Woman rescued after falling in at Braunston

In the five miles/two hours of the combined Grand Union and Oxford Canals between Napton Junction and Braunston Turn we must have seen as many moving boats as in the whole of the previous seven days from Market Drayton. It was busy! At the turn where we turned right there was a boat turning right from the North Oxford and a boat turning left from the Braunston direction. Not that you can see them in my photo.

The towpath bridge over the entrance to Braunston Marina has sprouted ducks.

As we approached Braunston Bottom Lock we found ourselves behind a pair waiting to go up. But then an unfortunate episode took place.

The steerer of the butty was apparently trying to breast up to the motor when she fell in, still holding her stern line, between the two boats.

I pulled in to the bank for Jan to leap off with a buoyancy aid and run towards the boats. Before she got there a life ring had been found for the woman, who was a non-swimmer. She was not making any progress in her efforts to climb out of the water. Before I could get our rope ladder near, an aluminium ladder had been fetched from the boatyard and the woman was able to climb out.

She walked, bedraggled but apparently unhurt, to the boatyard to recover while the motor and butty were secured to the lock landing. When we were sure that we had done all we could to help, we went up the locks with another boat, Senior Moments, which had joined us during the half-hour or so of action.

Birmingham to London runners saved from dysentery?

First thing this morning I cycled back to Shrewley to buy a newspaper. I went by road as the towpath was rather muddy. By towpath it would have been slightly more than a mile; by road, although reasonably direct, it seemed to be about three miles each way.

And then it was off down the Hatton flight - but first, an appointment with the Elsan disposal point.  Here I was astonished to find two large (40 litre?) drinking water containers being filled from the rinsing hose for the portable poo tanks.  Two white vans were parked there, with three people in hi-viz vests filling the containers.  I asked what they were doing, and they said that the café had said that it was the same water that went to the canalside water point.  Well, yes, but was it to be used as drinking water?  Yes, they said brightly, it was for the Birmingham to London runners.  I pointed out that the hose they were putting in their nice new water containers had previously been down the neck of a loo cassette, just like the one I was holding.  They then - rather reluctantly - poured the water away and started talking about getting some disinfecting tablets from Boots as they drove away.  I hate to think how many runners might have been doing rather more running than they bargained for had I not just happened to come across this.  There were no signs indicating that "This is not drinking water" as there usually are by Elsan points.

Until that point I hadn't noticed the dribs and drabs of runners with numbers jogging down the towpath.  As we made our way down the locks they came past, but they seemed to be more the tail-end Charlies than the elite super-marathoners.  There was a semi-official-looking photographer and a smattering of watchers near the CRT "Welcome Station".
 

Once we had passed here, i.e. having done four locks, a volunteer lockie started going ahead and setting the locks for us. That was very handy for the next six locks, but then he walked back up the flight leaving us on our own again. But that was fine, I had my bike and we worked efficiently. We did the whole flight of 21 locks in 2 hours 45 minutes.

Some of the paddle gear sported shiny new stainless steel bolts.
 

We stopped for lunch just above Cape Locks; then moved on to Leamington Spa, where we have tied up outside Lidl.

One thing I forgot to mention a couple of days ago is that we saw many bats in Brandwood Tunnel.  They were flying around, buzzing the boat, clearly picked out by our tunnel light.

How often does a canal flood?

Ah - that's better. Photos have uploaded, so now I can write about yesterday and today.

The newish flats at Dickens Heath have been furnished with flood boards, which would seem to me to be an unnecessary and expensive precaution.  Canals rarely flood as they have overspill weirs to deal with excess water.
 

I suppose in an extreme case of a huge downpour the overspill weirs might not cope immediately, but would the canal really rise above the edge?  Perhaps there's another watercourse nearby which I haven't considered ...

Well, summer seemed to arrive suddenly yesterday. I did quite a bit of cycling around King's Heath, Stirchley and Yardley Wood and got quite warm. Back on the boat we enjoyed the rural Stratford Canal away from the Birmingham connurbation.

We stopped at Hockley Heath where we joined fellow BCFers Ingrid and Kit for drinks in the Wharf Tavern.

Today we continued down the Stratford Canal. We met up with my former colleague Ian, who has recently joined the ranks of the retired. We gave him a lift from Hockley Heath down to Lapworth Top Lock and enjoyed a chat in his garden.

This is the only photo I took on the Lapworth Flight.

At Bridge 35, two locks above the Lapworth Link, the fierce bywash pushed the boat into the brick arch. Some paint was removed from the top left corner. A boat was following us down the locks; I reckon the extra water coming down with it was what caused the problem.

We turned right onto the Grand Union and passed this pair of gently rotting hulks. 
 

I think I photograph them every time we pass - it would be interesting to juxtapose the images to see the decline.

One more photo for you: Shrewley Tunnel north west portal with horse tunnel.

We tied up half a mile before Hatton Locks: we have that joy tomorrow. In dry conditions! (We had some light rain on the GU.)

Blogger not uploading photos

Hmm. Here I am trying to write my blog, but computer says "no". I usually upload photos first and write to them, but tonight I just get this message every time I try.

Sorry! An unexpected error occurred while processing your selection. Please try again later.

Is it because my data signal here at Hockley Heath isn't strong enough? Or is there a more general Blogger problem? Either way, I shall have to try again tomorrow.

Broken stern fender, stiff Morse control, lovely Caldon Canal

It has been several years since we've been on the Caldon Canal; now we're enjoying this lovely waterway with lots of interesting features. First up was Etruria Staircase locks.

In the next lock, Planet Lock, Jan watched as the stern fender nudged the bottom gates as the lock filled. She continued to watch as the fender slipped to one side. Oops.

The left-hand chain has become detached from the fender - I suspect a shackle has failed. We tied up in Hanley Park and I made a repair of sorts, threading the chain through a loop of the ropework of the fender. I wonder how long it will last.

While we were stopped I had a go at freeing off the Morse control lever which had become very stiff. The last time the control got stiff was just before the gear control cable broke last year. I disconnected that cable from the Morse lever and pulled and pushed the inner. It felt a bit stiff, but not hugely so. With the cable disconnected I operated the Morse lever, which still felt a bit stiff, but not as stiff as before. I tried to dribble some oil down where the inner rod emerges from the outer sheath, but I don't know if this will make any difference. The Morse lever itself looks a bit like it's coming apart, so I think this is the real problem. With the gear cable reconnected it all felt much like it did before, i.e. too stiff.

Those cables look a mess, don't they? Some of that is how it was when I bought the boat but some is down to me!

Speaking of cables, not far above Hanley Park was this canalside box disgorging its innards.  I have noticed a few of these anonymous boxes - do you know what they do?
 

Of the three lift bridges encountered so far two - Ivy House Lift Bridge and this one at Norton Green - are electro-hydraulic operated by BW key; the third is manual hydraulic operated by (large-eye) windlass.

Interestingly, the control panel for this Norton Green lift bridge is user-friendly, being on the towpath side.
 

We tied up below Stockton Brook Locks and went for a walk before tea. Crossing the middle of the flight is an abandoned railway line. This is complete with concrete sleepers and rails. There are a few trees to clear before trains can run again.

From the urban surroundings of Etruria it's not far to the rural scene of lambs in the evening sunshine.

Stop! Thief! That's my bike!

Inspired by Jim's bus exploits on http://narrowboatstarcross.blogspot.com/ (Blogger has changed: I can seemingly no longer insert a link in the old way) I decided to use the bus as part of the journey to get our car from Fazeley where we had left it. I was starting from Market Drayton which, sadly, no longer has a railway line - let alone a station - leaving bus as an essential part of doing this by public transport. I started with the crazy idea of doing the whole trip by bus, but it would have entailed multiple changes and would have taken a long time. I decided, then, to use bus and train - and cycle where necessary. Jim would have relished the bus challenge, but agreed that my route was easier and more suited to a bus "novice" such as me. Having been assured that buses can take folding bicycles I waited at Market Drayton Bus Station for the 1111 bus to Hanley, i.e. Stoke-on-Trent. The bus arrived from Shrewsbury a few minutes early, giving me and three or four other passengers plenty of time to board. I really can't remember the previous time I used a bus. When it got under way it felt most odd not wearing a seat belt. Between Market Drayton and Newcastle-under-Lyme we went through a couple of villages off the main road, negotiating some rather narrow country lanes en route.

From Newcastle-under-Lyme the bus went near to Stoke-on-Trent railway station before finishing up at Hanley Bus Station. By the time I realised the proximity of the railway station it was too late to press the button to ring the bell to stop the bus, so I got off at the end of the run and cycled down the hill - crossing the Caldon Canal on the way - to get the train.

Here I made my first proper mistake. There was a queue at the ticket office so I used a machine to get a ticket for Stafford, forgetting to use my railcard and thus forgoing a discount of £2. This is the train I caught, here at Stafford Station at the end of this third leg of the journey (bus, bike and train 1).

At Stafford I bought my final train ticket, this time from the ticket office with my railcard, to take me on to Tamworth. I could have got a ticket from Stoke to Tamworth but splitting here, where I had to change anyway, saved £6 or so on the full price. This is where things got interesting. I boarded the train and leant my bike against the folding seats next to the loo, as I had done on the previous train. At Rugeley Trent Valley some passengers got off, and I glanced over towards the loo and saw NO BIKE! One of the passengers, a young man, was calmly pushing a bike across the platform to the exit. I grabbed by bag, leapt off the train and ran after him. Hey! Stop! That's my bike! I shouted as I charged past the two or three other people who had got off. The thief stopped and looked round at the lunatic who was running towards him. Only he wasn't a thief. It wasn't my bike. Oh no! What had I done? What an idiot! I raced back to the train, still stationary, but the doors were locked and unresponsive to my desperate jabbing at the button. As the train pulled away, with my bike heading to London, I looked around. Rugeley Trent Valley is an unmanned station. There was a help/information pillar, but it wasn't exactly a 999-type of emergency, and I didn't want train timetable information. As I stood there I noticed two workers in hi-viz just outside the station. One was Openreach - and the other was an Avanti West Coast (train company) person. I explained my predicament. He calmly went to his car, tapped away on his laptop for a bit, asked my to describe the bike and then made a phone call. In the heat of the moment I couldn't remember the make of my bike, so I phoned Jan - whose head was clearer than mine - and got the make and colour (!). The Avanti angel finished his call and told me that my bike would be taken off the train at Tamworth and would be waiting for me in the ticket office. Wow! All I had to do was get the next train and hope the bike would be looked after as promised. As I ate my sandwiches in the shelter on the platform, trying not to let the wind blow the rain on me too much, I mentally kicked myself for being so stupid. I worked out that the eight-coach train was two four-coach sets joined together, with the loo compartments next to each other. I had somehow got confused about which loo my bike was near. I also thanked the Lord that he had provided such an amazing means of resolving the problem. At last the hour was up, and the 1405 rolled into the station. No sooner had we got under way, though, than the next part of the saga started to manifest itself. The guard announced that it seemed that there was a problem ahead and that we should listen out for further announcements. It soon transpired that a person had been hit by a train in the Rugby area. We pulled in to Lichfield Trent Valley Station. The guard announced that there had been a fatality near Atherstone and that the train we were on might have to return to Crewe. How terrible, and it put my bike worries into context. After a few minutes the guard suggested that London-bound passengers might like to transfer to the high level platform where they could get a train to Birmingham and continue their journey from there. I went to the ticket office and asked how long it would take for me to get to Tamworth via Birmingham. Ooh - it could take an hour and a half. Better get the bus, love. Well, I reasoned that I was in no particular hurry, that a bus would cost me an extra fare, that continuing by train would not cost me anything and that I'd see some more bits of Birmingham. There was another option, which was to ring my friends in Fazeley, eight miles away, to see if they could pick me up. I knew they had gone out to lunch; by the time they returned my call I was already on the train to Birmingham. We stopped at stations I didn't know existed, including Gravelly Hill. Claim to fame? The motorway interchange known as Spaghetti Junction, of course!

So that was leg five completed, having stopped at just about every station between Lichfield Trent Valley and Birmingham New Street - here's the train about to continue to Redditch.

I didn't have long to wait for the train to Tamworth; once on board I wasn't expecting any further incidents. I was wrong. The train started to go really slowly, just creeping along for what seemed like ages. Then BANG! Some substantial branches of a "windblown tree" (as CRT sometimes puts it) crashed and thudded along the windows right where I was. The train wasn't merely brushing past foliage: that had already been ripped off. A few seconds later, when the driver had judged that the train was past the tree I suppose, we speeded up again. At last I was in Tamworth Station. I asked about the bike ... and YES! Hooray! They had it. I filled out a form to claim it and there we were, reunited. The staff there were very friendly, as, of course, had been the Avanti chap at Rugeley. So top marks to them all. The time was now 1650. I cycled to Fazeley where David and Mary gave me cups of tea and some food; just before 1900 I set off in the car for the hour and ten minute drive back to Market Drayton. Even this journey had "interest": the strong winds had blown plenty of debris from trees onto the road. At one point an oncoming car had to stop because of a large piece of tree in its way. I half expected the day to be rounded off with a branch through the windscreen but, fortunately, nothing further untoward happened. I arrived back in Market Drayton just after 2000. Cost of tickets: bus from Market Drayton to Hanley £3.60; train from Stoke-on-Trent to Stafford £6.00; train from Stafford to Tamworth £4.45. Total: £14.05 (but should have been £12.05 if I'd remembered the railcard earlier). Of course, I could have done it for nothing if I'd cycled the whole way, and it probably wouldn't have taken any longer! More posts will follow on our boating from Fazeley to Market Drayton, where we have a new mooring.

Replacing gearbox control cable after it broke (and suffering another breakdown)

At Brinklow CRT is getting round the landslip problem by literally getting round it. A temporary floating walkway has been constructed over the edge of the canal bypassing a not that huge pile of rock and earth on the towpath.

Everything was going swimmingly for us until Sutton Stop. As we entered the stop lock I suddenly found that I could not disengage astern gear. All I could do was kill the engine. We descended the lock and I pulled the boat out onto the lock landing on the right, where we would be out of the way. The Morse control lever felt most peculiar; it didn't take long for me to diagnose a broken cable. The photo below shows a short length of inner cable (running bottom left to centre), still connected to the gearbox lever on the left, and the outer cable (on the right) now hanging free.

Within three miles of where we were now stranded live two sets of friends. The first were on holiday in Suffolk. The second had gone to Baddesley Clinton, fortunately not by boat. Stephen drove back while we had lunch, then took me to Springwood Haven where I bought a replacement cable (having removed the old one and measured its length). Back at the boat I fitted the cable. It was two inches shorter than the original, but there was plenty of slack so that was not a problem.

I had not done this before, so I discovered that what holds the outer in position at each end is a toroidal channel in the metal part next to the black plastic sheathed flexible part. This channel at the gearbox end is held by a brass clip secured by two bolts, lock washers and nuts. The clip has a protruding ridge which engages in the channel. At the Morse control end the channel is held in position by a small brass U-shaped pin. The protruding parts of the U are of unequal lengths. This pin goes through holes in the hard plastic "socket"; the longer part of the pin is bent over to stop it falling out.

The photo below shows the back of the Morse control; the two thick black cables are the throttle (going into the red housing) and the gearbox (black). The U-pins are inserted from the left in both cases; I have already removed the gearbox cable one.

At the gearbox end the inner cable screws into a brass piece which pokes through a hole in the lever and is prevented from falling out by a split pin. The photo shows me inserting this split pin.

Here is the gearbox end of the cable all fitted. The brass clip with its détente can be seen to the left.

I am very grateful to Stephen for his advice, especially on measuring the distance the inner extends from the outer at each end on the old cable, and making sure the new cable's measurements are the same. I did this and found everything worked perfectly when I started up again.

Interestingly - and could this be the cause of the failure? - the cable shows it has partially melted where it ran against the (fibreglass bandaged) exhaust. The new cable presses against the exhaust in the same way and cannot be rerouted as it is close to the gearbox clamp. I need to insert a thin piece of something heat resistant to protect it. Ideas, anyone?

We thought that was the end of the excitement for the day but, just an hour later, the engine began losing power. Yes, we had run out of diesel! We always have a full jerry can on board so in went 20 litres to get us out of trouble. We had stopped by a long stretch of piling just south of Marston Junction. Very handy again.

Before this emergency top-up (and I know, the jerry can is now empty) I sucked out a lot of crud and water from the bottom of the tank. It separates from the diesel immediately in the jam jars I put it in; I'll provide a photo later.

Oh no! What's happened to forward gear?

We left Windmill End for the final time this morning, after walking down to Lidl for some supplies.

Having passed through Netherton Tunnel we stopped just after Tividale Aqueduct for lunch.

At Dudley Port Junction we turned left onto the New Main Line and after a while came to the former Watery Lane Junction.

The plaque reads: The Tipton Green and Toll End Communication formerly crossed the Birmingham Level at this point 1809 - 1960.

It was good to feel the windlass in my hand again for Factory Locks after more than a week on the Birmingham Level. But at Lock 2 … Houston, we have a problem.

Jan, at the helm at the bottom of the lock, reported that it would go no faster than tickover in forward. I filled the lock and had a feel of the Morse control. It seemed to be physically obstructed in forward. I would have to take a proper look, but decided to do this on the lock landing above the top lock. Jan steered into Lock 1 on tickover, ascended the lock and stopped on the landing. With the deck boards up I could see the cable moving as it should. The Morse lever seemed to be hitting something much nearer to the control itself. Opening the door on which it is mounted I immediately saw the cause of the problem. (And here I should have taken a photo. Perhaps tomorrow.) A woodscrew holding a metal clip thing in position had come loose; the metal clip had rotated such that it was stopping the lever travelling much beyond the vertical. It was a matter of seconds to tighten the screw with the clip in what I hope is the right place - and we were up and running again.

At Factory Junction, a few yards from where we'd stopped, we turned left to head to the facilities by the Black Country Living Museum. On the way we passed the site of the Tipton Canal Festival.

At least, this is where some boats had congregated. A bit further on we came across Andy and Helen on Wand'ring Bark and The Jam Butty. We tied up in front of them after the services and joined them for a cup of tea. Later in the evening Chris and Sally of Kairos came for drinks.

Tomorrow we don't have to go anywhere or do anything (much)! Oh, apart from joining a group of people going to Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory. Will I have another cow pie?

Micah 1; iPhone fails after attempting update

We had a handy lift down to Cranfield today for our grandson Micah's first birthday party. His dad, Ben, made a splendid aeroplane cake for him.

The birthday boy himself was more interested in the Wendy house.

We helped his brother, Josiah, pull up a carrot he had sown.

Ally and Ben had invited lots of people to the celebration; we all had a good time. Unlike my phone. I tried to install an update on my iPhone 4S - an update which I had been putting off until I had a wifi connection - which killed the phone. Most annoying. Fortunately Ben helped me put its SIM card into the phone we use for Waterway Routes, so at least I can make and receive calls and text messages, but I need to install things such as WhatsApp and my railcard. That will have to wait for another wifi connection.

Lock tarted up for Richard Parry visit

An alert from CRT yesterday warned of a mini digger which had fallen into the canal in Cosgrove. so, of course, I looked out for it. Here it is.

Oops.

The cows had it right - it rained a little today. But not until we'd tied up. The main weather story today, though, was the wind. It was quite strong at times.

We made good progress up Stoke Bruerne Locks with nb Imogen … until we got to Lock 15. Here we had to wait 20 minutes while a CRT team cleaned the weed from the gates and lockside.

I was told that this was because CRT Chief Exec Richard Parry was coming to the Village at War festival this weekend.

Outrageous! He should see the waterways and locks as they are, not tarted up for his benefit. He is not the Queen. CRT, you should fix leaking locks not waste resources cleaning weeds unnecessarily.