Video: Battlestone on the Calder & Aire Canal

[chrisg46]

Especially for Christmas, a real oddity in the UK - the Battlestone, which plies a route from Besthorpe Quarry on the River Trent to Whitwood wharf, near Castleford - 15 hours under way usually over 2 days on the Trent and the Calder and Aire Navigation.

http://youtu.be/5tYdBBMNwYU

Please note that Shipspotters Sunday Special has now taken over this production from our sister site, Felixstowe News

[Bob Cheshire]

That's good to see. I regularly drive from Buxton to the Lincolnshire Wolds and go over the M1 between Chesterfield and Bolsover, full of trucks, under the A1 at Tuxford, full of trucks, over the Trent at Dunham........empty. When I look at the AIS stuff for Europe somethings gone very wrong. After 20 years in road haulage it's easy to know what it is but this is no place for a political rant.
Merry Xmas
Bob

[chrisg46]

Filmed a few years ago, Bob - I think 2008 or 2009 - I got Lafarge to give me a short ride to film for an inland waterways programme I was doing at the time. But I think Battlestone and some of her chartered-in sisters are still working, although waterbourne tonnages have dropped due to poor water levels on the Trent.

I just had a look at the European area of inland waters on Marine Traffic, and didn't get too many vessels outside of the northern sector - but I suspect many inland waterways vessels don't appear on seagoing systems. I'll have to get a trip over there this spring.

When I last sailed through the French canals, back in 2001, there was quite a lot of traffic between the coast and Paris, some further up the Seine, but once above St Mamme, onto the Canaux  du Loing and the canaux de Briare, followed by the Canal Lateral a la Loire, there was hardly any.

On one memorable occassion, two 300 tonne capacity peniche came through, and the lock-keepers were out in force, warning us to stay where we were until they passed . . talk about some excitement!

But I think I proves the point that even France's original peniche barges, 38.5 metres (126 ft) in length, 5.05 metres (16.6 ft) in breadth and a draught of 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in), with maximum height of 3.6 metres (12 ft), cannot make a living, up against the 40-tonne truck.

[Robert J Smith]

I saw BATTLESTONE transiting Goole Docks from the canal about 18 months ago, I wondered what she was doing.

ShipSpotting.com

[chrisg46]

In case you seafarers don't recognise peniches, here's a  photo by Remi Jouan



which show a peniche passing through the canal Saint-Denis . . which I like a lot - acts like a by-pass for larger cargo vessels (up to 1,000 tonnes), avoiding the big meander of the Seine, and giving waterbourne traffic access to the city itself.

[Bob Cheshire]

There was something on TV (Russia Today I think!) about canal traffic into Paris from vegetable growers and wine producers that looked a bit optimistic. Fenland for instance?
Bob

[chrisg46]

Yes, the french canal authority VNF is like BW (or the Canal & River Trust, as we should now call them) and usually wants to paint a rosier picture than real life . .

Last time I was in Paris, there were ongoing publicity efforts aimed at getting wine on the waterway from the Loire area, but I'm not sure those came to much. I'm sure some is transported by water in barrels, but would image that a lot more comes in bulk road tankers!

The problem is that you have to have things exactly right for water transport to work well - both the departure point and the final destination have to be close enough to the canal to minimise expensive transhipment, warehousing, etc. Eevn then you have to have the will to use them; the olympic area of London has really easy water access, and there was a lot of chat about a waterways revival, but . . trucks were more convenient, and shipping in bigger loads didn't happen.

In France waterways had a better chance - most canals go through, or close by, many towns. In Britain, most canals are contour canals, following the most level route between the two major points of interest when the were constructed - ie coal mines to Birmingham or Manchester, missing out places which could have generated traffic on route.

The Canal & River Trust is due to come out with a Freight Policy document this coming summer, but I don't hold out much hope for it.