Canal Operation

[DCB]

Watching the TV last evening when I should have been repainting some Triang Clerestories i saw a program about the Grand Union Canal which ended in the Village of Paddington near London and was very busy with some boats (Pickfords) having priority and from memory doing Birmingham to Paddington in 2 days.

 

Question, how did Horse drawn barges pass each other with only a single two path.  Did one stop and drop the tow line to allow the other to pass, if so which gave way?    Did pitched battles ensue?

Equally how did the faster boat overtake slower ones.     Just thinking it could be worth modelling in a corner of the layout.

 

Obviously the steam boats didn't have the issue but I'm assuming they arrived when the traffic was in decline anyway

[Happy Hippo]

The tow ropes would be lifted up and passed over the horse and narrow boat to facilitate a pass or an overtake.  Look at a working narrow boat and they have a very flat top apart from the chimney at the cabin end and the tiller  The tow might be released from the horses harness, but the boats would not stop  Narrow boats (not barges) had a crew of two.  One who did the steering and the other who did all the donkey work.

[Dublodad]

In my youth (early 1950's) some of us lads would frequent the Grand Union Canal between Brentford and Southall. Lighters were horse drawn along the canal, we saw lighters passing on several occasions. The lighters passed to their right and the towpath is on the west bank so the Southall bound lighter was on the far side from the towpath. The Southall bound lighter dropped it's tow and carried on under it's momentum and once clear of the Brentford bound lighter, was steered towards the towpath to pickup the tow again.

Some time in the late 50's the horses were replaced small tractors. Same crewing less hassle. I don't know when lighter use was discontinued. 

[wagonbasher]

Hi

 

So horse towed narrow boats or barges would dominate canal traffic until the last decade of the 19th centaury.  Today and back then canal boats pass to the right of each other (they in effect drive on the right hand side of the canal / river).  This practise is worldwide for waterway navigation and although differences will exist boats generally pass on the right.   So the boat furthest away from the towpath will pause, lower its line (rope) into the water for the boat closest to the towpath to pass over it and the then all continue on there way.

 

They would not choose to untether the boat from the horse where possible.   You find at locks, bridges with a hole for the rope to save untethering, this one is on the Stratford and Avon canal, see the two separately canter levered bridges allowing a slot for the rope to pass through:

  

sorry had to delete the image I couldnt get it to be just a link

 

and roving bridges that carry the towpath at 90 degrees over the canal allow for the horse to cross and then come under the bridge so as to keep the rope on the right side of the bridge with no need to un tether the horse, this one is on the Macclesfield canal:

 

sorry had to delete the image I couldnt get it to be just a link

 

 

 

I have heard about priority travel, the one that springs to mind would be the Shropshire Union Fly Boats, High speed travel changing horses regularly to keep up the pace, apparently they had priority and would presumably always pass nearest to the towpath whether that was to the left or the right of the other boat?  

 

 

 

Families would run these horse boats, with a young family member often on the bank with the horse.  Horses became conditioned and new when to start and stop

 

Steam boats were like locomotives to the few companies that ran them.  Teams of men not families running the steam boat picking up what were effectively horse boats these were run by families, one or two at a time and at the destination they would drop of the towed boat and pick up another boat or two for the return journey.  This all kicked off in the 1890's and into the next centenary but diesel engines were to become king from the early 1920's into the 40's.   After the introduction of diesel power, most (not all) boats were built to run in pairs as motor boat and butty (Butty's very similar to horse boats with the big tillers).  

 

As you say,  no issue with ropes with a motor boat.

 

Andy

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

49 minutes ago, wagonbasher said:

Today and back then canal boats pass to the right of each other (they in effect drive on the right hand side of the canal / river). 

The maritime expression is "port to port", that you keep the other vessel on your left.  Obviously the rule of the road on the high seas can't vary from country to country depending on whose flag you are flying.

 

There is also a convention that "steam gives way to sail". powered vessels being more easily able to control their speed and direction than one with a lot of sails that need to be manhandled.  I don't know whether the same concept applies when horsepower meets diesel engine on a canal.

 

As a boy I lived for a few years in a house backing onto the Bridgewater Canal near Warrington.  Mixed in with the increasing pleasure boating, there was still some commercial traffic in narow boats, mostly diesel powered often towing a "butty boat", but once in a while we did still see the odd one drawn by a horse.  Crewing was traditionally husband & wife.

[melmerby]

49 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

The maritime expression is "port to port", that you keep the other vessel on your left.  Obviously the rule of the road on the high seas can't vary from country to country depending on whose flag you are flying.

The US and Canada drive on the right, however some Great Lakes traffic appears to do the opposite.

Lake Superior:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-86.2/centery:47.4/zoom:8

 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by melmerby

[Michael Hodgson]

Large vessels need to keep to the fairway (the deep navigable part of a channel) whilst those of a shallower draft may be able to cope with shallower water.  Sometimes they may mutually agree a green (starboard) to green crossing for convenience or to avoid an obstruction

[Bernard Lamb]

Not directly related but just so folks can get the period scene correct,

Canal traffic was in decline during the 1950s but several regular flows kept certain areas active. The big turning point was the bad winter of 1962-1963. Canal traffic never recovered from the enforced shut down.

Bernard

[trevora]

2 hours ago, wagonbasher said:

Shropshire Union Fly Boats

On the lancaster canalfly boats raced along changing horse every few miles

they had a blade like the Saracens in the holy wars

any one who did not drop there tow  had it cut

they had right of way over all others

[HExpressD]

Much easier these days of course, you just knock the morse lever to tick over ;)

[DCB]

10 minutes ago, trevora said:

On the lancaster canalfly boats raced along changing horse every few miles

they had a blade like the Saracens in the holy wars

any one who did not drop there tow  had it cut

they had right of way over all others

And when two converged from opposite directions? 

[Nick C]

20 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

There is also a convention that "steam gives way to sail". powered vessels being more easily able to control their speed and direction than one with a lot of sails that need to be manhandled.  I don't know whether the same concept applies when horsepower meets diesel engine on a canal.

Within reason of course - I've heard tales of small sailing boats in the Solent trying to demand their right of way over supertankers (which as mentioned above, have to stay in the deep-water lanes, and of course can't manouever rapidly!), which doesn't tend to go down well!

[Siberian Snooper]

I thought that the sail before steam rule had been removed, due to the size of powered ships, being unable to stop or manouevre, let alone see some small craft from the bridge.

 

 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

There is an elaborate heirarchy of who should give way to whom. "Steam", which these days is called "a power driven vessel", comes right at the bottom of the list of priorities, and "sail" ("a sailing vessel") comes immediately above. In open water, fishing vessels come next, then vessels restricted in their ability to manoeuvre, then right at the top come vessels "not under command", perhaps due to a failure of power or steering. However, in narrow or shallow channels there are other rules, concernining draft as well as manoeuvrability and whether a vessel is moving along the channel or across it.

 

In practical terms, pleasure craft under sail have to give way to everything, apart from pleasure craft powered by motor.

 

As for where rowing boats slot into this system, it is a great shame that AP Herbert's "Misleading Cases" are not available online. Herbert wrote reports of wholly fictitious legal cases involving vaguely plausible situations which the law seemed not adequately to cover, including the case of Albert Haddock commanding an underpowered motor vessel in the tidal River Thames colliding with a ladies' rowing eight, whose boat sank. I forget who was held to blame.

 

I wonder what Herbert would have made of a horse-drawn barge. He did consider the relative obligations of the driver of a motor car and a canoeist in the case of a road flooded at high tide, where the canoeist (Albert Haddock again) insisted on passing "port to port", thereby forcing the motor car into deeper water, which wrecked it. The judge found that the rules of the sea prevailed, and chastised the driver of the motor car for the unseaworthiness of his vessel.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Jeremy C

[figworthy]

6 hours ago, Nick C said:

Within reason of course - I've heard tales of small sailing boats in the Solent trying to demand their right of way over supertankers (which as mentioned above, have to stay in the deep-water lanes, and of course can't manouever rapidly!), which doesn't tend to go down well!

 

Large vessels in the Solent (not just tankers) have a moving exclusion zone around them.  If you enter that zone you may find yourself explaining why to a court.

 

Many years ago during Cowes Week, we spotted a container ship heading inbound, and were worried as to whether or not we could cross in front of the harbour launch (the front of the exclusion zone), if not, then we had a long detour to make (and a lot of places to lose).  Fair does to the harbour launch, they slowed down and let us through.  Sadly for the rest of the fleet following us, once we'd passed them, they then sped up again.

 

Adrian

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, Jeremy C said:

There is an elaborate heirarchy of who should give way to whom. "Steam", which these days is called "a power driven vessel", comes right at the bottom of the list of priorities, and "sail" ("a sailing vessel") comes immediately above. In open water, fishing vessels come next, then vessels restricted in their ability to manoeuvre, then right at the top come vessels "not under command", perhaps due to a failure of power or steering. However, in narrow or shallow channels there are other rules, concernining draft as well as manoeuvrability and whether a vessel is moving along the channel or across it.

 

 

Remember it well, TV series in the 1960s.  Would certainly benefit from retransmission. instead of these dimwits on game shows.

Brilliant scripts, Alaistair Sim & Roy Dotrice were excellent actors.

 

I did wonder where I would have to put the crossing stamp if somebody did pay in a negotiable instrument written on a side of beef... at the time a cheque was only valid if it had 2d stamp duty paid on it though.  It wouldn't fit in the Head Office letter of course, to get it to the Clearing House the Royal Mail would have needed a cattle wagon added to the TPO!

 

[rogerzilla]

There is a situation where you pass a boat on the other side: if you are in a powered boat and you meet a horse-drawn boat coming the other way with the towpath to your right.    It makes no sense for the horse-drawn boat to pass the tow rope over your boat when it's not necessary.

 

And yes, it happened to us going into Kintbury on the K&A.

Edited April 29, 2023 by rogerzilla