Fun with engineering
On a brighter note, meet the Falkirk Wheel. It joins two canals that are at different heights. They used to be joined by 12 locks that took almost an entire day to go through. Now the joining takes minutes.
Adding another, filmed by a drone.
Ahh, that is super cool! And it looks super future-y, too. Love it!
I can’t not mention how it reminds me of a very cool and wondrous (if smaller and lesser-known) thing in my local area: the Peterborough Lift Lock, which is about halfway between Lake Ontario and Ottawa, on the Trent-Severn canal system. Canals are of course old hat, and the Trent-Severn has gazillions of locks — little doorways that open and close to float or sink the boats to match the water levels. But a lift lock is a much more amazing thing: it’s like an elevator for boats: a bucket of water that lets boats in, then lifts the boats and the water up to a dramatically different water level, to the point where you could take a dry walk underneath the whole “bucket” — water and all. And at the Peterborough one, it’s a pair of “buckets” or “elevators” that counterbalance each other, going up and down in sync. Crazier still is that this lift lock is like a jewel set into the urban centre of a medium-sized city, and there’s a busy road that runs right through it. The combination of boat-elevator and city-centre bridge is, to me, marvellous. Many times when I was a kid, my mum drove me all the way out to Peterborourgh so we could enjoy it, and the amazement never abated for me.
Fun fact: the Peterborough Lift Lock is 120 years old!! I still gasp at that.
Here’s a little 60 second clip of the lock, when it’s for some reason full up with kayakers. (Taken during a kayak festival, I guess?) It is such a cool thing to watch. In the video, you can get a little glimpse of the road that cuts through it, too, and if you really look, you can see the little arched windows in the middle of the tunnel, where my mum would park the car and we’d look outside to watch the hundred-year-old mechanical lifts go up and down from within the structure itself — breathaking to twelve-year-old me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEcETRjqpGA
I should add, for anyone interested, that the Peterborough Lift Lock is also completely hydraulic: it doesn’t require any fuel or electricity to operate — it’s a clean, clever engineering design. It was made to exploit the hydraulic power of the riverway it’s built upon to supply the elevators’ up and down motion. The waterway is powerful enough to ensure it doesn’t require an outside power source to operate. (Although technically there is a wee bit of electricity required to operate the safety features that have been added into the machine in modern times.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC4ZZyhq-NQ
Wow!! That is fantastic, Arty. I expect to watch it several hundred times.
That’s some ingenious engineering. Thanks Arty! :)
Been decades since I’d seen the Peterborough lock in action… I’m used to just being in amazement and not worrying about how it actually worked, so thanks for that :-) Watching any lock in action is just mesmerizing!
The last great piece of canal engineering in Britain – really amazing. I think we often forget the great engineering feats of the canal era, as the rail era followed so closely afterwards, but there are some magnificent canal bridges – I live near one, that crosses a river and rail line, with a pub conveniently located to watch the boats crossing it. And then there’s this beast – terrifying to cross, I don’t believe anyone’s ever pitched over the side so far, I don’t know how we’ve managed to avoid it.
https://www.pontcysyllte-aqueduct.co.uk/
The Falkirk Wheel is wonderful. A guide to the place assured us that it uses the power to boil 8 kettles.
There are some good aqueducts on the Union Canal which links Falkirk to Edinburgh, ie the Forth Canal to the Clyde Canal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slateford_Aqueduct
This canal was left to go derelict then re-opened as a walking/cycling route. It is a wonderful walk as it is mostly through countryside, with fine views. When it was derelict it was thought of as an eyesore and a health hazard. Now there are mini marinas built on it.
@Arty – that’s really spectacular
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/falkirk/unioncanal/index.html
Can I just put in a word here for the Anderton boat lift as well? It’s the only other working boat lift in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderton_Boat_Lift
You certainly can. I love this stuff. As ibbica said – locks are mesmerizing (and so are boat lifts).
Canals still represent a tremendous resource for commercial transportation. Is there much real use of these amazing lifts these days?
Well then I’ll just add the inclination at Ronquières: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronqui%C3%A8res_inclined_plane
That is also cool!
Before I saw Artymorty’s comment I was going to mention the Peterborough lift lock.
I have a series of photos I took of it in operation when I stopped there on a drive.
I also have some photos of the staircase of locks on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.
I there any way to post these in a comment?
Do you have them stashed somewhere public online? I could post them that way.
I don’t have them stashed online.
What is either an easy way to do that, or email them to you?
I’ll email you!
Aah I love all the old-timey engineering! We were in North Wales last week and walked across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (got the spelling right on the first attempt!) mentioned by guest at #6. My mum is scared of heights and gets vertigo but she made it! The footpath isn’t very wide and there are only railings on one side – on the other side, pedestrians would just fall into the canal trough so I guess that’s safe enough by victorian standards. My mum actually said she was worried about falling into the water, so I suggested holding on to the railings to steady herself. Her answer? “You must be JOKING, they’re 200 years old! I’m not touching those!”
One of Jim’s photos of the
OttawaPeterborough marvel:That’s the Peterborough Marvel. :)
Derp! Sorry; fixed it.
Hats off to the architects, too. The engineers are obviously heroes. But let’s not neglect the kudos owed to the designers who opted for a charming castle aesthetic. I love that it looks a bit like a Romantic fortress of waterpower. It evokes fairies and trolls and magic and mystery in its subtle whimsical elements. But it’s also a firmly mechanical thing, rooted squarely in mechanics and engineering. That’s an intoxicating combination. Like the Eiffel Tower, and few other engineering beauties. My favourite kind of marvel.
Great picture, Jim. Cheers!