Between London and Liverpool there are three canal routes, each passing through either ten or eleven separate navigations, and covering distances of from 244 to 267 miles. By one of these routes a boat has to pass through such series of locks as ninety in 100 miles on the Grand Junction Canal, between Paddington and Braunston; forty-three in 17 miles on the Birmingham Canal, between Birmingham and Aldersley; and forty-six in 66 miles on the Shropshire Union Canal, between Autherley and Ellesmere Port. Proceeding by an alternative route, the boat would pass through fifty-nine locks in 67 miles on the Trent and Mersey; while a third route would give two hundred and eighty-two locks in a total of 267 miles. The number of separate navigations is ten by Routes I. and II., and eleven by Route III.
Between London and Hull there are two routes, one 282 miles with one hundred and sixty-four locks, and the other 305 miles with one hundred and forty-eight locks. On the journey from London to the Severn, a boat would pass through one hundred and thirty locks in 177 miles in going to the Avonmouth Docks (this total including one hundred and six locks in 86 miles between Reading and Hanham, on the Kennet and Avon Canal); and either one hundred and two locks in 191 miles, or two hundred and thirty in 219 miles, if the destination were Sharpness Docks. Between Liverpool and Hull there are one hundred and four locks in 187 miles by one route; one hundred and forty-nine in 159 miles by a second route; and one hundred and fifty-two in 149 miles by a third. In the case of a canal boat despatched from Birmingham, the position would be—to London, one hundred and fifty-five locks in 147 miles; to Liverpool (1) ninety-nine locks in 114 miles, (2) sixty-nine locks in 94 miles; to Hull, sixty-six locks in 164 miles; to the Severn, Sharpness Docks (1) sixty-one locks in 75 miles, (2) forty-nine locks in 89 miles.
Early in 1906 a correspondent of The Standard made an experimental canal journey from the Thames, at Brentford, to Birmingham, to test the qualities of a certain "suction-producer gas motor barge." The barge itself stood the test so well that the correspondent was able to declare:—"In the new power may be found a solution of the problem of canal traction." He arrived at this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that the motor barge was stopped at one of the locks by a drowned cat being caught between the barge and the incoming "butty" boat. The journey from London to Birmingham occupied, "roughly," six and a half days—a journey, that is, which London and North-Western express trains accomplish regularly in two hours. The 22½ miles of the Warwick and Birmingham Canal, which has thirty-four locks, alone took ten hours and a half. From Birmingham the correspondent made other journeys in the same barge, covering, altogether, 370 miles. In that distance he passed through three hundred and twenty-seven locks, various summits "several hundred feet" in height being crossed by this means.
At Anderton, on the Trent and Mersey Canal, there is a vertical hydraulic lift which raises or lowers two narrow boats 50 feet to enable them to pass between the canal and the River Mersey, the operation being done by means of troughs 75 feet by 14½ feet. Inclined planes have also been made use of to avoid a multiplicity of locks. It is assumed that in the event of any general scheme of resuscitation being undertaken, the present flights of locks would, in many instances, be done away with, hydraulic lifts being substituted for them. Where this could be done it would certainly effect a saving in time, though the provision of a lift between series of locks would not save water, as this would still be required for the lock below. Hydraulic lifts, however, could not be used in mining districts, such as the Black Country, on account of possible subsidences. Where that drawback did not occur there would still be the question of expense. The cost of construction of the Anderton lift was £50,000, and the cost of maintenance is £500 a year. Would the traffic on a particular route be always equal to the outlay? In regard to inclined planes, it was proposed some eight or ten years ago to construct one on the Birmingham Canal in order to do away with a series of locks at a certain point and save one hour on the through journey. Plans were prepared, and a Bill was deposited in Parliament; but just at that time a Board of Trade enquiry into canal tolls and charges led to such reductions being enforced that there no longer appeared to be any security for a return on the proposed expenditure, and the Bill was withdrawn.
In many instances the difference in level has been overcome by the construction of tunnels. There are in England and Wales no fewer than forty-five canal tunnels each upwards of 100 yards in length, and of these twelve are over 2,000 yards in length, namely, Standidge Tunnel, on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, 5,456 yards; Sapperton, Thames and Severn, 3,808; Lappal, Birmingham Canal navigations, 3,785; Dudley, Birmingham Canal, 3,672; Norwood, Chesterfield Canal, 3,102; Butterley, Cromford, 3,063; Blisworth, Grand Junction, 3,056; Netherton, Birmingham Canal, 3,027; Harecastle (new), Trent and Mersey, 2,926; Harecastle (old), Trent and Mersey, 2,897; West Hill, Worcester and Birmingham, 2,750; and Braunston, Grand Junction, 2,042.
The earliest of these tunnels were made so narrow (in the interests of economy) that no space was left for a towing path alongside, and the boats were passed through by the boatmen either pushing a pole or shaft against the roof or sides, and then walking from forward to aft of the boat, or else by the "legging" process in which they lay flat on their backs in the boat, and pushed with their feet against the sides of the tunnel. At one time even women engaged in work of this kind. Later tunnels were provided with towing paths, while in some of them steam tugs have been substituted for shafting and legging.
Resort has also been had to aqueducts, and these represent some of the best work that British canal engineers have done. The first in England was the one built at Barton by James Brindley to carry the Bridgewater Canal over the Irwell. It was superseded by a swing aqueduct in 1893, to meet the requirements of the Manchester Ship Canal. But the finest examples are those presented by the aqueducts of Chirk and Pontcysyllte on the Ellesmere Canal in North Wales, now forming part of the Shropshire Union Canal. Each was the work of Telford, and the two have been aptly described as "among the boldest efforts of human invention of modern times." The Chirk aqueduct (710 feet long) carries the canal over the River Ceriog. It was completed in 1801 and cost £20,898. The Pontcysyllte aqueduct, of which a photograph is given as a frontispiece, carries the canal in a cast-iron trough a distance of 1,007 feet across the valley of the River Dee. It was opened for traffic in 1803, and involved an outlay of £47,000. Another canal aqueduct worthy of mention is that which was constructed by Rennie in 1796, at a cost of £48,000, to carry the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune.
These facts must surely convince everyone who is in any way open to conviction of the enormous difference between canal construction as carried on in bygone days in Great Britain—involving as it did all these costly, elaborate, and even formidable engineering works—and the building of canals, or the canalisation of rivers, on the flat surfaces of Holland, Belgium, and Northern Germany. Reviewing—even thus inadequately—the work that had been already done, one ceases to wonder that, when the railways began to establish themselves in this country, the canal companies of that day regarded with despair the idea of practically doing the greater part of their work over again, in order to carry on an apparently hopeless struggle with a powerful competitor who had evidently come not only to stay but to win. It is not surprising, after all, that many of them thought it better to exploit the enemy by inducing or forcing him to buy them out!
The average reader who may not hitherto have studied the question so completely as I am here seeking to do, will also begin by this time to understand what the resuscitation of the British canal system might involve in the way of expense. The initial purchase—presumably on fair and equitable terms—would in itself cost much more than is supposed even by the average expert.
"Assuming," says one authority, Mr Thwaite, "that 3,500 miles of the canal system were purchasable at two-thirds of their original cost of construction, say £2,350 per mile of length, then the capital required would be £8,225,000."