The poor Rochdale Canal suffers yet another stoppage

ANOTHER stoppage over the week-end on the Rochdale makes it a total of ten stoppages this year.

The 'poor' Rochdale indeed as Victor named it when he told of eight stoppages up to the 12th of July, though for most of that time it had had little use owing to the coronavirus lockdown.

Lasted three years

This time it is yet another lock that has failed, this time the guillotine lock at Todmorden, but as it was August 2017 since it last failed it has not done so badly, lasting all of three years before it failed again.  It is not yet known what caused its failure but engineers were on site today (Monday) and have now achieved a temporary repair.

The Rochdale is particularly prone to failures, receiving little maintenance since Canal & River Trust took control, for in the year this lock last failed, 2017, the canal had been closed six times up to July—on the 27th January, 2nd March, 13th March, 14th April, 24th May and 20th July, none of them part of regular maintenance we reported.

Failed culvert

At the moment there is still the failed culvert that has closed the canal at Chadderton on the 27th April.  Though we were told it would take six weeks to repair, it is now in its 18th week and still not repaired, and it was only on Friday that dams were installed so the navigation could be completely drained.

The last culvert failure was at Hebden Bridge in February between locks 61 and 64,that was repaired before the coronavirus lockdown.