Great Western Coffee Shop

Only my second trip out of Wiltshire since the spring ... train from Melksham to Bath (via Trowbrige where I had a delivery to make), back on the bus.   A lovely walk on a fine autumn day in the open air, plenty of space and distancing.   Public transport was NOT overcrowded - about 10 people per vehicle (both trains, and the bus too) - and everyone wearing masks.

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Lovely, pictures, Graham - takes me back. For those not familiar with this flight, it?s a beautiful approach to Bath. The penultimate photo shows the boat emerging from the seriously-scary deep lock. The road bridge had been flattened and/or widened over the next lock down, so the restoration had to keep the channel low under the bridge - through where the lower lock chamber was - and then have a double-height lock (about 19? but it seems like 190).

Yes - it's the second deepest lock in Britain. Tuel Lane on the Rochdale Canal is slightly deeper, and similarly was created by combining two locks to get the restored canal under a road. Tuel Lane is keeper-operated though!

Two more pictures from last week. I didn't set out to record the depth so these are incidental - from below the lock - under the bridge from below, and from above - noting the cement mixer in the background which is on top of the canal below the lock.

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As someone who's done a fair old number of locks (but not Tuel Lane), the extra 7 foot or so on top of Tardbigge Top Lock at 12 feet which I have been through quite a number of times isn't all that noticed - perhaps because Bath Deep lock is wider too, so scaled up from Tardbigge rather than distorted.

The steps seen in the first picture are a massive help.  Had the lock been directly against the bridge, with crew obliged to cross the road to get on / off the boat, you would have a real operationally difficult structure.  Not sure what the status is on Tuel Lane.

If you want a deeper lock take a look at Ardncrusha (https://irishwaterwayshistory.com/abandoned-or-little-used-irish-waterways/the-lower-shannon/shannon-south/the-esb-lock-at-ardnacrusha/) on the Shannon Navigation, again a late construction to replace a a canal section when the HydroElecctric scheme was built there in 1929.

At Tuel Lane you stay in the boat while the keeper shouts at you from above. Or at least, that was the case when we passed through. Not the most cheerful of characters...

We did a piece in Waterways World years ago about the deepest locks in the world. The deepest we found was Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan, with a rise of 131ft. It's been written up in a few places since: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ustkamenogorsk-lock

At Tuel Lane - which is at Sowerby Bridge - the artificially-lowered section is a lot longer than at Bath, creating a tunnel of about 100 yards, if I remember correctly. There is simply no way to get anyone off the boat at the tail to operate the lock. This is one reason why it is keeper-operated, as noted by Richard. But it is more recent, so Elf and Safety may also have something to do with it. Tuel Lane also has two sets of bottom gates, to enable the lock to be operated at 56 feet* length if the full 70-odd feet isn?t required. These are hydraulic - no balance beams.

* The neighbouring Calder and Hebble - as with several of the Yorkshire waterways - is 56?, so this is a sensible water-saving idea.

My recollection about the dour lock-keeper is the same as Richard?s. But it?s an engineering masterpiece.

Sorry about the question marks here. It is rather bizarre. I am typing apostrophes - and they appear correct in preview - but when I submit they appear as question marks. This is on an iPad. Has anyone else had the problem?

Known (and logged) issue with the server switch; introduced as we hopped up from MySQL 5.7 to MySQL 8.0 and to a slightly varied character set. To be corrected [[probably]] at the upgrade of forum software;  massive extra job for a few weeks, and with some risks, just taking us up a cut-de-sac if I try and do it in the meantime.  Update log is at http://www.passenger.chat/24012 .

As long as it is not just me...🙂

No its not just you. I get it using a desktop PC too. I have taken to leaving ut punctuation and other non-text keystokes that I have learned are a problem

Going off-topic a bit here...

Tuel Lane, and much of the eastern Rochdale restoration, was funded by West Yorkshire County Council in the '80s largely thanks to the energy of one councillor, John Sully. When I arrived at Canal Boat magazine in 1998, John (by then retired) was sending us occasional news items from the Huddersfield and Rochdale canals, just as restoration was kicking up a gear thanks to Lottery funding. I thought these were brilliant and encouraged him to write more. Before long John was writing a monthly report from each canal as full restoration moved ever closer.

When a few years later I moved to edit Waterways World, I took John with me. He wasn't the best prose stylist in the world, but his reports were full of facts and interest, and a bit of subbing could transform them into something really good. I'd rather have had one of John than ten of the ex-local newspaper hacks who sometimes submitted stuff to us, invariably beautifully written but largely fact-free. John was very much a rail enthusiast too and also wrote for Modern Railways; I sometimes wondered about phoning them up and seeing if they had as much fun rewriting his copy as I did!

He died earlier this year. Greatly missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/21/john-sully-obituary

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/obituary-john-sully-councillor-2851696