Photo by Chivers, Devizes.]
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Within the last year or two the railway company have spent £3,000 or £4,000 on the pumping machinery. The main water supply is derived from a reservoir, about 9 acres in extent, at Crofton, this reservoir being fed partly by two rivulets (which dry up in the summer) and partly by its own springs; and extensive pumping machinery is provided for raising to the summit level the water that passes from the reservoir into the canal at a lower level, the height the water is thus raised being 40 feet. There is also a pumping station at Claverton, near Bath, which raises water from the river Avon. Thanks to these provisions, on no occasion has there been more than a partial stoppage of the canal owing to a lack of water, though in seasons of drought it is necessary to reduce the loading of the boats.
The final ascent to the Devizes level is accomplished by means of twenty-nine locks in a distance of 2½ miles. Of these twenty-nine there are seventeen which immediately follow one another in a direct line, and here it has been necessary to supplement the locks with "pounds" to ensure a sufficiency of reserve water to work the boats through. No one who walks alongside these locks can fail to be impressed alike by the boldness of the original constructors of the canal and by the thoroughness with which they did their work. The walls of the locks are from 3 to 6 feet in thickness, and they seem to have been built to last for all eternity. The same remark applies to the constructed works in general on this canal. For a boat to pass through the twenty-nine locks takes on an average about three hours. The 39½ miles from Bristol to Devizes require at least two full days.
Considerable expenditure is also incurred on the canal in dredging work; though here special difficulties are experienced, inasmuch as the geological formation of the bed of the canal between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon renders steam dredging inadvisable, so that the more expensive and less expeditious system of "dragging" has to be relied on instead.
Altogether it costs the Great Western Railway Company about £1 to earn each 10s. they receive from the canal; and whether or not, considering present day conditions of trade and transport, and the changes that have taken place therein, they would get their money back if they spent still more on the canal, is, to say the least of it, extremely problematical. One fact absolutely certain is that the canal is already capable of carrying a much greater amount of traffic than is actually forthcoming, and that the absence of such traffic is not due to any neglect of the waterway by its present owners. Indeed, I had the positive assurance of Mr Saunders that, in his capacity as Canals Engineer to the Great Western, he had never yet been refused by his Company any expenditure he had recommended as necessary for the efficient maintenance of the canals under his charge. "I believe," he added, "that any money required to be spent for this purpose would be readily granted. I already have power to do anything I consider advisable to keep the canals in proper order; and I say without hesitation that all the canals belonging to the Great Western Railway Company are well maintained, and in no way starved. The decline in the traffic is due to obvious causes which would still remain, no matter what improvements one might seek to carry out."
The story told above may be supplemented by the following extract from the report of the Great Western Railway Company for the half-year ending December 1905, showing expenses and receipts in connection with the various canals controlled by that company:—
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY CANALS,