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.
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.
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!
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.😁
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 👍
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 👍🏼👍🏼
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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!!!
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
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
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.
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.
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?!
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!
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.
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!
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.😁👍
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
The Strephy=Thieu lift in Belgium is there to replace three hydraulic boat lifts and was constructed partly as a result of Waffle-iron politics. It is sometimes, together with the inclined plane of Ronquieres at the other end of the canal pound considered as a boondoggle and as such part of "Les Grands travaux inutiles"
@@AnnabelSmyth They were built to make coal transport easier, but the coal mines and related heavy industry closed when the inclined plane opened, and the boat lift opened much later in 2002. (and the cost was four times as much as expected to construct it). I'm not sure if they're used well. I was in Ronquires some time ago, and one of the two caissons of the inclined plane has been out of use already for a long time
Well, every time I've been to either place - which is at least once a year except during the pandemic, as we use the motor home parking there, they have been very busy, constant stream of barges. They only do tourist boats at Ronquières on A Sunday as it is too busy the rest of the week.
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.
On the Web there was a canal that when it came to a contour the barges be steared into a cradle, the with the aid of ropes pulled up to the next level on railway track's and its still running today. Would i thought might of been ideal for our size of barges
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.
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.
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.😁
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.
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.
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
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
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 concept and history
I remember that water project, lots of grumbling about the south stealing the north's water.
I can imagine.
A few Falkirk wheels about the place should sort out the lift level issues!
hi again paul and rebecca , yet another great cool interesting video , well done and thank you so much guys 😊
Paul and rebecca enjoy your show very much.informative and historical. I'm from bedford nh usa. Keep it going God bless.
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.
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!
hmmmm...suddenly, HS2 doesnt seem so crazy after all!
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.
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!"
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
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
Absolutely fascinating, I love cancel stuff and your videos are always so well made and interesting. Great job! 😊🙏🏻
One canal to rule them all...
Nice video.
This is better than a TV documentary, really intresting especially history of uk canals and railways
Thanks Johnathan. Very kind.
Interesting documentary, thanks to Paul, and to whoever was wangling the camera.
Brilliant as usual Paul, a fascinating insight into something I never knew anything about.
extremely interesting. Never heard of this before.
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
I've never been to any of these places but I love this channel
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.
Great video thanks Paul. Love canals some of the engineering is fantastic . Thanks for taking me along. Please stay safe and take care
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.
Absolutely brilliant video.
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?!
Facinating - Thanks for another great video 👍
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
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.
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!
Top notch. Fascinating! 👌
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.
Absolutely stunning production Paul, content very interesting too, thanks.
Thanks Nigel.
Fascinating stuff…makes you think how things could have been 🤔…👍
The quality of your vids has increased geometrically. Exceptionally good!
Thank you for your content 🙂
Always a pleasure
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.
Beautiful shots of Caen Hill locks! :-)
Many thanks!
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!
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..
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.
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
Interesting as always
great video, fascinating story, boy was it muddy though!
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.
Great video what this channel does best 😃
As always, your videos are entertaining and so factual....part of our history that needs keeping...
Great Video - Best one for a while although they're all good.
Thanks Robin 👍
oh this must be you best video this year
Lol.... I'll take that
Fantastic well produced informative and educational vlog
Keep up the fantastic work
Glad you enjoyed it
Interesting and well-produced, as always.
Thank you kindly!
An interesting idea. I think, when all is said and done, that Pownall just loved canals, and wanted more.
Ok, so we're now waiting for your video on lifts, finishing/focusing on the stunning Falkirk Wheel!
This video is fascinating as with your other videos. :)
Thank you for another interesting video, it must take you sometime to research all of this information.
Indeed it does. Thank you.
Like the old days , great video 👍
Another belter!!!
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.
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.
Fascinating!
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.
Sounds like the Mayor of London at the time has a problem with the North! Honestly would had been a interesting scheme. Brilliant Video Paul
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!
Where was Rebecca? Only behind the camera? Awwwww! And I was looking forward to where you went for lunch and what you ate!!!!! 🙂
Genius...! Lets have it built, then...
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.
Watching with TH-cam subtitles switched on . Interesting
Fascinating. Thank you.
WOW - that would of been amazing 😮🚂🚂🚂
Indeed yes
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.
Sounds to me like the canal version of HS2 although 80 years ago.
Crofton when it opened had the local landowners in uproar. It caused the the local streams to run dry.
The best so far.
Had this ever been built would it still be in use by freight today?
I can't see why not.
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.😁👍
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.
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.
Thanks Paul and I presume Rebecca was behind the camera.
off we go again .... I fear "BiG Oil" wouldn't like this Idea Paul
The Strephy=Thieu lift in Belgium is there to replace three hydraulic boat lifts and was constructed partly as a result of Waffle-iron politics. It is sometimes, together with the inclined plane of Ronquieres at the other end of the canal pound considered as a boondoggle and as such part of "Les Grands travaux inutiles"
So the canal already existed, but they made it suitable for much larger vessels.
I don't know why you say "inutiles" - both are extremely well used.
@@AnnabelSmyth They were built to make coal transport easier, but the coal mines and related heavy industry closed when the inclined plane opened, and the boat lift opened much later in 2002. (and the cost was four times as much as expected to construct it). I'm not sure if they're used well.
I was in Ronquires some time ago, and one of the two caissons of the inclined plane has been out of use already for a long time
Well, every time I've been to either place - which is at least once a year except during the pandemic, as we use the motor home parking there, they have been very busy, constant stream of barges. They only do tourist boats at Ronquières on A Sunday as it is too busy the rest of the week.
Was there ever the a for a Medway / Stour canal through the middle of Kent. Or did the railways overtake the idea?
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.
What about the branch that went to Littlehampton
Interesting concept! If such a canal was built today I wonder if it would face the same opposition as HS2?
Fascinating stuff.
Great info thanks
On the Web there was a canal that when it came to a contour the barges be steared into a cradle, the with the aid of ropes pulled up to the next level on railway track's and its still running today. Would i thought might of been ideal for our size of barges
Hi both. Have you done a video on the elan aqueduct? Think that would very much be up your street
Ah not yet