Work being done
IT IS ALWAYS good to be able to report on work being done on the system which actually benefits boaters.
In the case of the recent dredging activity it may only help specific boaters, but hey, if you pay for a mooring, you do expect to have some water beneath your boat when moored, writes Ralph Freeman.
Land & Water have dredged the moorings between Middle Lock and Shadehouse Lock at Fradley Junction. I know someone who thought of taking a mooring there a few years back but couldn't get close to the offside bank and therefore gave up on the idea.
Less and less
Two pounds down i.e. below Junction Lock, still on the Trent & Mersey Canal, the finger pontoons adjacent to the water point have been removed.
This has been on the cards for some time as the number of cruisers moored there has got less over the last few years, presumably as their mooring permits expired? Perhaps someone from CaRT will inform the Editor as to what plans there are for that space now? For once the 'Towpath Telegraph' has come up blank!
Eggington too
I know one moorer with a deep draughted boat that moors his boat by Bridge 26 at Eggington, who will be pleased by the dredging of the on-line moorings there. Now he might now be able to get alongside his mooring without having to resort to extensive 'shunting' to plough a way through the silt!
Stoppage at Alrewas Lock
I called in at Alrewas the other day whilst travelling north on the A38 to have a look what was happening at the lock. I was told by one of the workman that the bottom gates were being re-lined (or was that re-aligned?) and the brickwork was being re-pointed.
It was hard to tell visually. This is the only angle I was able to take a photo from, the lock being so heavily 'barricaded' for safety reasons! Still it's not a sight one normally sees and it's good to be able to view the brickwork in front of the head gate.
It's also a rare chance to see what a ground paddle looks like on a typical Trent & Mersey Lock. I suspect many may be surprised that they are so small in area considering how quickly they enable a lock to be filled?
SCADA at Wychnor Lock
Since I wrote the article regarding the SCADA system I have had time to go to Wychnor Lock and take some photos. This is what I think the box there does. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone at CaRT will write in to correct me.
By the bywash at Wychnor Lock there is a SCADA 'black box'. As far as I can see this unit appears to monitor the flow of water down the feed for the canal from Wychnor onwards. The above photo shows the calibrated flow section in the bywash.
The number of cycles of operation of the lock is also monitored (via a level sensor near the offside tail gate). The paddle just in front of the offside ground paddle has a notice on it describing it's function as water control.
Note it is manually operated. In other words to change the amount of feed water entering the bywash entails someone visiting the site with a key for the padlock and a windless. (It's what we used to call in industry Van-Net. That is it takes a 'man with a van' to make adjustments!).
Now the volume of the lock can be calculated and if it is multiplied by the number of lock cycles (measured) that will give the volume of water passing through the lock in a given period. The calibrated flow section in the feed channel can provide the amount of water bypassing the lock during the same period. Adding the two together will give the total amount of feed water entering the canal at Wychnor.
I would suggest that is why the box is there and that is the information the hydrologist needs to ensure an adequate water supply for the stretch of the Trent & Mersey down to Derwent Mouth.