  Now
- don’t cheat, don’t look down for the answer, but just read the following
paragraph and try and put a date to it. When do you think it was written?
“Canal
boats and canals we suspect are going fast out of use, and will very
shortly give place entirely to railways; but still it must be many years
before this can be affected; and in the meantime, the produce of the most
extensive manufactures in the world, and the supply of immense masses of
people, will be transported over these beautifully smooth, level noiseless
roads; and, even if their beds were dry, and become the course of railways
( an event which may perhaps befall some of them ), we must, out of
respect for the extraordinary benefits we have derived from their
assistance, and the almost incredible effect they have produced upon the
commerce and riches of the country...”,
 Must
be nineteenth century mustn’t it - perhaps 1870s or 80s? In fact it is an
excerpt from a manual about the horse with ‘a Treatise on Draught’ which I
recently discovered in a farmhouse in Northumberland and was amazed to
note that it was actually printed in 1831- whilst the Liverpool and
Birmingham Junction Canal was still being built and only six years after
the Stockton and Darlington Railway had successfully opened using steam
locomotion. It was only 54 years since the Grand Trunk had opened and 39
years after the ‘canal mania’. It is like somebody today saying the age of
the motorway is over...It makes one wonder what was really going through
Telford’s mind whilst he was working on what was to become the Shropshire
Union’s link from Wolverhampton to Nantwich—was he building the most
efficient canal to date to compete or was he really building a railway
track in disguise? Ten years after it was opened there was indeed a plan
to convert it into a railway, only prevented by complicated company
take-overs and inter-railway rivalries before it settled down to an
efficient and quite profitable career through to the First World War.
 Happily for us our
un-named author’s prediction was generally over pessimistic and many of
the canals have out-lived the railways that he expected to supercede them.
I think he would have been pleased to be proved wrong judging by his
description of ‘beautifully smooth, level noiseless roads’ and ‘the
extraordinary benefits we have derived from their assistance.’ One of the
reasons he was wrong of course was the very subject of his book, the
horse, the commonest motive power for canal boats. He goes on “The great
advantage in the transport of goods by water conveyance, is the smallness
of the power required. A body floating in water is left so very free in
its movements, that motion may be gradually communicated to it by any
power however small... but although a very slow movement may thus easily
be obtained, the slightest increase of speed causes a very great increase
of resistance.” There follows some rather suspect mathematics to prove
that point but he comes up with some other interesting figures: “The
draught of an ordinary canal boat (i.e. the power needed to move it) at
the velocity of 2 ½ miles (per hour) is about 1/900th part of its weight,
that is to say, a canal boat, with its load weighing 33 tons, or 73,920
lbs., is moved at the rate mentioned, by a force equivalent to 80lbs.,
being 1/926th part of the load. This is found by Mr Bevan to be the result
upon the Grand Junction Canal, and a force of traction of 80lbs., is here
found to be equivalent to a horse power.” Isn’t that interesting, or am I
just an equine anorak? No answer required, thank you.
Edward
Paget-Tomlinson’s final book Colours of the Cut
mentioned in this column back in June is at last complete, available and
for sale in time for your Christmas present list. It is being distributed
through all the usual bookshop channels so just ask for it in the normal
way, preferably quoting the ISBN number 1-84306-145-7. Alternatively you
can order it from the publisher
direct and they will send it to you post free, which seems almost generous
to a fault. I am very biased of course because I have been very intimately
involved with its production, but I think it is a lovely piece of work,
and the early indications are that the buying public are liking it too.
Sad that Edward is not here to bask in some glory. |
