We met him in '75 looking for his horse. (He asked had we seen one as we boated the main line.) Later we saw horse - with boat under Galton bridge. (The modern tunnel was not there then.) There were two men working by the boat but what they were doing we could not figure - it seemed to involve a long rope hanging from the high bridge above. Them's were the days!
--- On Sun, 7/20/08, sean neill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: sean neill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [canals-list] Re: Soliton To: [email protected] Date: Sunday, July 20, 2008, 9:42 AM > I don't think there was ever a case of a 'take over'. It would have > been more of a case of all horses, then some horse some motors with a > gradually declining number of horses. Remember Caggy Stevens was using > horses through the 50s and possibly into the 60s. > John While I'm sure there was a period of both methods, I bet it didn't last long for the main fleets to be all motor. There was - as you say - always single, and small operators which continued to use horses, but these probably did the less regular traffic. Mike IIRC horses lasted up to the effective end of carrying on the BCN because the logistics were different to long-haul routes, where a motor-boat could be 'hammered' to get ahead, and a horse could not. For short-haul BCN shuttle traffic, especially through lock flights, the horse could pick up an 'empty' for the return journey and depart immediately, whereas a motor would have to be unloaded; also the double-ended design of day boats, avoiding the need to turn, would be impossible with a motor. Thus the horse could be more productive. I don't know whether the late Harbourmaster- engined BW boats were an attempt to allow engines to be swapped between boats in the same way as horses? Sean [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
