Early Engines for narrowboats

[pete harrison]

Draw your own conclusions, doesnt look too bad except today H&S would faint!

 

 

Coggins & Arthur No. 43 was B.C.N. Co. gauged as 22112 (15 June 1914), and this table was never updated to show the engine being fitted, although my view is that this was a temporary arrangement and moved from boat to boat.

 

Waterways World June 1987 page 31 published the photograph above which was captioned as having a Hookes detachable motor, but I also have a record of it as being a Watercraft Detachable Power Insallations Ltd. unit although this could be one of the same thing. The steerer is named as Mr T.H. Coggins.

[alan_fincher]

I don't think Tom Rolt was speculating when he passed through the tunnel and reported how it worked.

 

To be fair the description that two of you give from Rolt's book doesn't really say how the electrical current side of it works.

 

We seem to be assuming a single overhead conductor, (because that is what pictures seem to show), and the underwater cable being used for a return path.

 

However, how suitable an arrangement this would be isn't clear to me.

 

For a start materials suitable for hauling yourself along on (e.g. steel) I would imagine offer much greater resistance than those normally used for overhead catenary to supply electric motors (e.g. copper or aluminium), although a large cross section would help offset the extra resistivity.

 

I do actually still think the haulage cable has to have been the return conductor, but it doesn't make for very happy science in my head. Two overhead wires would seem far sounder, but pictures do not seem to show that.

[The Pipe]

 

To be fair the description that two of you give from Rolt's book doesn't really say how the electrical current side of it works.

 

We seem to be assuming a single overhead conductor, (because that is what pictures seem to show), and the underwater cable being used for a return path.

 

However, how suitable an arrangement this would be isn't clear to me.

 

For a start materials suitable for hauling yourself along on (e.g. steel) I would imagine offer much greater resistance than those normally used for overhead catenary to supply electric motors (e.g. copper or aluminium), although a large cross section would help offset the extra resistivity.

 

I do actually still think the haulage cable has to have been the return conductor, but it doesn't make for very happy science in my head. Two overhead wires would seem far sounder, but pictures do not seem to show that.

All tram and train systems with single overhead lines use the steel track as a return path and for greater distances.

[Timleech]

All tram and train systems with single overhead lines use the steel track as a return path and for greater distances.

 

If my guess of 10hp were correct, and the line voltage 750V, then the current would only be 10A. 20hp would need 20A.

I think someone mentioned 600V, but 750 makes the sum easy

 

Tim

[alan_fincher]

All tram and train systems with single overhead lines use the steel track as a return path and for greater distances.

 

Accepted, but is is a very much larger cross section, of course.

 

Of course for 25Kv systems the currents are very much smaller anyway, so much less substantial conductors are possible, but I do accept the comparison as reasonable in those cases where voltages are in hundreds rather than thousands of volts.

 

If my guess of 10hp were correct, and the line voltage 750V, then the current would only be 10A. 20hp would need 20A.

I think someone mentioned 600V, but 750 makes the sum easy

 

Tim

 

Yes, I guess this is the key - we are talking about relatively low power motors, not trying to speed TGVs or Intercity 225s along at huge speeds.

 

You have convinced me I think, but I' feel sure it would have to be Rolt's suggestion of a cable, and not a chain as some other sources suggest.

[Derek R.]

Going back to Bazza's video of Dutch craft with the side slung prop, I have a few books on Dutch craft that show many vessels were fitted with these items. It seems to have been a transitionary stage between full sail and full motors.

[Barry]

I can't claim that posting though I thank you for giving it to me

 

I was responding to someone else's (flatplane 8) posting of the vid

Edited November 16, 2013 by Bazza2

[Bee]

I think the device on the dutch barge was called a `lame arm` `cos of the way it drooped in the water, all the space in the back of the boat was spoken for so that was a relatively easy way of motorising it. at least it looks relatively safe compared to some of the lethal stuff on the BCN boats. Ah the good old days when if the machine devoured your arm you didn`t have a leg (or arm) to stand on.

[Derek R.]

I can't claim that posting though I thank you for giving it to me

 

I was responding to someone else's (flatplane 8) posting of the vid

So it is! I didn't scroll back far enough

 

Begs pardon all round.

[Pluto]

Re the Harecastle tug and its electrics, I just came across an article by Peter Roberts in the RCHS Journal, vol 24, 1978. The electric tug started on 30 November 1914, designed by F Curbishley, who had joined the North Staffs Rly in 1907, and Gordon Thomas. Work was done by the railway's workshops and Messrs Bullivant & Co Ltd. The initial scheme was for a battery operated rope haulage tug. 115 batteries were needed, around 18 tons, so two towed boats were fitted with batteries, one in use and one charging. The electric motors on the tug were 15 HP, with two being installed to haul the tug and train along the 2 in dia rope. The battery boats were replaced around 1920 by overhead cables and a tram-type pickup. References include an article by C Dean in the Railway Magazine, July 1914, pp8-16, and one in Rly & Travel Monthly, vol 17, Aug 1918, pp102-5, though these would be for the battery system.

[alan_fincher]

The battery boats were replaced around 1920 by overhead cables and a tram-type pickup.

Interesting information.

 

However there are clearly photos that show the tug with an overhead pick-up like a tram, but still towing a heavily laden battery boat many years after this says external power replaced the batteries.

 

I wonder what the true reason is why that was, as there was obviously extra effort "remarshalling" at each end of the tunnel, to arrange that the battery boat always followed the tug through.

[Pluto]

Interesting information.

 

However there are clearly photos that show the tug with an overhead pick-up like a tram, but still towing a heavily laden battery boat many years after this says external power replaced the batteries.

 

I wonder what the true reason is why that was, as there was obviously extra effort "remarshalling" at each end of the tunnel, to arrange that the battery boat always followed the tug through.

The article suggests that it was used as a 'guard's van' for issuing tickets for towage. Rolt describes going through the tunnel in Narrow Boat.

[Timleech]

Re the Harecastle tug and its electrics, I just came across an article by Peter Roberts in the RCHS Journal, vol 24, 1978. The electric tug started on 30 November 1914, designed by F Curbishley, who had joined the North Staffs Rly in 1907, and Gordon Thomas. Work was done by the railway's workshops and Messrs Bullivant & Co Ltd. The initial scheme was for a battery operated rope haulage tug. 115 batteries were needed, around 18 tons, so two towed boats were fitted with batteries, one in use and one charging. The electric motors on the tug were 15 HP, with two being installed to haul the tug and train along the 2 in dia rope. The battery boats were replaced around 1920 by overhead cables and a tram-type pickup. References include an article by C Dean in the Railway Magazine, July 1914, pp8-16, and one in Rly & Travel Monthly, vol 17, Aug 1918, pp102-5, though these would be for the battery system.

 

If the 'batteries' were not batteries but single cells in series (seems likely for that sort of installation), then the nominal voltage would have been 230.

 

Tim

[alan_fincher]

If the 'batteries' were not batteries but single cells in series (seems likely for that sort of installation), then the nominal voltage would have been 230.

 

Tim

That sounds reasonable, but is an awful lot less than Laurence's statement that it was 550 volts.

[Phil Ambrose]

I've half a memory of London trolly buses running on 600v, twas a long time ago and I was a young teen still at school

Phil

[Derek R.]

550V to 600V, 650V was the maximum allowed output from the power station. This seems to be fairly universal according to bus boffins. Never drove one, but loved peering around the driver from the saloon, and watching the little amber light above the windscreen flicker when crossing 'frogs'. Amongst all the other hazards of the roads, Trolleybus drivers had to be aware of dead sections at major junctions and plan their progress accordingly.

 

http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/set/Trans_Web/M3/Voltage.2.etb.htm

[welshmike]

When, where and on what boat was the first engine installed? Did horses ever pull 2 boats a la motor and butty?

[alan_fincher]

Did horses ever pull 2 boats a la motor and butty?

Pictures clearly show that a horse pulling a pair of narrow boats was once commonplace on broad canals like the Grand Junction / Grand Union.

 

I'll largely defer to others on the first use of engines, but I believe FMC built its first steam powered narrow boats in the late 1880s, although initially these were not a great success, with some being quite quickly scrapped, sold off or rebuilt, I think, from memory. I think it was closer to 1900 before more satisfactory steam powered boats joined that fleet, but the true historians will know better than I!

[BEngo]

When, where and on what boat was the first engine installed? Did horses ever pull 2 boats a la motor and butty?

]

 

 

I rather think the answer to the first question will depend on the type of boat you have in mind. If it were canal boats generally then William Symington's experiments in 1780's Scotland and Charlottte Dundas (1802)in particular are probably going to figure largely.

 

 

 

N

[Ray T]

As I understand it, the Harecastle tug was originally battery-powered from an accumulator boat (there were two - one on charge whilst the other was in use) from 1914. This was however changed in 1931 when the LMSR, by then the owners of the Trent and Mersey, introduced the overhead tram-style electric pick up. Pictures of this in operation might be confusing because in later years a decked butty was always towed through - effectively as a guards van with accommodation for a second employee who collected tickets and checked that everything was safe. If this boat still carried batteries under the deck, they were no longer in use. The tug service was discontinued in 1954.

 

Paul

 

Whilst looking for something else I came across this From Britain's Canal Craft by E Paget-Tomlinson

 

[Tam & Di]

 

In my Googling I did come across this link which is a comprehensive study of the various electric trolley systems, and mentions that the Charleroi section was a 4km experimental length which only lasted a few years.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/12/trolley-canal-boats.html

 

 

I've just acquired a little Bouillon Oxo de Liebig trade card which depicts the electric towage tractor used on the 70km Teltowkanal just south of Berlin between 1905-45. The link says the length of tow line was mechanically adjustable, allowing the tractor to move away from stop at a constant speed and the line adjusted to bring the barge up to the same speed without the tractor being pulled into the canal. It achieves the same as the use of a block attached to a horseboat/butty mast to give an initial double purchase to get the boat started out of a lock which then becomes a direct 1:1 pull as it leaves.

 

Tam

 

Edited February 8, 2014 by Tam & Di

[hecla777]

I found a report in the Birmingham Gazette for Thursday 26th April 1917 which reads :-

 

"FIRST MOTOR BARGE

 

ARRIVAL IN LONDON WITH COAL FROM CANNOCK.

 

With the object of getting more coal into London, an interesting experiment was brought to a most successful conclusion yesterday, when two barges -a motor barge drawing a companion—with 50 tons of house coal on board reached London by canal from the Midlands. The barges were despatched from the Cannock district by Messrs. Coggins and Arthur, coal factors, of Birmingham, on Sunday last.

 

All along the 150 miles of route, which included the use of fewer than seven distinct waterways. The barges have had quite distinguished company board, as the Government attached "such importance to the experiment that the Board Trade instructed Mr. G. Hales, assistant engineer of the Birmingham Canal Navigation Board (sic), to represent them on the voyage.

 

The seven canals through which the motor-barge passed were the Birmingham, Birmingham and Warwick Junction, Birmingham and Warwick, Warwick and Napton, Oxford, Grand Junction, and Regent's Canals."

 

I wonder if this was a detachable engine?

 

Regards

 

Martin O'Keeffe

[Derek R.]

From contemporary images it would appear to be a roof mounted engine driving a shaft to the Ramshead, through bevel gears down to a prop.

 

This was an experiment mentioned in another thread somewhere. There's a Getty image here, and another just sold through Ebay:

 

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/462533824199931878/

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BARGES-TAKING-COAL-FROM-CANNOCK-MINES-TO-LONDON-THE-GREAT-WAR-1917-RARE-PRINT-/371070952365?clk_rvr_id=645886056025

 

Scroll down to the larger image, then click on 'supersize'. A better view is obtained.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Derek R.

[Laurence Hogg]

I have images of the portable engine used in this instance on the Rushall canal of the BCN by Coggins & Arthur.

 

 

[Hugh]

Quite by coincidence, and if you will excuse the blatant plug, the Getty image will be appearing as the centrespread of the Summer issue of NarrowBoat magazine as part of Chris Jones' article about (narrow)boating in WWI. We cannot usually afford to use these agency images but in this case Getty were generous enough to charge a price we could afford!

 

The boats were Mascot and Avon

 

 

Hugh