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Structural Conditions

This is Chapter 6 from 'The Canal System of England'

Its growth and present condition, with particular reference to the cheap carriage of goods - 1904 - by H. Gordon Thompson

The present structural conditions of the English Barge Canal System are deplorable. The few exceptions mentioned above, such as the River Weaver Navigation, Cheshire, UK, and the Aire and Calder, still continue to prove the wisdom of their management.

On no important through route, as far as the writer has been able to ascertain, is it possible for anything but small barges to travel the entire length, whilst many have become so shallow for want of dredging that they form an impassible block to all through traffic; such for example is the case on the Kennet and Avon, a long canal on the most direct Thames-to-Severn through-route.

It might be expected that, at the least, those Canals helping to form important through routes would have been kept in good working order and repair but such is not the case.

The Ouse and its tributaries were investigated in 1890 by the Board of Trade, and it was then reported that on this navigation from St. Neots to Louth, the timber work bad become rotten and decayed, the masonry was falling to pieces, whilst the locks were almost useless; yet on this navigation there are nine toll-taking bodies, all having a voice in its administration.

Canal Transport

The Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN), according to the Board of Trade returns for 1888, conveyed by far the greatest tonnage of all the inland navigations of Great Britain, amounting to 7,713,000 tons in that year, and yet nothing has been done to bring them up to modern requirements. There are still the small locks, shallow water and horse haulage as in former days, and all attempts to open up an improved waterway to the seaports have proved abortive. The difference in the dimensions of the English canals is perhaps their greatest disadvantage. Two examples will suffice.

Dimensions

(1) The sectional area of the Trent and Mersey Canal averages 136 square feet, while that of the Aire and Calder is 475 square feet, and the Weaver Canal 780 square feet. The smaller canal locks have an average width of 7 feet, while that of the Aire and Calder reaches 18 feet.

(2) There are three through routes from the Mersey to the Humber. The shortest runs from the Mersey via the Bridgewater, Rochdale, Aston, Huddersfield, Sir John Ramsden's, and the Calder and Hebble, to the Aire and Calder Canal. The control of this through route system between the Mersey and the Humber, excluding navigation authorities, is in the hands of no less than eight different companies amongst whom there is the keenest competition; and a consignment of goods has to traverse ten distinct waterways the gauges of locks on which range through various grades from 50 feet by 14 feet by 4-6 feet on Sir John Ramsden's canal to 212 feet by 22 feet by 9'6 feet on the Aire and Calder.* (* Progress of Railways and Waterways. Forbes.)

Standard Dimensions

With such instances as these it is clearly that an effort should be made to arrive at some minimum sectional area of canal and lock, height of quay, radius of curve, headway of bridge, etc., which shall be adhered to in future operations, whether in the re-construction of old, or in the laying out of new canals. Mr. Saner, speaking before the Liverpool Engineering Society in 1893, advocated the adoption of an English Canal Standard as follows:

Bottom width 40 feet.

Surface width 64 feet.

Depth of water 8 feet.

Sectional area 416 feet.

Other Standard dimensions were proposed in the evidence before the Select Committee of 1883, but none have been adopted and no minimum fixed.

French Standard Dimensions

If examination is made of the dimensions of Continental Canals a striking difference is observable. France for example has done a great deal to improve and extend her Canal System. In 1877 extensive improvements on the dimensions of the existing waterways were begun, at a cost of more than £30 millions sterling; with the result that main through-routes were widened and deepened, and thus in many cases the capacity of the boats could be more than doubled.

On the Haute Colne Canal, the carrying capacity of the boats has been increased from 115 to 275 tons, whilst the Koubaix Canal will now take boats of 250 instead of 80 tons. Two years after these improvements were begun, standard dimensions for canals of the first class were laid down by law. The locks were to be at least 130 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 6.5 feet deep over the sills.

The result has been that within fifteen years the total length of canals of the first class has been almost trebled, and the traffic on the improved waterways has increased over 100%, thus enabling the charges to be reduced in some cases by as much as 40%.

The growth of traffic has indeed been remarkable.

In 1876 the total traffic was 1953 million ton kilometers.

In 1884 the total traffic was 2451 million ton kilometers.

In 1893 the total traffic was 3609 million ton kilometers.

In 1899 the total traffic was 4950 million ton kilometers.

France has not stood alone in such matters.

Germany.

Germany also has not been lacking in the improvement and development of her waterways. Between 1880 and 1894 over eleven millions were voted by the Government for inland navigation improvement.

English Canals.

In England there has been no general or Government improved scheme for Canal improvement, yet the enterprise of a few individual Companies such as the Aire and Calder and Weaver Navigations has shown, that an up-to-date system will command success. Such success as is seen in the Board of Trade returns for 1890, when these navigations together carried over 10% of the total freight on English Canals, or 3,750,000 tons out of a total of 34,325,000 tons transported on our Canals.

The improvements made in these canals have not only brought about an increase of traffic, but also a diminution in the rates charged for carriage, and it is notable that the cheapest rates in England for coal, are found on the Aire and Calder.

Messrs. Fellows, Morton & Co., the great canal carriers, once stated at a meeting in Nottingham, that with a 6 ft. deep waterway from Nottingham to the Humber, they could carry goods over that route for 4/per ton, as against the present rate of 8/- to 10/- per ton, according to the classification. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that the cheap carriage of goods on canals depends upon the dimensions of the waterway itself.