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Post by Mr Stabby on Mar 29, 2019 16:57:42 GMT
To be fair, everybody can't know everything. 6 years ago I had never heard of Kinver, Tuel Lane, or Foxton Locks, nor Brinklow Tunnel. I've still never heard of Brinklow Tunnel.
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Post by naughtyfox on Mar 29, 2019 17:07:41 GMT
Not at all stupid - we were there anyway, before the rains were forecast. Looking back, I see all we did was quite sensible. I was accompanied by PeterX of Canalworld who turned out to be a good, cheery bloke. At the 'worst' point of the floods we were tied to a telegraph pole just below Lock 12 with the Calder river, having burst through a stone wall with great big blocks of stone, flowing right past us. We were in its lee so protected. I set the alarm for 3am and got up and outside to see if our centre rope had gone up or down, it was tied to the pole - nothing else there, all under water, with, in the evening, a coastguard helicopter hovering above us picking people out of the houses on the other side of the river, which had completely gone round those houses. The main road had gone - submerged entirely. We had heating and lighting and electricity - which was more than the people in hundreds of dwellings along the length of the Calder that evening and the next few days. A bit like Noah's Ark. Just with two cunts inside.
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Post by naughtyfox on Mar 29, 2019 17:08:06 GMT
To be fair, everybody can't know everything. 6 years ago I had never heard of Kinver, Tuel Lane, or Foxton Locks, nor Brinklow Tunnel. I've still never heard of Brinklow Tunnel. It's behind you!!
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Post by Mr Stabby on Mar 29, 2019 17:10:17 GMT
I've still never heard of Brinklow Tunnel. It's behind you!! Is it somewhere near Newbold Tunnel?
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Post by naughtyfox on Mar 29, 2019 17:11:20 GMT
Of course there's no Brinklow Tunnel. I was just trying to confuse Socks.
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Post by Mr Stabby on Mar 29, 2019 17:29:55 GMT
Not everybody knows this, but there are two Newbold Tunnels, here's the other one.
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Post by naughtyfox on Mar 29, 2019 17:34:31 GMT
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Post by naughtyfox on Mar 29, 2019 17:46:43 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 18:52:07 GMT
Not everybody knows this, but there are two Newbold Tunnels, here's the other one.
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Post by wellyftw on Apr 2, 2019 13:57:14 GMT
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Post by kris on Apr 2, 2019 14:00:45 GMT
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Post by wellyftw on Apr 2, 2019 14:08:39 GMT
Yeah.. exactly. I shall be crossing everything that can be crossed but something tells me I won't be going anywhere this weekend. Y'never know though.. got to try and remain optimistic.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 2, 2019 14:51:31 GMT
In case anyone has missed this on the ''Wellbeing Charity - my arse" thread, here is a truthful and factual account of the real reasons for the Wykewell End Lift Bridge closure, . . as opposed to the nonsense propagated by the C&RT :
Thanks to the sloppy, second-rate job that C&RT have made of fencing off the failed lift bridge, on the S & K at Wykewell End, Thorne from public access, it has been possible to gain access and for the failed components of the bridge to be independently inspected, photographed, and measured. The findings of that inspection are as follows:
* The Notices and explanations issued and given by the C&RT saying that "Part of the main bridge structure has failed" are entirely false and misleading. One single component - a screw-on end fitting on the lower end of one of the counterweight hanger bars - has failed due to wear, lack of lubrication, and deterioration of the seal intended to prevent water ingress into the pivot bearing at the lower end of the hanger bar.
* The lift bridge has suffered a highly dangerous and potentially catastrophic failure of the lower eye of one of the two hanger bars connecting the overhead counter weight beams to the lifting end of the bridge deck. If one of the end connections on the other hanger bar had failed at the same time then both the counter weight beams would have swung uncontrollably upwards whilst at the same time the counter weight, estimated to be of a mass of between five and ten tons, on the other end of them would have swung uncontrollably downwards in an arc, ending only a matter of a few feet above the roadway and the bridge deck.
* A 5 ton SWL Chain Block onto 6.5 ton SWL bow-shackles at the ends of webbing slings/strops passing round the hanger bar pivot pins on the side of the bridge deck, and over the ends of the counter-weight beams is at present serving as a temporary replacement for the hanger bar with the broken end fitting.
* The failure occurred when an excessively worn and weakened lower eye/end fitting on the counter weight hanger bar on the eastern side of the lifting section of bridge deck cracked and broke within its lower arc segment, opened out under load to the approximate profile of the two arms of a pair of pincers, and pulled away over the equally severely worn pivot pin that it fits and works over.
* The extent of the wear on both the failed eye/end fitting of the hanger bar and the pivot pin it worked with are such that the pin is reduced to something in the region of only around three-quarters of it's original diameter, and the wear to the inner diameter of the eye it was working in was sufficient to have created, together, a total running/working clearance approximately equal to the remaining diameter of the excessively worn pin.
* The working surfaces of both the failed eye/end fitting and the lower pivot pin were examined and found to have been operating without any form of lubrication other than the rainwater which had found it's way into the bearing surfaces past the severely degraded seals.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 2, 2019 15:03:44 GMT
There's also this :
There are in fact remote grease nipples for each of the pin and eye bearings at both ends of each of the two hanger bars.
The nipples are mounted on a small, square plate attached to the hanger bars, just above the top of the safety rails on the bridge deck, and grease from them is fed to all four pivot bearings via a 3/16" copper pipe.
When inspected, all four nipples were devoid of any residual traces of grease and were beginning to show signs of external corrosion. It is impossible to determine just when any routine lubrication was last carried out from the appearance alone of the nipples, but the fact that the bearing surfaces of the failed hanger bar attachment had been operating completely 'dry', and were showing signs of corrosion and 'fretting', it is safe to say that it has been very much too long an interval !
It is not unreasonable to assume that the sort of routine inspection to which any type or form of lifting apparatus must be subjected to by law, has been attended to with the same lack of diligence that has been applied to routine maintenance and lubrication. It is also not unreasonable to assume that all the other lifting bridges in the area, which, despite being overall rather bigger, are of similar or even identical design, have been neglected to the same degree, and that any or all of them could be at the point of an imminent and similar failure.
C&RT, to say nothing of the road and canal users who could have been killed or injured, were extremely fortunate on the 19th of March that only one of the hanger bar attachments failed, . . had both sides failed simultaneously the counterweight would have swung uncontrollably and rapidly down to it's 'bridge raised' position only just above bridge deck/road level, possibly initiating either a full or partial collapse of the uprights carrying the counterweight and the counterweight beams at the same time.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 2, 2019 15:06:19 GMT
. . . and this :
I contacted both the HSE and Doncaster Council's Highways Dept. yesterday John, and everything I've posted on here today has already been forwarded to them.
The complete cessation of routine maintenance on lock equipment is bad enough in itself, but in expanding the scope of their neglect to the extent of seriously endangering the general public C&RT have, hopefully, now put themselves utterly beyond the pale.
My only regret in all this is that some of the flak is inevitably going to land on Sean McGinley, C&RT's newly appointed Regional Director for the area. He is a thoroughly able, conscientious, and decent man who has inherited much of the responsibility for the god-awful mess that has been created over the last few years by Jon Horsfall, the former so-called Waterway Manager based at Leeds.
By way of a modicum of light and rather amusing relief, it's worth noting that in his new role as Head of Customer Service Support, Mr Horseshit is still involved to some extent with the goings-on at Wykewell End Lift Bridge in that this week he is sending one of his minions to serve a Section 8 Notice on a boat which has been left moored near the bridge for too long, and which C&RT are saying is causing an obstruction to navigation !
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