While I am sure we haven’t already seen the best the summer has to offer in terms of hot and sunny weather, the drizzle-cum-torrential rain of late hasn’t hampered the work we’ve doing been doing for boaters around the network. Here are just a few examples:
Modernising the deepest and highest tunnel
At over three miles long, 638 feet underground and 645 feet above sea level, and over two hundred years old, Standedge Tunnel obviously wasn’t built for the modern age. 2,500 navvies were involved in its construction and the fact that it’s still in use is a testament to their hard work and the subsequent upkeep (not forgetting the huge restoration effort that saw the tunnel reopened back in 2001).
If you haven’t cruised it, it is hard to imagine the scale of the tunnel but this wonderful video by ‘CruisingTheCut’ helps:
After watching the video, now imagine, if you lose your artificial lighting or breakdown or something untoward happens… How vulnerable would you feel, especially if you’re half a kilometre from an emergency adit (side tunnels that connect to the adjacent disused former rail tunnel (the ‘dead bore’) from which boats are chaperoned by a road vehicle)?
While there are processes in place for these types of eventualities, some upgrades now provide the best possible boater and staff safety when in the tunnel. This involved designing and installing a system that could not only track boats through the tunnel but also one that provides continuous communication between the tunnel controller and the Trust colleagues that chaperone boats through.
Of course, when you’re a treble-belt holder (longest, deepest and highest) you bring extra considerations. When you’re that far under the Pennines you can forget about mobile signal! For the techies among you, we settled on a Wi-Fi Mesh system that provided improved communication, ease of maintenance and improved reliability.
So, if you’ve ummed and ahhed about ‘doing’ Standedge, now’s the time – it’s never been safer!
Standedge Tunnel diagram
Unbreaking the bank
Last week we completed a day-long maintenance job at Bank Dole Lock. The lock is the key structure on the Bank Dole Cut which connects the Aire & Calder Main Line to the River Aire. As the gateway to the River Aire, Bank Dole Lock has a set of flood gates above it – so it effectively has three pairs of gates instead of two.
As local boaters will know, the flood gates are vital in winter when the river comes up three or four metres and, perhaps a further sign of climate change, they were required as recently as last month to prevent flooding of the Main Line following heavy rain.
John Gibson, area operations manager, comments: “As well as its vital role to help prevent flooding, Bank Dole Lock and Cut is the connection with the River Aire and then the Selby Canal and the North Yorkshire waterways beyond.
“A rod, or sluice gate stalk, which connects the paddle gear to the offside sluice gate, required attention. With the fix well below the waterline, the most cost effective and timely way to go about the repair was to use a diver. So, with the diver submerging and having disconnected the paddle from its stalk, our welders were on site and ready to make the fix before returning it back to the diver to reconnect. A job well done.”
While on site the team also replaced the louvre on the upstream gate. This wooden structure deflects the water when filling the lock for a boat passing upstream – helping to prevent the bow deck from flooding.
Diver repairing Bank Dole Lock
Summer on the Shroppie
Also last week, at another lock, we were carrying out important repairs just south of Nantwich to keep the Shropshire Union Canal open and available for boats ahead of the busy summer holiday season.
We had to drain the canal at Lock 2, Hack Green, so that leaks in the time-worn oak lock gates could be fixed and make them easier to operate.
Liam Cooper, boating and customer service manager in the North West, comments: “Our boating customers have been in touch recently saying that operation of Lock 2 Hack Green on the Shropshire Union Canal has been increasingly difficult to open and close due to water leaking through the downstream gates.
“Lock gates typically last around 25 years, and those at Hack Green will be completely replaced in the coming seasons. However, because the leaks in the gates have got worse just recently, we’ve gone in this week and are making some quick repairs to make them much easier to use this summer and to ensure there isn’t a situation where they break causing much longer disruption at the busiest boating time of the year.”
The team started on site on 24 June and made the most of the longer daylight hours by working extended hours to complete the job by 3 July and ahead of the school summer holidays. The work at Hack Green required temporary dams to be installed so that the water could be drained from the short stretch of canal for the duration of the repairs. This enabled us to replace the oak timber liners, which are used to create a watertight seal when the gates are closed.
Liam continues: “Keeping the closure to a minimum at this time of year is our priority, so our teams will return during the winter stoppage programme to complete the remaining work at Lock 2 as well as planned works at Lock 1.
“We thank boaters for their patience as we carried out the works to keep the canal open and navigable. As a charity, it is vital that we carry out this type of maintenance so that the canal, a heritage treasure, is here for local communities, for wildlife and, of course, open to boaters and tourism businesses centred on the canal.”
Anderton Boat Lift
Working for boaters – in numbers
While the article above gets in to the nitty gritty of a few examples, it is just scratching the surface of what’s been happening over the last two weeks. With over 2,000 miles of canals and rivers it’s nigh on impossible to list everything we’ve done (I’m sure you haven’t got a spare day to read the entire list!) but a scan of our stoppage notifications conveys that we’ve…
Removed 23 wind-blown trees that were impeding navigation
Conducted/facilitated 15 bridge inspections
Carried out 11 general lock repairs such as repairing quoins and brickwork
Repaired ten pump out stations
Fixed (or in the process of fixing) eight embankments
Repaired seven Elsans
Fixed seven customer service facilities (such as toilets)
Repaired six bridges
Fixed six lock paddles
Repaired four sluices
Removed two sunken boats
Carried out one pilling project
Removed one sunken car (Macclesfield Canal)
Annoyingly had to clear one lot of illegal fly tipping (well, one that required a stoppage, there were plenty more!)
Worked to control one invasive species (Pennywort)
The above list doesn’t include any work conducted purely on towpaths, water management, event applications processed and co-ordinated and so on – it’s just a flavour of what we’ve been doing to aid navigation!
Grand Union Canal at Cosgrove
Maintenance, repair and restoration work this weekend
As someone who’s out on, or by, the water more often than most, you’ll know that there are times when we need to fix things that unexpectedly break. So, below, you’ll find a list of navigations that have ongoing restrictions that may affect you if you’re planning to get out on the water this weekend:
When restrictions to navigation happen, we get them up on to our website as soon as we can – always best to have a scan before you set off. Have a read of the article below to find out how to get stoppage notification alerts on your smartphone.
If you have any questions about a specific closure, or spot an error in our system, please get in touch.
Harecastle Tunnel, Trent & Mersey Canal
Comment from the cut
Anybody who’s cruised more than a few miles will appreciate just how diverse the boating community is. It’s a wonderful mix of characters who, with us, share a passion for the waterways. Some of this passion has translated into using a 21st Century phenomenon, social media, to celebrate our 18th, and early 19th Century marvel!
Take ‘Making New Memories’ for example. You may recall that, in the last edition, we talked about the works needed at Lock 84 on the Wigan Flight of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Well ‘Making New Memories’, a liveaboard boater, made this excellent video which demonstrates just how much had to be done in double quick, but safe, time:
If you’re one of the growing number of boaters who vlog and are interested in sharing with Boaters’ Update the interesting maintenance and repairs that you come across, do then do please get in touch.
Won't be long until we have sights like this back on the cut...
Winter is coming
Did you know that there are only 166 days until Christmas? Blink and we’ll miss summer (although that horse may have already bolted!), then we’ll rattle through autumn and boom, bring out the thick socks and bobble hats.
As depressing as that sounds, there are a couple of reasons why it’s actually worth thinking of the colder months when it comes to the waterways. Firstly, we want to know what you think about plans for our major winter stoppage programme. There’s still another couple of weeks before we close the second stage of consultation so do please have a read and make any suggestions you feel we need to take account of.
While you’re reading through the proposed list have a think about which one(s) you’d like to read or watch more about – I’m planning to cover some of our winter projects from start to finish so it’d be great to do those that are of most interest.
Secondly, have you taken a winter mooring with us over the last two years? If so, we’d really appreciate some feedback from you. Thinking about your winter mooring us, we’d like to know:
What worked well?
What did not work well?
Do you have any suggestions for how it could be better?
If you decided not to take a Canal & River Trust Winter Mooring, what did you do instead and why? (e.g. continued cruising throughout the winter, took a winter mooring with another provider)
Please send any thoughts you have to [email protected] by 21 July, thanks!
Hope you get afloat this weekend,
Damian
Last Edited: 12 July 2024
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