Blisworth Tunnel image

[Leo No2]

I have kindly been sent this image by a friend. I am sure I have seen it before (probably in the museum). Can anyone date it or add any information. I would pop across and see David Blagrove but he's otherwise engaged at the moment. I notice that the water barrel on the boat in the foreground looks the same as the one I have that purports to be from Heather Bell.

 

Edited January 31, 2015 by Leo No2

[Laurence Hogg]

There are several views of these boat taken at the same time. They are almost certainly a pair of W&S Foster boats from Tipton who appear on other photographs with barrels. Early 1920's suggested date.

From our collection:

 

[Bettie Boo]

Both are lovely photo's - thank you for sharing them

[David Schweizer]

There are several views of these boat taken at the same time. They are almost certainly a pair of W&S Foster boats from Tipton who appear on other photographs with barrels. Early 1920's suggested date.

From our collection:

 

 

Imagine having to follow that tug through the tunnel !!

[Leo No2]

Imagine having to follow that tug through the tunnel !!

If you stop in the older sections and look, the soot is still there to this day, but following that tug must have been quite challenging.

[Ray T]

From here: http://www.steamershistorical.co.uk/steamers_steam_on_canals.htm

 

The Grand Junction Canal built a number of steam tugs to supplement their cargo-carrying `tugs', but these were not sold when the company gave up commercial carrying. Instead they were used to operate a regular towing service through Braunston and Blisworth tunnels. These services began in 1871 and continued for something over sixty years. The early tugs had engines and boilers similar to those in the carrying fleet, but the boilers proved unable to sustain the effort needed to tow a long train of boats through a restricted channel for forty-five minutes or so and were soon replaced by locomotive type boilers. The old 'Elliott' engines proved quite satisfactory, however, and frequent rebuilding or replacement in kind kept this type alive into the 1920s. Only then did the company purchase a number of modern tugs with steel hulls and compound engines. By the early 1930s the small number of unpowered craft using the canal no longer justified regular tug services.

 

A number of full-length steam tugs worked long-distance services on the southern end of the Grand Junction Canal. Similar in design to contemporary carrying craft, they were generally family boats and because they had living accommodation were of necessity registered with the local public health authority. Only a handful of tugs were so registered in the whole country, those on the Grand Junction making up most of the number.

 

 

 

More reading on steam tugs: http://www.steamershistorical.co.uk/steamers_intro.htm

 

and here: http://www.steamershistorical.co.uk/steamers_tunneltugsfrommillner.htm

 

Plus of course Hasty: http://www.tunneltug.org.uk/

Edited January 31, 2015 by Ray T

[magpie patrick]

 

Imagine having to follow that tug through the tunnel !!

 

Indeed!

 

I seem to recall that an incident involving one of these tugs led to extra ventilation shafts being added, but that probably merely reduced the risk from lethal to almost lethal!

[furnessvale]

 

Indeed!

 

I seem to recall that an incident involving one of these tugs led to extra ventilation shafts being added, but that probably merely reduced the risk from lethal to almost lethal!

There is a railroad tunnel in Montana where, to this day, and despite the fact that the locos are diesel rather than steam, crews of banking engines are issued with breathing apparatus because of the smog.

 

"The Black Fog of Blossburg"

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[Theo]

There are several views of these boat taken at the same time. They are almost certainly a pair of W&S Foster boats from Tipton who appear on other photographs with barrels. Early 1920's suggested date.

From our collection:

 

 

They don't look like a pair to me. Unless "pair" also means two horse boats. I thought that a pair was a motor and a butty.

 

N

[David Mack]

 

They don't look like a pair to me. Unless "pair" also means two horse boats. I thought that a pair was a motor and a butty.

 

N

 

But a motor and butty pair wouldn't need to use the services of the tunnel tug.

[springy]

AIUI Families would often work a pair of horse boats once the kids were big enough to lend a hand,

(leading the horse ?) - as well as the extra income it also meant you had two cabins - one for the kids

& one for mom & dad !

 

Dont forget horseboating did continue after the introduction of motor boats and the 1920 date of the

photograph is quite early in diesel power terms although as Ray T quotes above by the early 1930's

regular tunnel tugs were no longer justified

 

springy

[FadeToScarlet]

They don't look like a pair to me. Unless "pair" also means two horse boats. I thought that a pair was a motor and a butty.

 

N

It does

 

[archie57]

I had a friend of an older boating generation (born 1896 - around when steamers were common) who talked about "Engines" (steamers) Motors and boats, a pair of boats being either "a pair of one-horse boats" or a "Motor and boat" - I don't remember the term "butty" being used very often. However younger boaters I knew called them such. The same with locks eg what we know today as the Cape locks at Warwick were known as "Warwick 2" to earlier generations, but going back further my friend would call these "Bailey's 2" (presumably a lock keeper of that time) and no doubt known by other names going further back still.

[Derek R.]

Names for things, and sometimes the meaning of a same name can change with generations. So the term butty would be familiar to crews using a motor to pull another, but prior to, two horse boats working together would more naturally be described as a pair.

[Ray T]

Names for things, and sometimes the meaning of a same name can change with generations. So the term butty would be familiar to crews using a motor to pull another, but prior to, two horse boats working together would more naturally be described as a pair.

 

Slightly but when I was visiting Mike Humphries the other week I mentioned "Grantham's Bridge".

"Where is that"? he said. When I explained where I meant as Grantham's Bridge he said "Oh you mean Hillmorton Bottom. You sometimes use place names I don't recognise".

[Rose Narrowboats]

Grantham's Bridge was an internal joke in the first edition of Nicholson's that accidentally made it into print and seems to have stuck so it's not surprising he didn't know where it was. To anyone who lived or worked at The Locks it was always just Bridge 70. Lots of places round here seem to have changed names in the last 40 years - bridge 69 on the Oxford was always called Clifton Double Bridge, not "Kent Road Bridge" as it is today.

 

Sorry for continuing the off topic..

 

Anthony

[alan_fincher]

Lots of places round here seem to have changed names in the last 40 years - bridge 69 on the Oxford was always called Clifton Double Bridge, not "Kent Road Bridge" as it is today.

Well when we go boating these days it is known as neither ! We know it as "w**ker bridge", named in honour of a steerer coming the other way who was unduly obnoxious to Cath for no other reason than she had gone though the bridge because we arrived there first.

 

Sorry - as you were!

[Tunneltug]

 

Imagine having to follow that tug through the tunnel !!

There are a lot of misconceptions about Steam Powered Tunnel Tugs and the smoke they allegedly spewed out in the tunnels. The GJCCo were still using steam powered tunnel tugs well into the 1930s and this is because a well managed steam engine produced far less smoke and fumes than its contemporary diesels, and this is still the case today. The GJCCo tunnel tugs had much bigger boilers than needed because this provided a large steam reservoir which would see the boat through the tunnel with a white fire on the grate. A white fire is one that has "Consumed its smoke" meaning it had burned off all the volatiles which if using soft dry welch steam coal are almost insignificant anyway. The tugs driver would heavily stoke the boiler a minute before exiting the tunnel, this new coal would then get hotter whilst the boat was turned and by the time it was ready to enter the tunnel for the return trip the fire would be white and be producing no smoke.

 

I'm sure however there were occasions where cheap coal was delivered, and the turn-around was forced to be quicker than needed resulting in some smoke being discharged in the tunnel.

[Derek R.]

A little aside but connected, there's a very informative 11 minute film on coaling a steam loco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHo860Q66Gw

 

There is a lot stated about the particulate content of burnt diesel nowadays and it's effect on air quality. Somewhat like the inference that all steam engines were poisonous, much has been said that is politically motivated about various fuels, and recognising that the smogs of large towns are no more due to the clean air act, a lot of recent legislation has had a crippling effect on business at large - not just that surrounding fuel. I think it's called bleeding the stones.

[Pluto]

The tunnel tug at Gannow was only introduced after a boatman was asphyxiated legging a boat through the tunnel, which says something about the quality of coal burnt on cabin stoves.