"sean neill"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> You cant get your key out till you shut the gates when its all
>>> electronic.
>>>
>> The day canal locks go electronic is the day I put Quidditch up for
>> sale.
>>
>> Cheers....
>>
>> Will Chapman
>>
>After the problems with 'granny paddles' I can't see this being
>realistic. Quite apart from the safety issues (how do users stop it in
>emergency?), getting electricity to remote locks and making it
>vandal-proof in urban areas would be really difficult.
Conversion of locks to automated powered operation by boaters has been
under way in France for several years, and is now well advanced.
However, it is expensive. The French have been able to justify it,
because when a lock is converted, there is no longer any need for a
lock keeper, so his salary is saved from then on.
Too bad in some ways. I like lock keepers (for UK boaters: A lock
keeper is a waterway employee who looks after a lock and helps boaters
use it. Now a rare species in Britain).
However, in some cases, especially on routes with lots of locks and
not much traffic (like the Marne-Rhine from the summit east), a
different cost-saving measure is used. Each boat is accompanied the
whole way by mobile lock keepers (last summer, we had one experienced
guy in a van with two students on scooters). On the river Dender in
Belgium, it was two guys in a van. I guess some accountant has done
the arithmetic, and found this to be the cheapest.
In most regions (Brittany is a major exception, but then it is run by
the Region not the nationa nav. authority), the French reject as
unsafe the idea of unsupervised manual lock operation by boaters. The
idea of boaters operating moveable bridges is seen as preposterous.
Vive la difference.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>But didn't they have techniques to close the gates using ropes and straps so
>they didn't have to get off the boat as they left the lock?
>
>I haven't worked out how they did it, but I have the impression that the
>design of locks and gates has changed over the last 60 years or so and the
>necessary hooks and protuberances have broken, worn away or have been designed
> out
>of the system.
>
>DaveD
For narrow locks with two bottom gates, the motor would carry a
special short boathook, and the steerer would prod the ends of the
bottom gate balance beams as the boat left the lock. This didn't
usually close the gates fully, but pushed them far enough out of the
recesses that the lockside crew preparing the lock for the butty could
close them the rest of the way simply by opening a top paddle.
This isn't feasible on wider locks or with single gates, as the gates
are too heavy.
On Perry Barr flight in Brum, the locks were built so that the
culverts of the top ground paddles opened into the chambers behind the
bottom gates, so opening one of these paddles would produce a rush of
water which shut the bottom gates. Very sadly, these culverts are now
bricked up, because some official thought that having the bottom gates
move "unexpectedly" could surprise an uninformed lockside observer,
and perhaps push him into the lock. Bah! I wish this design were
universal.
Top gates could/can be closed by a boat entering the lock by
strapping, and on some locks (even broad ones) you can get the bottom
gates to start closing by putting the rudder hard over and giving a
burst of prop wash as the prop passes the upstream end of the gates.
However, I know of no technique for closing top gates by a departing
boat.
I think that, apart from PB and the occasional strapping post, no
equipment for any of this has actually been removed.
Adrian
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
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