Travelling time on the G.U.

[pomkitanner]

Please advise if it is feasible to travel from Linslade to Gayton Junction in 2 days assuming we motor for around 6 hours each day? If not which winding hole would you recommend we use to do our 4 day round trip. I do have a Nicholson guide but do not see any calculation .

[IanM]

CanalPlanAC is your friend

 

http://canalplan.eu/

[RLWP]

CanalPlanAC is your friend

 

http://canalplan.eu/

 

I've only recently found you can do this: http://canalplan.eu/cgi-bin/canal.cgi?quickroute=yes&where=Leighton%20Linslade%20Services,%20Gayton%20Junction

 

Richard

[koukouvagia]

It normally takes me about eight hours to go from Leighton Buzzard to Cosgrove. Going on from Cosgrove to Gayton depends on how long it will take you to go up Stoke Bruerne locks. It could take another four hours.

You can turn at Cosgrove, before the lock, or before you go up the SB flight.

 

eta I've just looked at Richard's link to Canalplan. I see I was 27 minutes out!

Edited November 5, 2015 by koukouvagia

[bottle]

Other than using canalplan, you have a Nicholsons, add up the miles (marked buy mileposts) and the locks and divide by three, it will give you a good guide as to the number of hours required.

[RLWP]

Twenty minutes for a GU lock - really?

 

Richard

[bottle]

It's only a guide, not an exact science.

It works for me on most of my journeys, admitadley (spelling) not tried it on the 'lower' Grand union.

[pomkitanner]

Think on reflection we shall turn at Stoke Bruerne top lock . Will be a more leisurely time . ( The girls "might " want to stop and shop !! )

[Lysander]

Think on reflection we shall turn at Stoke Bruerne top lock . Will be a more leisurely time . ( The girls "might " want to stop and shop !! )

 

That's probably wise. There's not much to see between Stoke Bruerne and Gayton Junction, apart from the tunnel and it's not much fun doing that twice in quick succession. I know this because we used to moor at Blisworth...

[IanM]

Think on reflection we shall turn at Stoke Bruerne top lock . Will be a more leisurely time . ( The girls "might " want to stop and shop !! )

 

Just be aware that depending on your boat length you won't be able to turn directly above the top lock but go a little further on and turn just before the tunnel

[alan_fincher]

It's only a guide, not an exact science.

It works for me on most of my journeys, admitadley (spelling) not tried it on the 'lower' Grand union.

 

I'm sure recently you came up Braunston behind us considerably faster than 20 minutes per lock!

 

That said, when the queues start to build there, 20 minutes per lock would sometimes be a bonus!

[ditchcrawler]

Twenty minutes for a GU lock - really?

 

Richard

Often yes, you arrive and the lock is against you, there are two boats leaving the next lock coming towards you, they leave the lock one at a time and then the first has to tie up in the lock before the other one can come in, close bottom gates, draw each top paddle one click, wait another two clicks etc, open gates and come out one at a time on tick over and thats before you have started.

[alan_fincher]

I would certainly challenge 20 minutes per Southern GU lock - I suspect we average more like 15 minutes not in flights, and maybe 12 when we are, although a lot faster than hat when not held up be others, and often slower when we are).

 

However I' not sure how much experience Richard has of coming South of Braunston?

 

It is certainly the case that a typical lock on the 1930s modernised GU Birmingham line is generally a whole heap faster to fill and empty than those on the locks South of Braunston. With the ones with the "Dalek" paddle gear, I reckon you can more typically work TWO in those 20 minutes?

 

....Although obviously we all do things at our own speeds, and I'm sure I do locks less fast now than I did in my teens or early twenties!

[Bettie Boo]

If not having to wait for other boats to use the lock, we reckon "about" 20 min. per lock, if they are set against us; but that's opening & closing all 4 gates what with our boat being a bit on the wide side

 

 

Mind you, we aren't in any rush and just take our time...I've also seen it take up to 35 min if one of us get chatting to folks around the lock

[pomkitanner]

If not having to wait for other boats to use the lock, we reckon "about" 20 min. per lock, if they are set against us; but that's opening & closing all 4 gates what with our boat being a bit on the wide side

 

 

Mind you, we aren't in any rush and just take our time...I've also seen it take up to 35 min if one of us get chatting to folks around the lock

" I've also seen it take up to 35 min if one of us get chatting to folks around the lock "

 

So if its a mainly female crew I can allow 40 mins per lock ?

[bottle]

 

I'm sure recently you came up Braunston behind us considerably faster than 20 minutes per lock!

 

That said, when the queues start to build there, 20 minutes per lock would sometimes be a bonus!

 

True but the average time taken for the whole journey was 3 lock.miles per hour.

 

I also remember your crew opening paddles for us as some of the pounds were low, that increased our speed.

 

We probably could have been quicker but the boat sharing (not Alan's boats for clarification to others) was a little slow, except when entering the locks.

[StephenA]

Twenty minutes for a GU lock - really?

 

Richard

You can always adjust it - but we have to have some reasonable defaults.. If we put it at 10 minutes per lock then someone would no doubt complain that it was totally unrealistic.

[RLWP]

You can always adjust it - but we have to have some reasonable defaults.. If we put it at 10 minutes per lock then someone would no doubt complain that it was totally unrealistic.

For these kinds of info threads, I leave the planner at the default setting, which is 15 minutes (I think)

 

Richard

[David Mack]

For these kinds of info threads, I leave the planner at the default setting, which is 15 minutes (I think)

 

Richard

I find the canalplan default values good enough for most purposes. But otherwise I work on 3mph and 10 mins per lock, which is most easily done by halving the number of locks, adding to the number of miles and then dividing by 3.

[ditchcrawler]

I find the canalplan default values good enough for most purposes. But otherwise I work on 3mph and 10 mins per lock, which is most easily done by halving the number of locks, adding to the number of miles and then dividing by 3.

I did a 5 week trip and then compared engine hours to Canalplan estimate and they were within 10 hours.

[Athy]

Whatever happened to the ready reckoner known as the "lock mile" in which you calculated times assuming that going through a lock would take about as long as travelling a mile (so averagely about 20 minutes)? That's the one which we use when planning a cruise.

[alan_fincher]

Whatever happened to the ready reckoner known as the "lock mile" in which you calculated times assuming that going through a lock would take about as long as travelling a mile (so averagely about 20 minutes)? That's the one which we use when planning a cruise.

 

It really doesn't work if it only typically takes you 10 minutes to get through a lock!

 

Particularly on narrow canals we have often found 6 locks an hour rather than 3 a better estimation tool.

 

But provided I have an Internet signal I would always now by preference prefer CanalPlanAC - not only does it stop me having to do arithmetic, (possibly wrongly!), it also stops me having to count those ruddy mile markers in Nicholsons, and to try to spot where they have managed to omit any.

 

We find that once we have tweaked the defaults to suit our slightly faster progress that CanalPlanAC gives far more accurate predictions than any "pen and paper" method.

[Athy]

 

It really doesn't work if it only typically takes you 10 minutes to get through a lock!

 

Particularly on narrow canals we have often found 6 locks an hour rather than 3 a better estimation tool.

 

 

Agreed up to a point, some narrow locks such as the Dose-of-salts flight (alias Claydon) can indeed be rapid. But the lock-mile makes an allowance for the times when there's a boat in front waiting and the lock Is against you.

I also have a look at Canalplan but this only works if we're planning our trip before leaving home.

[alan_fincher]

But the lock-mile makes an allowance for the times when there's a boat in front waiting and the lock Is against you.

 

Although insufficient allowance if, for example, you are doing the Middlewich Branch, and arrive at (say) Wardle or Church Minshull lock to a 12 boat queue! Our very worst experiences at some very popular locks in summer have involved waits of over 3 hours for one individual lock, but until the canals have live traffic monitoring and that gets linked into CanalPlanAC, it really cannot help with the lock that takes 20 times longer to pass than if nobody else had been there!

 

All I can say is that when we had just under 3 weeks to do a very ambitious tour both ways across the Pennines that CanalPlanAC predicted it as possible, but only with long days, and little slack. It proved to be remarkably accurate compared to the reality. The only oddity we experienced was one day where it predicted we would get massively less far than we felt was possible. On checking we found we had "time per moveable bridge" set to the default of 10 minutes (I think), so with over 20 to do that day on the Leeds and Liverpool, it assumed we needed well in excess of 3 hours for bridge delays. Our method of working these bridges was to have one of our crew members ahead on a bike, so ever moveable bridge was actually taking zero minutes, and once we tweaked "time per moveable bridge" from 10 minutes to zero minutes, CanalPlanAC then made a good prediction. Of course for people who need 10 minutes to stop, tie up, and individually operate each bridge, the predicted timings would have been right.

 

I'm an enormous fan of CanalPlanAC, and if we are going anywhere with any kind of time limit, we more or less re-run the program at the end of most cruising days, just to get the best predictions for those days remaining. However it is not reasonable to expect it to ever be any more accurate than you are able to be when setting your personal profile values for speeds and time per lock, bridge, etc. I need to get Nick Atty to build in "average delay time for engaging in a conversation about one of the historic boats" though - a "delay type" we seldom build into our schedule!

[koukouvagia]

I've done the trip from Cowroast to Braunston umpteen times. Canalplan gives a time for that journey of 27hrs 34 minutes. Since I had nothing better to do yesterday I looked up the times of all my trips which I note down in my diary. The fastest time for the journey was 23 hours and the longest 28. So not a bad guide.

Incidentally, I find that the longest time it took me to go up Long Buckby was three and a half hours. Is this a record ?