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 An
Uplifting Experience
by
Cap'n Jack Perdue
The Peterborough
Hydraulic Lift Lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway near Peterborough,
ON, is considered by many to be one of the world's most remarkable
structures. Being able to raise huge craft as long as 139 feet,
and 30 feet wide, to a height of 65 feet, and using practically
nothing but simple hydraulic power is certainly an amazing accomplishment.
Since 1920, when the Trent-Severn Waterway was opened
for business, this lift lock has operated continuously during navigation
seasons, with few hang-ups or delays in its more than 80 years of
continuous service. Many have wondered where such a reliable, simple
and inexpensive engineering idea came from.
I found out the answer when I met an English couple,
Audrey and Steve Mottram, from Cheshire, while on a vacation in
the Dominican Republic. In conversation I happened to bring up our
famous lift lock. They mentioned something similar was being opened
near their home in Cheshire, and soon after we arrived home, a parcel
arrived for us. It was from the Mottrams and in it were some very
informative newspaper clippings.
It appears that, back in 1875, an engineer named
Edwin Clark designed and built a remarkable structure on the Trent
and Mersey Canal. It was named the Anderton Boat Lift and was designed
to lift and lower large barges from the River Weaver, 50 feet up
to the Trent and Mersey Canal. And it operated on hydraulics. (Top)
This Victorian age mechanical marvel was the first
of its kind in the world. Narrow barges could move into the machine's
upper level by way of an aque-duct. Once inside the water-filled
tank, and the guillotine gate closed, the tank, water and boat would
be hydraulically lowered to the Weaver River, 50 feet below. Then
the gate would open and the barge would move into the river. When
it returned from the mines of Northern Cheshire with its holds filled
with rock salt, the process was reversed and the loaded barge was
lifted back up to the Trent and Mersey Canal.
Now for the intercontinental connection. When, in
the early 1900s, Canada's engineers went looking for a way to lift
their canal 65 feet above the city of Peterbo-rough, they turned
to the Trent and Mersey Canal in Cheshire, England for inspiration.
Their lift would be higher than the Anderton Boat
Lift, but not more than another 15 feet. The canals were similar
and efficient. And, most importantly, economical.
The Canadians returned home to design and build
an even greater boat lift, one that could raise and lower larger
craft and do both at the same time in two huge reciprocating basins.
This allowed the hydraulic force, generated by the descending water-filled
basin, to provide the thrust to raise the other basin as they changed
places.
The Peterborough Hy-draulic Lift Lock was built
mostly of concrete rather than the spidery mass of pipes and steel
supports that were the feature of the Anderton lift, which ground
to a halt in 1983.
But times change. During the past 20 years recreational
boating on England's vast network of canals has increased enormously,
resulting in the rebuilding of more than 1,000 miles of these narrow
waterways and the thousand locks that made them navigable. They
were built during the industrial revolution to move coal, steel
and other commodities and now provide thousands with the fun of
a narrow boat vacation each summer. (Top)
This year, following 20 years of inaction, the historic
Anderton Boat Lift is once again in business. It took two years
of reconstruction and restoration at a cost of seven million pound
sterling, and then on March 26th, fully restored and looking once
more like a gigantic shiny steel spider, it lifted its first narrow
boat in two decades from the Weaver River to the Trent and Mersey
Canal, 50 feet above.
British Waterways, which headed up the restoration,
have high hopes for the Anderton lift as a tourist attraction, perhaps
even matching the yearly success of our own Peterborough Hydraulic
Lift Lock. They may well exceed that expectation.
The Anderton Boat Lift is part of a network of 1,000
miles of navigable waterways while the Peterbor-ough Lift Lock is
on the 240-mile long canal that joins Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay.
In addition, tourist boat traffic has dropped on this Canadian waterway,
partly because of heavy tolls that must be paid by even a rowboat
attempting to navigate every one of its 45 locks.
In most countries, including the United States
and Britain, there is no charge for a recreational boat to use a
recreational waterway. In fact, as far as I know, Canada is the
only country in the world to charge for these services.
At the opening of the free Anderton Boat Lift, Roger
Hanbury, chief executive of the Waterway Trust, said, "This day
will go down in history as the day that one of England's greatest
waterway wonders came back to life."
What goes around comes around.
(Top)
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