CRT "Notices" update; Shroppie featured on Radio 4

Have the people at the Canal and River Trust been reading my blog? Or is it coincidence that their "notice alerts" now indicate in the subject box whether they relate to a stoppage or a restriction?

This is better. As CRT itself admits, it has been having a few problems with the alert system - this was in one recent alert:

Update on 11/12/2013:
Due to technical issues with the new stoppage page, some teething problems have occurred. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

**************

There was a half-hour Open Country programme on Radio 4 this afternoon centred on the northern Shroppie. It included a fair bit on the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port.

This is from the website:

Felicity Evans travels along the backwaters of the Shropshire Union Canal meeting people who've adopted a new area as their own.
Starting out near Beeston she joins Wirral Autistic Society who have adopted a 2 mile stretch of the canal, which they've used regularly, to maintain its upkeep. She sets to work and finds out how it's changed how they feel about the area.
Along the way she helps monitor the hedgerows which were introduced when the canals were created to stop stock entering the waterways. Now many sections are in poor condition but they need to be improved to help a rare moth which has adopted it as its own.
Travelling on to Ellesmere Port and the National Waterways Museum [she] finds out who still use the canals and how a new generation are learning the traditional skills to rebuild and restore heritage boats.

The programme is repeated this Saturday, 14th Dec 2013, at 0607 (FM only) or is available for a week on the iPlayer.

Photo above: Shadow ascending the Bunbury Staircase in July 2010

Stoppages turn into "notices"

If, like me, you have signed up for CRT's e-mails informing of restrictions or stoppages to the waterways, you will have noticed that they no longer come from "Editor, Waterscape.com", but from "Notices, Canal & River Trust".

The subject heading is now merely "Notice, xyz Canal", not the more informative "Stoppage, xyz Canal" or "Restriction, xyz Canal".

Bizarrely the text of the message is headed "Notice Alert".

The actual information is the same potentially very useful stuff.

How hard can it be to find a CRT mooring?

One of the reasons for putting solar panels on the boat was so we don't have to rely on a marina with electricity for our mooring. At the moment, while Ally and Ben are still notionally on board, Jubilee is in Thrupp Wharf Marina at Castlethorpe on the GU. But the time will come (won't it?) when they clear their stuff off and we can have it back. Then we might want to find somewhere cheaper/more convenient/with more facilities.

I've been struggling with the CRT online mooring finder. Why can it not be simpler? First there's the auction system for long term moorings. These seem to be for three years, but you have to search through everything until you find that particular fact, right at the end. It seems as though you can leave before the three years is up, but there's no word on any penalty for doing so.

Then there are the short term moorings, with a completely different system of finding out what is available. At least with the long term moorings you can scroll through all the available options, of which there aren't many unless your boat is 20 feet long. Oh, sorry CRT, 6.096 metres. But to try to find a short term mooring - which seems to be one of three, six or nine months' duration - you have to enter your boat's length and beam; choose a duration; then select a possible mooring from a drop-down menu. Then a message comes up to say that that particular mooring is not available. Well, why include it in the drop-down menu, then?

I did once find a page showing mooring prices per metre, but I can't see it any more.

And why, oh why, does every length have to be in METRES? The canal system was built in feet and inches (and furlongs and miles). Locks are nominally in feet and inches. No-one looking for a narrowboat says to her/himself, "I think I'd like a 17.6784m boat". A boatbuilder might well specify dimensions in mm, but for things such as length and beam these will have been converted from feet and inches.

Even the IWA has been sucked in to this back door metrication, as you will know if you've booked a mooring at a National Festival (remember those?).

Rant over.

Wigwags? Defective ones? What is CRT talking about?

Alert from Canal and River Trust received today:

Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation

Barnby Dun

Monday 25 March 2013 - Wednesday 27 March 2013
Urgent works are required to enable safe passage through the bridge. This will involve the replacement of defective wigwags which will require the canal to be out of operation during the below times. On the 27th March, most of the work should have been completed, so there may just be a short delay whilst waiting to go through the bridge. We are working with the contractors to minimise disruption. Please ring the number below for latest updates.

The work will be carried out work between 8am-5pm daily. There will be no passage through the bridge during these times

Enquiries: 0303 0404040

This is the second time in as many weeks that I've been presented with a word that's new to me.

I looked up "wigwag" in my dictionary. It defines it as (v.i.) to twist about: to signal by means of flags; (n.) the act of wigwagging: a level crossing signal which gives its indication, with or without a red light, by swinging about a fixed axis (etc.)

Indications from Wikipedia are that wigwags are American signals of various types, found on the railway and in cars and lorries. (Or railroads, automobiles and trucks.) Oh, and a Wigwag is the Canadian version of the Curly Wurly bar (bet you didn't know that!)

I had never heard of a wigwag in any context, let alone a boating one, but they must exist as they're on the SSYN. Except that they're defective. Perhaps they only wig. Or, maybe, they only wag. Or - horror of horrors - could it be that they neither wig nor wag?

Am I alone in my ignorance of canal wigwags? Do you know what they are? What do they look like?


Yes, this is a railway signal. It is not, as far as I am aware, a wigwag.


[And the other new word: frit. It was in the Times. Thankfully, on Saturday, there was an explanation: apparently it's a contraction of "frightened".]

New licence has arrived from CRT - but do they want me to pay again?

Six days ago I received an invitation from Canal and River Trust to renew the licence for Jubilee. Then next day I did so online. The day after that the money left my bank account. Three days later (yesterday) the new licence came in the post. Quick service, CRT, have a brownie point.

Ally and Ben are visiting us near the end of this month - I'll have to try to remember to give them the relevant bits to stick in the windows.


I was a little surprised to receive with the new licence an invoice for what looks like another £804.60. But I've already paid! That's why CRT sent me the licence! Nowhere on the invoice does it acknowledge my payment.


I don't find this terribly friendly. It's a good thing, in one way, that the amount is so large. Even I am unlikely to forget that I've paid.

I'll have that brownie point back.

Christmas mystery photo - the answer

As James says - and Alf and Sue agree with him - it's Buckby Top Lock on the Grand Union Canal.

It's hard to imagine now, but this was back in April when drought restrictions were in place.

We were the last boat up the flight that day: the lockie chained the top gates closed as soon as we'd gone through.

Now we have more rain than we know what to do with. The latest stoppage alert from CRT advises that the Leicester line is closed after a collapse of the Debdale embankment. CRT says that the cause was a waterlogged bank.

GU Leicester line, Debdale Embankment slip

Thursday 27 December 2012 until further notice
Navigation is closed due to an earth slip on an embankment due to prolonged heavy rain saturating the soil.

Canal closed until further notice pending assessment of embankment and works to stabalise [sic] the earth structure