them started painting the lock gates....and thought to myself...how long does paint take to dry...cause I need to move my boat back down soon... Without going into a list of funny observations watching volunteers at work.....the time did come when they were all having a snack.....and I decided it was a good time to move my boat. I started filling the lock....and again..it got to 98% and there it stopped. I noticed another boat arriving to come up the Rochdale, so I popped over and let them know I was about to come down, but was waiting for the lock to fill. The guy said...yep, you need to let some water down sometimes.....to which I nodded and said...yep...I think I'll go and do that. I took a walk up to the next pound, and started letting down some water....and then made my way back to lock 92. As I got closer I saw the crew from the other boat (6 of them) all pushing the gates open....and was about to say..."watch out for the wet....." .(..but alas....I was too late......hands...bums...all black and white )

"paint"....I panted....having finally made it back in time to witness the tragedy....

Funny story, made me chuckle, cheers.

A slight aside but with dry pounds in mind:

It reminds me of the pound at Seend on the K&A that I used to find dry.

But before filling it I would climb down and pick out the windlasses.

Other than that the pound is really very clean and tidy.

I didn't see any turds sitting on the bottom, as other threads might have you believe.

[DeanS]

 

I didn't see any turds sitting on the bottom, as other threads might have you believe.

 

Thats not clay you're extracting the windlasses from.....

[oarfish]

I wonder who leaves behind huge metal poles and 20 orange nose cone thingies in a pound...surely CRT should get the local council to come and clear it when it's a canal going through a major city centre...? It cant be THAT difficult to arrange a single day, where each pound is emptied, and the pounds cleared COMPLETELY....once a year?

 

When we were litter picking the crap out of the 2 pounds in Skipton I got talking to a guy from the local council. He said they had tried to talk to BW (as was) about picking the crap out of the canal, but that it had got political. Shame, we nearly got hung up on a tyre going down..

[Cheshire cat]

Fifteen or twenty years ago the Rochdale nine used to be drained every winter. I used to view it as I travelled in to Manchester to work. The amount of scrap metal and other detritus was amazing.

 

Quite a lot of the Bridgewater is in a similar state. It's so deep that it doesn't cause a problem but was revealed when the breach occurred at Pomona a few years ago.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

 

Thats not clay you're extracting the windlasses from.....

Ha ha ha ha ha

Nice one

 

Cheers

[furnessvale]

Fifteen or twenty years ago the Rochdale nine used to be drained every winter. I used to view it as I travelled in to Manchester to work. The amount of scrap metal and other detritus was amazing.

 

That was when it was a private company. Given that draining the canal off would increase pressure on the wash walls and assist in their eventual breakdown, I was quite convinced this was a deliberate ploy on the part of the then owners to assist in the eventual closure of the canal. This would realise a valuable linear asset through the centre of Manchester to be used for building.

 

Then again, I could be completely wrong in my suspicions.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[davey b]

About 18 months ago we were travelling along the Bottom Road and the 'Community Payback' team had painted the whites of gates (Garrison etc) in the rain.

 

I found out by opening the gates as Mrs B had found them all to be quite difficult.

 

We caught up with them whilst they were having a rest under a bridge, where they were making paper aeroplanes... Out of Wet Paint notices!

[billh]

Nice to see you..LOL.

I wasnt really ranting about volunteers....(I was highly impressed that so many people would give up their time like that). I just had a bit of a chuckle when 6 people pushing gates suddenly all lifted their hands wondering what had inflicted them

 

Here's a pic of what is ACTUALLY under that water.....if they emptied the pound so you could get it.

 

 

That looks like a useful little tug someone's chucked in.

The Nine was completely dredged about 15 years ago , excavators and tracked dumpers working in the bed of the canal. All the rubbish you see now has been dumped since then. As I said before, this stuff isn't much of a problem here as the canal is normally very deep. The same does not apply on the Ashton Canal where sometimes the water depth assumes a negative value.

[The Hunky Dory]

We had a similar problem on Friday coming down the Wigan flight. 3 locks near the bottom were freshly painted, with no way of avoiding it if we wanted to work through the locks. Used half a bottle of white spirit to clean up the mess. Fortunately they went for lunch so allowed us to get through the bottom two unscathed.

[Zoro]

When you empty a lock or a pound. It becomes a hole and holes are dangerous???

You or I would probably wear waders and possibly a life jacket. Jump in and handball rubbish

out of the hole.

BW now CART would never get volunteers insured to do that activity without further stringent

safety measures and first fencing off the whole area to stop watchers or volunteers falling in.

Knowing some of the old BW safety measures and reasons for those.CART walk a very

dangerous line allowing volunteers to do some tasks even though it might look okay and the

people are willing to do it.

The second point. BW for many years left rubbish in the canal because they were not licenced to

get rid of it.If they used a skip or put rubbish in there vehicles. they were charged commercial

rates to dump it at the tip. It was considered too expensive and not good use of funds.

[ditchcrawler]

That was when it was a private company. Given that draining the canal off would increase pressure on the wash walls and assist in their eventual breakdown, I was quite convinced this was a deliberate ploy on the part of the then owners to assist in the eventual closure of the canal. This would realise a valuable linear asset through the centre of Manchester to be used for building.

 

Then again, I could be completely wrong in my suspicions.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

Don't know about motives but IMO draining canals is the worst thing they can do, but it still seems the favourite method for flight maintenance like Napton

[DeanS]

When you empty a lock or a pound. It becomes a hole and holes are dangerous???

You or I would probably wear waders and possibly a life jacket. Jump in and handball rubbish

out of the hole.

BW now CART would never get volunteers insured to do that activity without further stringent

safety measures and first fencing off the whole area to stop watchers or volunteers falling in.

Knowing some of the old BW safety measures and reasons for those.CART walk a very

dangerous line allowing volunteers to do some tasks even though it might look okay and the

people are willing to do it.

The second point. BW for many years left rubbish in the canal because they were not licenced to

get rid of it.If they used a skip or put rubbish in there vehicles. they were charged commercial

rates to dump it at the tip. It was considered too expensive and not good use of funds.

 

I suspect until someone takes lots of pics and writes a newspaper article about it,...exposing the lack of action by CRT or the council , nothing will change, and poor folk will still end up cruising over shopping trolleys, safety barriers (that's funny), and the like.