Thread: Guessing Game Mk III : What Engineering Marvel is this.?

A narrow boat sure beats a short bus.

Hi,
Such a pity having to cram into a narrow winged tube for hours to get there. They have way more appeal than the van-on-a-barge offered on the Murray et. al.
Cheers

Get out of the wind.

It is a marvel from the point of view of the displacement of water, the load in the boats and the strength of the bridge.
I believe the trough segments are something like cast iron and are sealed together with lead etc.
The point is you could have a long boat carrying ....say a thousand tons go over the bridge.
No extra strain would be placed on the structure, as the long boat would have to displace the same amount of water to float.
The capacity limit on that bridge is the physical size of the load boat that will fit in the trough.
The real marvel is its still around.

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

The real marvel is its still around.

Not wrong, though the Brits do tend to treat their history a little better than some.

Originally Posted by Sitec

Been across it twice, years ago, and once at the tiller too! Most childhood holidays were spent on a Narrowboat.

So, would that have been a towpath on the side there? Were the narrowboats horse drawn like barges? More important, are horses scared of heights?

If no one wants to post some thing.........try this.
It is a real engineering Marvel of the late 1950s to early 1960s.
I purposely not shown the out side of it.
Its record has still not been broken...??????? I think????????
The surprising thing about it is what the main tanks held.
Please don't google picture search.
Untitled by john smith, on Flickr

Yep there is a towpath alongside all of the canal network and I think it's safe to assume that the path along the same side of the aqueduct would have been trodden by the tow horse- I wonder if they needed to be trained to it, or does a horse lack the imagination to be scared of heights? I mused over the displacement thing whilst we were there too, fascinating that the load never gets heavier no matter how many boats are going across.
I've never been good with heights, had to suck it up to take the boat across there. No real need to steer as the trough is only a few inches wider than the boat, didn't like bumping against the side of the trough but I figure if it hasn't broken by now, our chances were pretty good that it would hold together for one more crossing. We spent a week on the canal in a rented boat, had a fantastic time.