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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 7:21:36 GMT
900mm is interesting. Is this some sort of new standardised standard depth standard? I think that's probably just a figure that some managerial clown pulled out of thin air in the vain hope that there might be something like about 3 feet of water there with the pound on weir. From memory I think the 'official' dredged depth (from the BW table of dimensions for what they called the Main Operational Channel) for the 'Bottom Road' (Birmingham & Fazeley) is given as 1.1 metres (3' 7''), . . . still nowhere near enough when the necessary clearance depth under a boat of the maximum designed/intended draught for that canal is reckoned in. It does seem very shallow. As far as I know one of the design specifications for a canal is that there is some surplus depth so that it remains useable for two way traffic even if the level is down a bit. Of course that would be in trading times so arguably less important these days but 900mm in the middle is really not a lot of water.
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Post by Telemachus on Apr 18, 2018 7:36:27 GMT
As this forum's resident, self-appointed, leading authority on the canals in and around Birmingham appears reluctant to publicize anymore of the embarrassing details about his C&RT heroes failings on here, I think I should draw the TB member's attention to this photograph of the recently 'repaired' fucked up pound at Minworth. It was taken, together with three or more others, by his mate, Jeff, and posted on CWDF yesterday. I've picked out this one photo in particular, from those he's put on Analworld, as it seems to me to cover just about everything that needs illustrating about C&RT's 'fitness for purpose' in general and competence as a navigation authority in particular. The discrepancy in the condition and serviceability between the towpath and the canal itself is plain for all to see, . . no doubt whatsoever as to which has top priority there ! Plainest of all to see is the extent to which the depth has been reduced in the 'repair' area, . . and this would have been apparent as soon as they started running water back into the pound after the stoppage. Other than that, how do C&RT and their contractors intend to remedy this balls-up ? They've drained the pound again, but, it would seem, without making any preparations or getting any plant and equipment on site. One has to question the decision to drain the pound yet again. What has been achieved in doing this, . . nothing, except to waste more time, money and water, and to keep a bit more of the canal system closed for a bit longer. Faced with the task of sorting out this mess the correct course of action would be to get a couple of hoppers, a tug, and a dredger on site ASAP, clean out as necessary, and dump the responsibility for the immediate disposal of however many hopper loads need taking out, and the overall cost of mobilizing and operating the waterborne plant, straight on to the contractors who took on the originally specified works. D82F8FCF-7098-45CF-8589-AFB70DD1DBDE.jpeg.19c557ef1866c4e44c36ae76a802846c.jpeg NB: I'm having my customary difficulties with posting photo's, . . again. Could someone please turn that lot in the line above into the photo it's supposed to be ? What a thick twat you are, you can’t even manage to post a copy of a photo. Your level of incompetence matches that of the person (s) who put all those stones in the cut and then thought it was a good idea to leave them. It makes your curmudgeonly rant all the more amusing! yea I suppose I could have put the pics on here too, but did it kill you to have to look at them on CWDF? Well I suppose pointing a browser at a different webpage might be taxing for you. Anyway, you now have more ammo to write to CRT with - if only you could remember where you’d put your quill! What a silly sausage you are! oh and by the way, Jeff is my husband not my “mate”. We don’t do “mating” as it’s a physical impossibility. But then, maybe you didn’t go to a proper school where they teach biology?
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Post by kris on Apr 18, 2018 8:01:09 GMT
As this forum's resident, self-appointed, leading authority on the canals in and around Birmingham appears reluctant to publicize anymore of the embarrassing details about his C&RT heroes failings on here, I think I should draw the TB member's attention to this photograph of the recently 'repaired' fucked up pound at Minworth. It was taken, together with three or more others, by his mate, Jeff, and posted on CWDF yesterday. I've picked out this one photo in particular, from those he's put on Analworld, as it seems to me to cover just about everything that needs illustrating about C&RT's 'fitness for purpose' in general and competence as a navigation authority in particular. The discrepancy in the condition and serviceability between the towpath and the canal itself is plain for all to see, . . no doubt whatsoever as to which has top priority there ! Plainest of all to see is the extent to which the depth has been reduced in the 'repair' area, . . and this would have been apparent as soon as they started running water back into the pound after the stoppage. Other than that, how do C&RT and their contractors intend to remedy this balls-up ? They've drained the pound again, but, it would seem, without making any preparations or getting any plant and equipment on site. One has to question the decision to drain the pound yet again. What has been achieved in doing this, . . nothing, except to waste more time, money and water, and to keep a bit more of the canal system closed for a bit longer. Faced with the task of sorting out this mess the correct course of action would be to get a couple of hoppers, a tug, and a dredger on site ASAP, clean out as necessary, and dump the responsibility for the immediate disposal of however many hopper loads need taking out, and the overall cost of mobilizing and operating the waterborne plant, straight on to the contractors who took on the originally specified works. D82F8FCF-7098-45CF-8589-AFB70DD1DBDE.jpeg.19c557ef1866c4e44c36ae76a802846c.jpeg NB: I'm having my customary difficulties with posting photo's, . . again. Could someone please turn that lot in the line above into the photo it's supposed to be ? What a thick twat you are, you can’t even manage to post a copy of a photo. Your level of incompetence matches that of the person (s) who put all those stones in the cut and then thought it was a good idea to leave them. It makes your curmudgeonly rant all the more amusing! yea I suppose I could have put the pics on here too, but did it kill you to have to look at them on CWDF? Well I suppose pointing a browser at a different webpage might be taxing for you. Anyway, you now have more ammo to write to CRT with - if only you could remember where you’d put your quill! What a silly sausage you are! oh and by the way, Jeff is my husband not my “mate”. We don’t do “mating” as it’s a physical impossibility. But then, maybe you didn’t go to a proper school where they teach biology? twat
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 18, 2018 8:16:06 GMT
Someone (perhaps Nick) mentioned that the particular pound is historically known to be shallow. That really depends on how far back you go before anything becomes historic. That particular pound shares a 'history' of neglect with most of the rest of our narrow canals, in the sense of not be routinely dredged back to original 'as built' depth since well before nationalization in 1949. After buying out as many of the original canal companies as they could lay their hands on, the railways began the process of intentional neglect, for obvious reasons. Post nationalization the British Transport Commission, and later, British Waterways made token efforts to turn things round for a few years before trying to close down and abandon large parts of the canal system in the mid 1960's. The only thing that saved almost all of the narrow canals from oblivion was the late 1960's pleasure boating boom, which saw the BW Board doing a rapid about turn in support of what they regarded as a Heaven sent opportunity to superficially tart-up, and populate, their largely neglected and silted-up canals with shallow draught pleasure craft. At about that time, BW published a design and specification for what they described as the 'ideal canal cruiser' - 40'-50' in length, 6' 10'' beam, and a maximum draught of 2' 0''. Could it be that the C&RT contractors instrumental in the Minworth fiasco were instructed to work to this little known BW pleasure craft spec. ?
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Post by Telemachus on Apr 18, 2018 8:29:20 GMT
Answering Rog’s point minus the historical histrionic hysterics, the B&F in general is not particularly shallow (deeper than say parts of the W&B, Stratford etc) but the Minworth flight has been problematic for a long while. Above top lock is fine, below top lock are Services (now defunct) which we couldn’t get into the side for, above middle lock is just about OK, below middle lock has always been shallow both in the “channel” (I use the term loosely!) and at the lock landing, which we never use because we can’t get within several feet of the side. Now there is an exceptionally shallow bit just a few yards further on. Above the bottom lock is fine and below the bottom lock is reasonable. So looking at all that, they have chosen the worst stretch of that cut and made it shallower!
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 18, 2018 8:31:20 GMT
As this forum's resident, self-appointed, leading authority on the canals in and around Birmingham appears reluctant to publicize anymore of the embarrassing details about his C&RT heroes failings on here, I think I should draw the TB member's attention to this photograph of the recently 'repaired' fucked up pound at Minworth. It was taken, together with three or more others, by his mate, Jeff, and posted on CWDF yesterday. I've picked out this one photo in particular, from those he's put on Analworld, as it seems to me to cover just about everything that needs illustrating about C&RT's 'fitness for purpose' in general and competence as a navigation authority in particular. The discrepancy in the condition and serviceability between the towpath and the canal itself is plain for all to see, . . no doubt whatsoever as to which has top priority there ! Plainest of all to see is the extent to which the depth has been reduced in the 'repair' area, . . and this would have been apparent as soon as they started running water back into the pound after the stoppage. Other than that, how do C&RT and their contractors intend to remedy this balls-up ? They've drained the pound again, but, it would seem, without making any preparations or getting any plant and equipment on site. One has to question the decision to drain the pound yet again. What has been achieved in doing this, . . nothing, except to waste more time, money and water, and to keep a bit more of the canal system closed for a bit longer. Faced with the task of sorting out this mess the correct course of action would be to get a couple of hoppers, a tug, and a dredger on site ASAP, clean out as necessary, and dump the responsibility for the immediate disposal of however many hopper loads need taking out, and the overall cost of mobilizing and operating the waterborne plant, straight on to the contractors who took on the originally specified works. D82F8FCF-7098-45CF-8589-AFB70DD1DBDE.jpeg.19c557ef1866c4e44c36ae76a802846c.jpeg NB: I'm having my customary difficulties with posting photo's, . . again. Could someone please turn that lot in the line above into the photo it's supposed to be ? . . . . . . . . Jeff is my husband not my “mate”. We don’t do “mating” as it’s a physical impossibility. But then, maybe you didn’t go to a proper school where they teach biology? It might be a physical impossibility for you, but at least there's a great wet fanny available for Jeff if he want's one .
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Post by Telemachus on Apr 18, 2018 8:35:21 GMT
. . . . . . . . Jeff is my husband not my “mate”. We don’t do “mating” as it’s a physical impossibility. But then, maybe you didn’t go to a proper school where they teach biology? It might be a physical impossibility for you, but at least there's a great wet fanny available for Jeff if he want's one . Well you made me laugh out loud, thanks for that!
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Post by TonyDunkley on Apr 18, 2018 8:45:21 GMT
It might be a physical impossibility for you, but at least there's a great wet fanny available for Jeff if he want's one . Well you made me laugh out loud, thanks for that! You're welcome !
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Post by JohnV on Apr 18, 2018 9:43:14 GMT
haven't been down the Bham and Fazely for about 30 years and I remember it being dire then..... got stuck in Curdworth bottom and did some damage to the bottom of the butty winching it through (to be honest the bottom was on borrowed time anyway) but at least there was a rack of kebs at the lockside to help clear the muck
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 11:12:56 GMT
I really like kebs. I currently have 3. My favourite is the flat tine hand forged GJCCo keb I pulled out with the magnet at Rickmansworth about 12 years ago (time flies!) Its a lovely item. - this >> Other two also found with magnet - one is a heavy duty ordinary BW type keb the other is just a spear and Jackson dung rake. I've had others but given them away or left them on boats i've sold. A keb is a really handy tool.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 11:34:52 GMT
By 'historic' I did mean in leisure boating terms. The canal and that pound must have been of substantial depth in working days. I think there would have been more than angry words if work stopped Rog
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 11:38:12 GMT
"Would of been"
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2018 6:43:46 GMT
Update - copied from CWDF
"""""Apologies for delay in responding back. The programme manager for these works has advised back:
Just to confirm that since this was raised, we have carried out a 4 day stoppage to address the problem at Minworth. This was not a case of our contractors leaving their temporary works in the canal, in fact, it was a decision made by myself and project team to disperse the temporary ramp and access road within the bed of the canal to save significant money. Unfortunately this was the wrong decision, for which I cannot apologise enough. The recent 4 day stoppage has allowed us to remove all the stone and the channel is now navigable again.
Kind Regards
Sarah
Enquiries
West Midlands Waterway
Canal & River Trust | Fradley Junction | Alrewas | Burton-on-Trent | DE13 7DN
Tel: 0303 0404040
@crtcontactus"""""
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Post by naughtyfox on May 10, 2018 7:07:55 GMT
"for which I cannot apologise enough" - then you'll be resigning so that someone more competent can do your job?
Thought not.
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Post by thebfg on May 10, 2018 20:54:51 GMT
to give some credit they fucked up and owned up about it.
and promptly put things right.
unlike crt.
but I have total respect for the woman who wrote that.
fair play.
not sure how much it would of saved, two labourers a day or two wheeling it all out into a skip.
maybe they should be getting community service involved in some things.
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