The HS2 Canal. The Story of The Grand Contour Canal.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
- In this weeks explore we discuss JF Pownall's rather curious plan to link the entire UK Canal netowrk.... with one Canal.... in 1942. Join us as we tell the curious tale.
#HS2 #canal
Credits:
Massive thanks to Matt (Twitter: @iamcanalboy ) for inspiration and thumbnail!
Pictures: All highlighted within
Music: Artlist and Epidemicsound
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Proud to have been a member of the team, based at AECOM. Disappointed that the UK Government lacked to vision to see the many advantages that such a canal would produce: water to a water scarce area, the South East, water cooled conduit for HVDC power lines, a similar additional Internet backbone, freight for non-perishable goods, in bulk, and a significant tourist attraction.
Wonderful, thanks Roy. I enjoyed reading the report a lot. Wish i had time to include more of the concept in the video.
Very interesting, missed your missus though, Rebecca brightens up each video she appears in.
7:19 - I see you were lucky to capture the extremely rare event of the canal water flowing uphill through the locks.
Thoroughly entertaining video as usual, great stuff.
Is that what the ponds were used for? I thought looking at them that they could supply water for boats going in both directions. Simply genius engineering!
Haha.. I think I need to pop one of these in every video just to keep you all on the ball! Well played!
Well spotted indeed. I could have watched that many, many times and I'd never have noticed. I knew that worked in Australia but never seen it here before.😁
It would have been doable back in 1942, things just seemed to happen once (if) they had the support of the war office. Today? It would take 50 years of planning, objections, and public enquiries, as everyone would support it except for the short bit that would go past the end of their own road.
An excellent informative video that reveals a lot of unanswered questions about the lifts.
I live in Peterborough and used to live in an estate that was designed during WWII and completed in 1946. The war didn't stop everything.
Just watched this a second time as there is so much to take in. What could have been, especially having constant freight. And a series of chasm lifts would have been an amazing site. Thanks for this 👍
Thanks Bob. Very kind.
Caisson lifts.
Fascinating concept and history
What an amazing concept, a shipping canal to bring the major cities of the UK together, big enough for Coastal shipping to use and no locks, just lifts. Wow.
That is really thinking outside of the box! Thank you for such an interesting exposition of Powell's idea.
If only...
Thanks for another interesting video of the great canal network that is a big part of our life history. Look forward to seeing next week’s video. Thanks Paul and Rebecca 👍🏼👍🏼
I really enjoyed this one. I love your thirst for history.
Thank you Deane.
I remember that water project, lots of grumbling about the south stealing the north's water.
I can imagine.
Saner must have done a huge amount of research. Really impressive. Great video too (Rebecca behind the camera and Paul). The idea of running major electricity lines underwater is so fanatastically simple (after they are armoured of course, which is not cheap) one would expect it to save some major lines coming down in storms - except they would have to have risen again to supply each house. I think dredging would have been a problem, too, and repairs.
I would presume the cables would run in ducts under or alongside the canal. Because repairing them would be an issue and armoured cable underground is practical over short distances only.
Fascinating! Thank you, Paul. Although having had, in the past, a long connection with the inland waterways and having lived upon a narrowboat for eight years, I have never before heard of this scheme!
It was new to me until very recently
hmmmm...suddenly, HS2 doesnt seem so crazy after all!
It's amazing how you come up with these subjects and then to make a good vlog about them! Thank you mr.Whitewick.
Very kind. Thanks
A few Falkirk wheels about the place should sort out the lift level issues!
Fascinating stuff…makes you think how things could have been 🤔…👍
extremely interesting. Never heard of this before.
One canal to rule them all...
Nice video.
Was nice to see you on a lively canal for a change,wow still in use what amazing designs built to last they might need to bring these back in more places
hi again paul and rebecca , yet another great cool interesting video , well done and thank you so much guys 😊
This is better than a TV documentary, really intresting especially history of uk canals and railways
Thanks Johnathan. Very kind.
The idea that England's canals could be used to both supply water for agriculture and for flood control is an idea that really needs to be explored with today's changing climate!
Check the Glasgow Smart Canal! :)
@@murray5629 Well you know the old saying about the Scots! (and the Irish) "We just know better, sooner!"
Another great video your love for history is remarkable 👍
What a great video. You've got thoughts in my mind going in all sorts of directions.
Beautiful shots of Caen Hill locks! :-)
Many thanks!
Paul and rebecca enjoy your show very much.informative and historical. I'm from bedford nh usa. Keep it going God bless.
Interesting documentary, thanks to Paul, and to whoever was wangling the camera.
Absolutely fascinating, I love cancel stuff and your videos are always so well made and interesting. Great job! 😊🙏🏻
Can you imagine better wartime targets for the Nazi's? You Two are setting yourself up for a C4 series of your own, that's some of the best television, sorry TH-cam, Iv'e enjoyed for a long term - scrap the day jobs!!!
Thanks Dr. That's a really good point. You'd definitely presume that fear of what if would be prohibitive immediately after the war
Very interesting, Paul. Thanks for the research on this concept. I wonder how the practical handover points would have looked like, to the lower levels and old smaller canal system, with 300 ft lifts. Maybe this stopped that idea to come true.
Indeed, I guess there would have been three set desogns for the varying height. But as for the designs themselves, thats something I would love to have seen!
Thanks Paul and Rebecca - As an engineer I am amazed at the concepts you discuss regarding infrastructure development from the past. Maybe offshore wind farms will be viewed differently in 50 years time! Looking forward to your next videos!
Brilliant as usual Paul, a fascinating insight into something I never knew anything about.
Facinating - Thanks for another great video 👍
I've never been to any of these places but I love this channel
One of your best ever videos Paul. Did you know that 0.5% of electricity in the UK is used simply to move water? Also one thing canals have going for them is resilience (except when they freeze over!). Because so many manufacturers rely on just in time deliveries any interruption to the supply chain (eg bad weather) will impact production. Whereas the canals would act as a natural buffer to any delays. Obviously that would mean a lot of expensive cargo on the waterways but is that any different to ships queuing to discharge cargo? What we need is an Eddie Stobart of canals! Surprised it isn't the one field they have diversified into but as you say we would need to connect so many canals up.
Very interesting video. thanks for sharing your knowledge. Great piece of research
Thanks Stuart
fascinating video and great film work .. @2:43 surprising how attractive the mix of modern architecture in a natural landscape can be, if HS2 can achieve that sort of balance it'll help, also shows how antiquated and undeveloped most of the canal system is in comparison.
What a great idea. - In terms of lower impact on the enviroment than more and more roads,and a sensible way to move to a more eco-friendly system in general. - In conbination with better and more plentiful public transport this might encourage a reduction in cars and trucks in our country. - Also the creation of this would be a great way to create jobs and stimulate the economy....so of course it won't happen.
a wonderful presentation, it puts a lot into a very different perspective - a 90 metre contour line, an amazing artery through the country. Paul, Johannesburg
Absolutely brilliant video.
This video is fascinating as with your other videos. :)
After talking about this the other day I finally watched your video. The Cotswolds are trying to take advantage of this idea with the water transfer
great video, fascinating story, boy was it muddy though!
Thank you for your content 🙂
Always a pleasure
Great video thanks Paul. Love canals some of the engineering is fantastic . Thanks for taking me along. Please stay safe and take care
What fascinating video. Thanks Paul. Keep them coming as they are always interesting and crammed full of facts.
Happy New Year
Thanks Pauline, and to you.
Absolutely stunning production Paul, content very interesting too, thanks.
Thanks Nigel.
Fascinating, never heard of this before. This video has some of your best edits - great use of drone shots illustrating your words. Better every time!
Thanks Martin
Very thought provoking. I was aware of this already, but in title only, so a very good and helpful appraisal of the key issues.
Rather surprisingly I had an hour long debate with myself on a long car journey yesterday about whether the canal engineers had contour maps when they planned their routes. This started as I crossed the Manchester Ship Canal high up on the M6 with a long view of the Cheshire plain and hills. I concluded they didn't because of how their designs basically went uphill and down again and newer canals just tagged on rather than integrated. But that could have been a cash availability issue rather than the ability to plan on a bigger scale.
Fascinating story. You would make a great lecturer. So enthusiastic and informative to listen to. Thank you. (Maybe you are a lecturer). Most enjoyable and great filming.thank you.
Thank you Shirley, very kind.
I visited the Crofton pumping station many years ago. Amazing feeling being so up close to a working beam engine.
Nothing to do with canals, but that russet top of yours looks really good. May I ask who makes it ?
That pumping station has one of the original engines that were fitted when it was built. Although not in regular use it still works and still does the job it was designed and built to do. Not many modern mach9ines that will be able to boast that in 200 or so years!
Ok, so we're now waiting for your video on lifts, finishing/focusing on the stunning Falkirk Wheel!
This was a full-on informative video!! 😁We had someone wanting to dig a canal the length of the Roman Wall from Carlisle to Newcastle a number of years ago- seemed like madness!
Top notch. Fascinating! 👌
The quality of your vids has increased geometrically. Exceptionally good!
Great Video - Best one for a while although they're all good.
Thanks Robin 👍
Interesting as always
An interesting idea. I think, when all is said and done, that Pownall just loved canals, and wanted more.
Watching with TH-cam subtitles switched on . Interesting
Great, I missed this video when it came out. I sat on one of the Panels that considered the AECOM proposal in 2011. A great idea but, unfortunately still a lot of work required to bring it to fruition.
Interesting concept! If such a canal was built today I wonder if it would face the same opposition as HS2?
Great video what this channel does best 😃
Wonder if it would have been easy in the aftermath of the war with the need for a job program and surely lots of leftover explosives to use for construction... maybe the UKs version of Project Plowshare?!
As always, your videos are entertaining and so factual....part of our history that needs keeping...
Fantastic well produced informative and educational vlog
Keep up the fantastic work
Glad you enjoyed it
Thank you for another interesting video, it must take you sometime to research all of this information.
Indeed it does. Thank you.
Interesting and well-produced, as always.
Thank you kindly!
WOW - that would of been amazing 😮🚂🚂🚂
Indeed yes
Like the old days , great video 👍
Excellent. Actually Colonel Saner, pronounced as in sane. He also designed the pontoon supported swing bridges across the River Weaver navigation in Northwich, Cheshire. Also worth looking at the Weaver Wolverhampton waterway, a WW2 scheme to make the River Weaver navigable through Nantwich to the foot of the Audlem flight on the Shropshire Union Canal. Lifts would have replaced the flights of locks on the Shroppy, with boats carrying 100 tons able to navigate to the outskirts of the Black Country. Final distribution would have been by road. The documents and plans still exist, I wrote an article about the scheme for Waterways World magazine.
Where was Rebecca? Only behind the camera? Awwwww! And I was looking forward to where you went for lunch and what you ate!!!!! 🙂
Fascinating. Thank you.
More great work, research, script writing, and video production. I really hope one day you get funded to produce shows for tv or major streaming services
Thanks Sam. Very kind.
Genius...! Lets have it built, then...
Similar grand ideas about stealing water from the US Great Lakes to send out to the dry west. Has met resistance from the huge population around the Great Lakes.
I never did work out how you can use a contour canal to supply water. Flowing water needs a slope, maybe a slope of a foot per mile, which would mean that one end of a 400 mile canal needs to be 400 foot lower than the other - awkward for the London end!
The flow slope would be significantly less then a foot per mile, as at that rate you’d be creating a one way canal. Consider the Llangollen Canal which has the steepest “slope” or fastest flow of any UK canal due to it effectively bringing drinking water from the River Dee above Llangollen down to Hurleston Reservoir in Cheshire at a rate of several hundred million gallons of water per day (no info on the internet to check this number but it is in that region). If you travel both ways on the Llangollen Canal you appreciate the flow but it’s not so much more than a “normal” canal which also flows. In effect flow is created by the movement of water. So if such a canal were ever constructed the movement of boats in and out of the canal via the lifts would create the flow and, as Boris suggested, the topping up would come from those parts of the canal going through areas of greater rainfall - in much the same way as canal reservoirs do on the existing canal infrastructure.
@@johnhockenhull2819 I remember hearing many years ago from a lock keeper on the Thames that the slope was a foot per mile.
I've not been able to check the figure but it seems about right.
@@HarryJMac And now we are talking about a river not a canal. By design rivers find the shortest route downhill, in most cases ultimately reaching the sea. Of course the River Thames, like many other rivers, has been made more navigable by installing locks and therefore a less severe flow between each pair of locks. And if you take the River Thames from its source to the sea and calculate the average drop then no doubt it would be more than a foot per mile. Of course the point in question was a canal following the 200 feet contour (if I recall correctly) so your point is moot..
Fascinating!
oh this must be you best video this year
Lol.... I'll take that
Great info thanks
Sounds to me like the canal version of HS2 although 80 years ago.
The best so far.
A very interesting concept; I wonder if the movement of goods would have ended up not being its ultimate use due to the lack of speed, but more for pipe work and water supply.
off we go again .... I fear "BiG Oil" wouldn't like this Idea Paul
Thanks Paul and I presume Rebecca was behind the camera.
8:22 - Southern (Coates) Portal of Sapperton Tunnel on the disused Tames & Severn Canal.
There is a huge network of interconnected rivers and major canals in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, with huge boat lifts and vast locks - see the various livestream videos of barges on TH-cam.
It is even more of a good idea now given the possibility of it being the conduit for next generation IT cabling which requires cooling.
In the 60s and 70s a friend Ken Dunham and friends proposed a 300ton canal running on a 400 foot contour running from the northeast through East Midlands and Northampton to above London
To provide transport but more importantly drinking water to Londoners.
Crofton when it opened had the local landowners in uproar. It caused the the local streams to run dry.
I wonder what a mile of canal would cost nowadays, when built to his large dimensions. I would imagine it would be more expensive than new-build railway. Presumably, the 300ft contour line isn't perfect, so you'd need aquaducts/tunnels/bridges etc, not simply a lovely, neat, flat, straight canal.
Probably slower to build than a railway too and the low speeds would quickly become an issue. Railfreight isn't hugely fast but it's faster than a canal barge. Using 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 rough numbers; London to Glasgow = 400 miles, at 4mph, that's 100 hours steaming, asuming a minimum of two crews, working 12-hour shifts. So, a working week to cover the M1/M6/M74 route, an easy drive in a day? Another possible problem, that just occured to me as I was typing: where would they get all the water to fill the canal after construction?
It sounds like a interesting idea but it doesn't really hold water(sorry😁). Factoring in the construction and diesel powered barges, it's not going to be 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 eco-friendly either. One final thought: construction would need to start in dozens, hundreds even, of places simultaneously; where are you finding that many navvies, outside of China anyway?
The farther back in time we go, the better sense it makes but, as a remedy to today's transport problems, back to the drawing board I fear. Still a nice idea though.😁👍
Another belter!!!
Nice one.
Fascinating stuff.
Hi both. Have you done a video on the elan aqueduct? Think that would very much be up your street
Ah not yet
Good one Paul ... most interesting... I never knew all this was there ....
What happened to your better half ? Hope she's ok ... or didn't she fancy walking in all that mud by the canal ..😂
Ah she was holding the camera most of the time!
@@pwhitewick tell Bec she did a good job ... 😀
Was there ever the a for a Medway / Stour canal through the middle of Kent. Or did the railways overtake the idea?
Good and interesting video
Although they didn't have today's technology a hundred years ago, building this grand canal would have been easier in one regard: acquiring the land. Today much of the route is occupied by highways, rail and housing estates.
And, in those days, fewer folk had the luxury of being "Nimbies"!
yup a bit different to building a manchester ship canal size canal north to south today too much in the way however look whats being destroyed for hs2 a railway we dont need
@@markjones4704 The railways need HS2 to free up capacity on the network. By moving high speed trains to their own tracks more trains can take their place which would be better for everyone who uses the railway.
Not a great deal at all Mark. In fact less that a 14 mile motorway in London.
@@markjones4704 Please do your research fully on the reasons for HS2. If we are to have a sustainable, greener transport system for future generations then we need to provide practical and more environmentally friendly alternatives to the car, lorry and plane. Only by increasing the capacity of our trunk rail network can this be achieved.
Had this ever been built would it still be in use by freight today?
I can't see why not.
Back in 1942 - when you had total mobilisation, and plans were in hand to begin the building of the Mulberry Harbours? Yup, I think they could have done it, they certainly had the technical competence and the will power, if not the resources. And then they could have used the new canal to bring the Mulberrys down from Scotland and elsewhere without the risks of bringing them around the coastline.
He obviously knew that we also live on a level plain earth and not a spherical one .