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Post by naughtyfox on Sept 18, 2018 19:06:39 GMT
No - I'm talking about new canals - would need very few locks - and these could be giant ones, electrically operated. How about nice straight canals from: Holyhead to Dover, Felixstowe to Swansea, Portsmouth to Grimsby, Bristol to Skegness? Basically though, canals started going into decline when railways came along, and that was well over 150 years ago. Where would they be built? It would be near impossible to widen existing canals to the size of those in Belgium or Holland because of subsequent development, so new canals would have to be built across sub-optimal terrain. And then what? A canal terminus at the goods-in door at every Tesco supermarket in the land? Subsequent development would just have to be bulldozed out of the way. Considering modern architecture is both ugly and sham, it'll be little loss. Big canals would be for the Greater Good. Yes, the terrain would have to be 'tamed', tunnels to be run through the hills and marshland to have causeways built upon - it can be done. The new electric-automated-driverless VERAs can do the Tesco-shuffle, but these new canals will shift a lot of stuff that would have otherwise gone by road or rail. It's a vision of mine for the well-being of the country as a whole. So anyway, without my new canals, what's gonna happen? Pretty much the same as today only with driverless, electric trucks? Doesn't sound very exciting. And who's to profit? Volvo? The Swedes? Are there any British companies making these new vehicles of the future? I'm amazed at the sheer inefficiency of getting kids to/from school here in Finland - 25 kilometres to take two 7 year olds home this afternoon = 9 litres of diesel up in the air = just crazy. Not very Environmentally Friendly. Just mentally.
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Post by Mr Stabby on Sept 18, 2018 19:12:15 GMT
Basically though, canals started going into decline when railways came along, and that was well over 150 years ago. Where would they be built? It would be near impossible to widen existing canals to the size of those in Belgium or Holland because of subsequent development, so new canals would have to be built across sub-optimal terrain. And then what? A canal terminus at the goods-in door at every Tesco supermarket in the land? Subsequent development would just have to be bulldozed out of the way. Considering modern architecture is both ugly and sham, it'll be little loss. Big canals would be for the Greater Good. Yes, the terrain would have to be 'tamed', tunnels to be run through the hills and marshland to have causeways built upon - it can be done. It could be done but it would be hopelessly inefficient, and the cost of that inefficiency would land in the lap of the end consumer. Perhaps someone could produce toilet rolls emblazoned with the slogan "delivered by canal for a greener future" although at £20 a pop I don't imagine too many people would be queuing up to buy them.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 19:29:28 GMT
Tunnelling is stupidly expensive. By the time someone figures out a way of building tunnels at a cost which competes with overland options there will be alternatives to water.
Things like vacuum tube rapid transport solutions or there will be a large scale correction in unsustainable population growth or major wars or something.
I personally believe the "hyperloop" type tube based transport system for freight delivery would be very feasible. Its been talked about for years. At some point technology will make it worth doing. I'm not so convinced about transporting humans like that. One of the great things about consumer products is that unlike humans they do not suffer from g force discomfort and require a much lower safety factor so you could fire capsules down tubes at very high speeds very efficiently without worrying about injury.
To my mind this would be massively more effective than fannying about building canals.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 20:39:31 GMT
One of the great things about consumer products is that unlike humans they do not suffer from g force discomfort and require a much lower safety factor so you could fire capsules down tubes at very high speeds very efficiently without worrying about injury. Injured trifles? Straight to the whoops aisle in Asda!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 21:09:22 GMT
I'd be surprised if Stabby hasn't come across DIRFT even if if is only because of the road works dealing with the upgrading of the rail terminal. A map here dirft.com/new-customers/railfreight-plan/ gives a bit more info about rail freight and if you search for UK intermodal rail freight timetables some more info would become available. I wonder how many narrowboats it would take to carry the same load as a fully laden freight train...
Edit. Apologies I think it is the Castle Donnington rail freight terminal works that are causing road traffic problems not Daventry.
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Post by Mr Stabby on Sept 18, 2018 21:33:31 GMT
I wonder how many narrowboats it would take to carry the same load as a fully laden freight train... According to www.rfg.org.uk/rail-freight/facts-figures/ "Each freight train takes about 60 HGVs off the road", and a 44 tonne articulated lorry can carry around a 28 tonne payload, which would be around the same as a narrowboat on a narrow canal could carry although some serious dredging would need to be done to allow this. Personally, I wouldn't fancy turning up at a lock to find there were 60 Eddie Stobart boats in the queue in front of me.
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Post by peterboat on Sept 18, 2018 23:57:08 GMT
I'd be surprised if Stabby hasn't come across DIRFT even if if is only because of the road works dealing with the upgrading of the rail terminal. A map here dirft.com/new-customers/railfreight-plan/ gives a bit more info about rail freight and if you search for UK intermodal rail freight timetables some more info would become available. I wonder how many narrowboats it would take to carry the same load as a fully laden freight train...
Edit. Apologies I think it is the Castle Donnington rail freight terminal works that are causing road traffic problems not Daventry.
We still have freight on our canals oil tanker twice a week making a lot of lorry journeys redundant! When it went off service for a while lorries did the job, but not for long, as the depot would have had to close as the lorries couldnt move it cheaply enough to compete with the tanker. John on the river hull has them pass him as well, you have to take narrowboats out of the equation to make it work and make a contour canal the length of the UK to do the job properly and move water around as well, so in times of drought water could be moved from Scotland to wherever it was needed. Their were plans for it but short sighted people didnt want it shame really as electric boats would have worked well with it
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Post by Jim on Sept 19, 2018 6:26:22 GMT
Having read through all that interesting stuff, is this what's called proper discussion? Oooh! Anyway, yes it's time to resurrect the Contour Canal just prooosed en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Contour_Canal. It would come round somewhere below me on the western flank of the pennines.
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Post by naughtyfox on Sept 19, 2018 6:53:34 GMT
There could be two, either side of the Pennines. Probably the truth will be that transport in Britain by the year 2109 will look like this:
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2018 6:58:46 GMT
One of the great things about consumer products is that unlike humans they do not suffer from g force discomfort and require a much lower safety factor so you could fire capsules down tubes at very high speeds very efficiently without worrying about injury. Injured trifles? Straight to the whoops aisle in Asda! Delicate food items to be sent by road. I was thinking if consumer products and perhaps beer. You could have a beer barrel sized tube delivery system linking pubs by running alongside existing roads then when pubs need more beer you could fire the barrels down the tubes at high speed in a partial vacuum. This could be extended to beer can sized tube delivery systems which could be used to link beer shops together. This would take a lot of traffic off roads if all beer products were sent by high speed tube systems to where the are needed.
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Post by naughtyfox on Sept 19, 2018 7:08:55 GMT
Injured trifles? Straight to the whoops aisle in Asda! You could have a beer barrel sized tube delivery system linking pubs by running alongside existing roads then when pubs need more beer you could fire the barrels down the tubes at high speed in a partial vacuum. You'd disturb the sediment at the bottom of the barrel. Not recommended. Go and stand in the corner with Jim for a while. Oil and its distillation products, and New Zealand lamb could be carried by canal - no hurry for those.
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Post by naughtyfox on Sept 19, 2018 7:41:42 GMT
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Post by kris on Sept 19, 2018 8:45:29 GMT
Injured trifles? Straight to the whoops aisle in Asda! Delicate food items to be sent by road. I was thinking if consumer products and perhaps beer. You could have a beer barrel sized tube delivery system linking pubs by running alongside existing roads then when pubs need more beer you could fire the barrels down the tubes at high speed in a partial vacuum. This could be extended to beer can sized tube delivery systems which could be used to link beer shops together. This would take a lot of traffic off roads if all beer products were sent by high speed tube systems to where the are needed. there is a brewery on the continent in a small town, that has a pipe system from the brewery to the pubs in the town for delivery. I can't remember which country now. Nederlands/ Germany/ Denmark one of them anyway. It Bruges in Belgium so I was close. www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/08/bruges-pipe-dream-a-reality-beer-pipeline
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Post by JohnV on Sept 19, 2018 8:48:13 GMT
I am surprised by the path this thread took after my comment about moving freight by water ........ I didn't think there would be a fixed mind set on thunderboat about the southern narrow canals. I thought that would be left behind on CWDF.
I was meaning the Northern canals and rivers which ARE built for commercial sizes of traffic (although not maintained sufficiently by CRT to enable 1,000 tonners to load to their full draft)
It would take very little effort (on the national scale of things) to carry large quantities of bulk goods over very large areas of the Northeast.
at the moment there is only one large tanker running between Immingham and Rotherham with vegetable oil doing two or three trips a week with a two man crew. Just think how much traffic has been taken off the road by this one vessel, how much fuel has been saved, and how much congestion and pollution prevented.
Nobody believes the narrow canal system could ever be made into a workable transport system but the Northeast canals with their vast locks and wide deep canals could. Even the boats are there ...... all that is needed is the will.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2018 8:59:04 GMT
William Pitt (the younger) after becoming Prime Minister in 1783 had the foresight to control the growing national debt, whilst at the same time expanding the Royal Navy by implementing a war ship building programme, which included HMS Victory. I think even you know sufficient history to understand where this foresight took us in 1805. I think ever since, politics has been entirely reactionary Rog Pitt the younger was born in 1759. HMS Victory was laid down in the same year.
Apologies. My memory gets worse. Ignore the HMS Victory part, and stick with his foresight in strengthening the Royal Navy. Rog
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