Electric Barge 1931

[Bewildered]

I say Mr Chumley-Warner the barges have gone electric

[zenataomm]

That's brilliant, I wonder what company built the motor?

I can imagine the fun to be had by little boys dropping a chain across the wires from a bridge.

 

I also wonder why it pulls itself instead of pushing, unless it's backing up instead of turning around.

[Guest]

Wonder if they had galvanic isolators?

[Bewildered]

British Pathe have released hundreds of hours of footage on YouTube, there is a fair bit of vintage narrowboats and canals

[ditchcrawler]

Big battery

[Taslim]

Big battery

No battery by the looks but an interesting extension lead.

 

I wonder what voltage they used and if there are still any signs of the wire supports under the bridges? Pump out or Cassett

err.. AC or DC?

[matty40s]

I hope he had a rubber hat on going 8nder that bridge, I wouldn't have liked liked to liked to have been stood on deck inches from those two cables

[mango]

British Pathe have released hundreds of hours of footage on YouTube, there is a fair bit of vintage narrowboats and canals

Ah yes: http://www.britishpathe.com/search/query/canals

 

Brilliant. Thanks.

[Bewildered]

Thanks for that Mango

I had a feeling you could do a search like that but as I tend to use the iPad to surf the net theses days I find that the app doesn't make all the search facilities easy to use,

[ditchcrawler]

Ah yes: http://www.britishpathe.com/search/query/canals

 

Brilliant. Thanks.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/electric-canals/query/barges

[Bob the welder]

It will get rid of the fisher men . Lol

[cuthound]

I wonder if the correct term for it would be a "trolley barge"?

[Guest]

I hope he had a rubber hat on going 8nder that bridge, I wouldn't have liked liked to liked to have been stood on deck inches from those two cables

Looks like a dodgy setup! Presumably the voltage was fairly high to help avoid volt drop issues.

[by'eck]

I suspect it was only the welcomed innovation of the period that allowed it to be developed as far as shown. Its easy to see now it was doomed. The old bargee's had it right by the sound of it

[Laurence Hogg]

The voltage was 550 volts DC, fed from the tramway generating station which backed onto the canal. Only sign left today is one hook set into the rock face above Falling Sands lock, this was for the catenary wires. Poles bases remained but BW pulled them out.

[Jim Riley]

550 voles dc, lethal! Need a rubber hat, wellies and insulated tiller.

[Guest]

The voltage was 550 volts DC, fed from the tramway generating station which backed onto the canal. Only sign left today is one hook set into the rock face above Falling Sands lock, this was for the catenary wires. Poles bases remained but BW pulled them out.

Lovely!

[mango]

Wonder if they had galvanic isolators?

Isolation transformer, please.

[Peter X]

550 voles dc, lethal! Need a rubber hat, wellies and insulated tiller.

Are there that many left? Haven't the mink exterminated them yet?

[ditchcrawler]

Are there that many left? Haven't the mink exterminated them yet?

I think those ones would be more than a match for a Mink. They use to electrically stun them before killing, Earthed wire tunnel with a live plate at the end.

[Bewildered]

Apparently it was old boat men and not, as legend would have it, Kenneth Williams who first coined the phrase “Frying Tonight”

 

Did this idea die out because?

a. It was stupid

b. It was to expensive, and stupid

c. It killed someone and then they realized it was stupid

d. It killed several before they realized it was stupid

e. It still couldn’t compete with the trains

f. Someone mentioned Health & Safety and a shiver went through all of them even though they had never even heard of such a thing but knew it to be the bane of the working man.

g. It was pointed out that putting the collector on top of the wires, with a boat pole, on a windy day was way much more dangerous than filling a diesel tank

h. They knew it was stupid before they did it but decided to do it anyway, just because we can, because we are British and that’s what we do. For my next trick I will climb Mt Everest in plus fours whilst smoking a pipe and drinking a G&T, "chin, chin"!