Will there ever be a case for opening up the British Inland waterways for the large scale...?

Question

... transportation of non essential or time sensitive freight.

Answer 1

*looks up* Don't worry about him, he'll be able to play on the motorway.

Answer 2

Tesco`s use the Manchester Ship Canal for transporting their wine, I suppose the time taken helps it age,but seriously they reckon they have taken thousands of lorries off the roads.

Alas, the Just in Time stock system would make it impractical for everything the modern era demands to be transported in such a manner.

As already suggested,railfreight would certainly solve a lot of road congestion.

Answer 3

Also, we could pour concrete down the drains and jet-ski along the motorways.

Answer 4

no, not at all.

the system is now too geared to tourism

You just have to look at the chaos caused by the occasssional commercial boat.

Commercial boats have right of passage over tourist boats adn its suprising how many tourist boats don't know this - you should see the arguements when the commericals jump lock queues.

But, assuming the rules could be changed, it still would not work.

The canals are already stuffed with tourism to the extent they are not pleasent during main holiday periods.

Try queung at Ellesmere tunnel in August, I;'ve seen 30 boats waiting to go through one at a time, try the oxford/GU junction on a bank holiday.

Things like Tesco/Wine and Sainsburys/rubbish are just publicity gimmicks. They are not serious commercial uses backed up by business cases and should not be accepted as real examples.

And the other killer is the trans shipment warehouses, who is going to either;

(a) build a whole infrastructure of NEW warehouses, or

(b) tell all the "loft-living" appartment owners they have to leave thier overpriced waterfront properties.........

me: live canalside and BW wanted to buy 500,000 tonnes of clay from our fields. I said "yes, but you have to take it away using canal boats". They walked away from the deal.

So, if BW are not interested and KNOW its not practical or cost effective, why would anyone else try it ?

Answer 5

I would think the way fuel prices are rocketing, there may well be a case for utilising existing waterways (and opening redundant ones too) I don't know exactly of course, but I would imagine a seventy foot 'narrow boat' could carry well in excess of the 40tons an articulated lorry is (?) limited to. Especially 'bulk' items.

Sorry *firebobby* I have to disagree, surely it would still be a just in time delivery whether it takes 4 hours or 4 days, as it is now. eg. (hypothetically) Glasgow - Swansea following day.

Swansea - Swansea 1 hr.

Answer 6

You mean, use them for what they were designed for?

Answer 7

Hopefully not,,the 2,000 miles of navigable inland waterways are now geared up for pleasure and leasure,adding hundreds of company boats will (as in the past) take preference over all non commercial craft,this will slowly block the system and make boating for the masses nothing more than a hazard and unmanageable,

Answer 8

If my understanding is correct, the canals went into decline because they couldn't compete with the railways, and the major advantage of the railways was speed. The trouble in this respect generally is not the urgency of the goods but the fact that goods in transit are not profitable. If goods take an extra week to arrive then it's an extra week before the supplier gets paid and there's an extra week's production lying around earning nothing. So, speed counts whether the payload is newspapers and fish or sand and cement.

Of course, in those days no one was particularly bothered about the cost of coal or the effect of burning fossil fuels (other than the fact that rail-side properties were less desirable because your washing would get filthy and your garden shed would go up in flames from time to time). However, I dare say that a week at four knots on the canals will use more fuel than four hours on the motorway at 60mph; not to mention the truck driver's pay and the capital tied up in his truck for half a day compared with the cost of keeping a barge and the bargeman and his family afloat all week.

In other words, despite the obvious leisurely tranquility, canal transport may not be efficient at all.

On top of that, there's the fact that the canal system was abandoned to decline and would now cost an absolute fortune to re-commission, whereas the faster means of transportation require only ongoing maintenance, which altogether means that any government or corporation would consider re-investment in the canals as economic suicide.

When we've finally run out of fossil fuel and are back to breeding horses for transportation, then it will be a different matter. The big advantage of the canals then is that you use the gravitational effect on water to lift the load uphill and so, you can haul a big load with only one horse. The canals are dead clever in that respect.

Answer 9

lol ianhad - couldn't have put it better myself!

I don't think it will EVER happen - in this day and age EVERYTHING is essential and time sensitive - everyone wants everything yesterday!

What I think SHOULD happen is more freight should be transported by rail - get some of these blinking lorries off the motorways!