No waterway access from or to the Midlands and the North

THE CLOSURE OF THE rail bridge at Keadby means there is no navigation between the Midland and Northern waterways whatsoever.

Vazons rail bridge broke down on Monday closing the navigation via the Trent and the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation, Keith Gudgin reports.

Making an attempt

Network Rail tell that it will be making an attempt to fix the bridge during the evening of Saturday, 7th June. The bridge will therefore be be inoperable until at least Sunday (8th June) morning.

With the Macclesfield Canal having two closures and a year's closure of the Bridgewater Canal, Keadby was the only access from and to the Midlands and the North for navigation, and now this is closed.

This particular bridge is a somewhat unusual sliding bridge that is frequently out of action even after its major overall in February of last year. It stopping working on the following 18th May!

We were caught

We ourselves were caught in one of its many stoppages, having to wait for an engineer to arrive. The problem of course is that the rail line has priority over the waterway traffic.

This time the stoppages are under the jurisdiction of the Bridgewater Canal Company for its lack of any repair to the breach, Canal & River Trust for its delay in the Macclesfield stoppages and now Network Rail for Vazons Bridge.