Category Archives: Safety

Stealth seaplanes?

Posted on Wednesday 10 September 2014 | 1 comment

I have made several visits to Mountshannon this year, but unfortunately none of them coincided with an appearance by any of the “brand new fleet of aircraft, operating from destinations nationwide” that Harbour Flights promised would arrive “early in the new year” of 2014.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Safety, Scenery, Shannon, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged boats, Clare, float plane, Harbour Flights, Ireland, Lough Derg, Mountshannon, Operations, seaplane, Shannon, waterways

A1 @ A2SN

Posted on Tuesday 9 September 2014 | Leave a comment

I wrote here about the workshop, being organised by A2SN, the Archives and Artefacts Study Network, and PRONI, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, entitled

By air, sea and land — Transport & Mobility through the archives.

I attended the workshop yesterday; it was absolutely excellent. I can’t remember the last time I attended an event where every speaker was both a good communicator and worth listening to. The programme covered waterways, roads, railways, aircraft, public transport and shipping, with two more theoretical, but no less interesting, sessions at the end — followed by a reception on and tour of the SS Nomadic.

The timetable had been designed to provide much opportunity for discussion between speakers and attenders: it was successful, thanks largely to its enforcement with a rod of iron, or rather with three sheets of card.

I imagine that the A2SN blog will have a full report when KH has had a chance to recover, so I won’t cover it here, but it was gratifying to note that Waterways Ireland is working on making access to its archive much easier.

If A2SN hold any more events on the island of Ireland, I’ll be there.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Safety, Sea, Sources, Steamers, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged A2SN, archives, artefacts, belfast, Ireland, Nomadic, PRONI

Steam, the Shannon and the Great British Breakfast

Posted on Tuesday 9 September 2014 | 3 comments

That is the title of the Railway and Canal Historical Society‘s 2014 Clinker Memorial Lecture, to be held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BS, at 1415 on Saturday 18 October 2014.

The lecture will concentrate on the period before 1850 with such interesting topics as

Shannon steamers
the Grand and Royal Canals
the first Irish turf (peat) to reach the USA (possibly)
port developments in Dublin, Limerick and Kingstonw
the Dublin and Kingstown Ship Canal
the Midland Great Western Railway
what “cattle class” really means
bacon and eggs.

Admission is free and booking is not required. However, if you plan to attend, it would be helpful if you could e-mail […] to this effect.

The Clinker Memorial Lecture is named for Charles R Clinker, an eminent railway authoe and one-time historian of the Great Western Railway, who died in 1983.

If you would like the contact email address, leave a Comment below and I’ll get in touch with you direct.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Safety, Sea, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, Unbuilt canals, waterways, Waterways management, Weather

Tagged barge, boats, bridge, canal, Clare, Dublin, estuary, Fergus, floods, flow, Grand Canal, Ireland, jetties, Killaloe, Kilrush, Limerick, lock, lost, Lough Derg, O'Briensbridge, Operations, quay, Ringsend, Royal Canal, Shannon, steamer, Tipperary, turf, vessels, waterways

The monsoon is coming …

Posted on Friday 5 September 2014 | Leave a comment

… perhaps. The water depth at Banagher has stayed at around 2.1 metres but that at Athlone has gone down to about 2.0 metres. Are TPTB lowering Lough Ree so that it can store the water from the autumnal rains? Information welcome.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Safety, Shannon, Sources, waterways, Waterways management, Weather

Tagged Athlone, Banagher, CFRAM, floods, flow, Ireland, Lough Ree, Operations, OPW, Shannon, waterways, weir

Waterways Ireland news

Posted on Tuesday 2 September 2014 | Leave a comment

Lots of info pouring from Waterways Ireland at the moment: July Shannon traffic stats, which will take me some time to analyse, serviced moorings in Sallins, digital navigation thingies for the Erne and Lower Bann and an online survey.

Here’s the press release for navigation thingies. I’ll cover the online survey in a separate message.

Waterways Ireland Pilots Digital Navigation Guides to the Inland Waterways

Waterways Ireland has developed an Online Navigation Guide for the Lower Bann for use on computers, tablets and mobile phones. In a major step change in the presentation of navigation guides for Ireland’s Inland Waterways, Waterways Ireland has, in consultation with user groups, developed, tested and now launched, pilot Online Navigation Guides, designed to provide a convenient alternative to printed navigation guides.

The online guide to navigation has been developed internally within Waterways Ireland using ArcGIS online. This interactive web mapping application details navigation features such as Locks, Moorings, Weirs, Navigation Markers and other facilities along the waterway. These data layers are then overlaid using ArcGIS online web maps. GPS surveys or digitising onscreen using Ordnance Survey Maps have been used to capture the location of features. The application enables the public to pan around the map, identify features, print maps, switch between base mapping & satellite view and switch on and off layers. The Lower Bann Guide is complete and available for free on our website and can be viewed on a PC, Tablet or Smartphone.

Waterways Ireland will update the maps on an ongoing basis so that the latest navigational information is always available online. Ongoing feedback is welcomed from users to keep the mapping information accurate.

With both the Lower Bann and the Erne System Navigation Guides presently available online, Waterways Ireland is commencing work with user groups on the Shannon and will subsequently cover the remaining waterways.

The maps are available on www.waterwaysireland.org by choosing the waterway and then selected the map tab. To directly access the Lower Bann & Lough Erne Online Navigation Guides, click [this] .

In the initial pilot period, broadband access or a wifi link will be required to use the online navigation guides for the Lower Bann and Erne Systems. Progress is being made on an offline/cached version which will be made available as soon as possible.
It is also planned that the next phase of the Online Navigation Guides will have additional layers of information for waterway & waterside recreational and tourism activity which the user can turn on and off.

In this transition period Waterways Ireland continues to offer a paper product to Waterway users. A comprehensive navigation guide for the Erne System, Shannon-Erne Waterway and Shannon Navigation is for sale at www.shopwaterwaysireland.org for €15/£12.60 and the Lower Bann Guide is also available.

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Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Safety, Shannon, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged boats, chart, digital navigation guide, Erne, Ireland, Lower Bann, map, Shannon, thingie, waterways, Waterways Ireland

Effin mensuration

Posted on Tuesday 22 July 2014 | 5 comments

Statue of Dr Johnson near his birthplace in Lichfield

The learned readers of this site will not need to be reminded of the sapient advice of the late Dr Samuel Johnson:

[…] no man should travel unprovided with instruments for taking heights and distances.

There is yet another cause of errour not always easily surmounted, though more dangerous to the veracity of itinerary narratives, than imperfect mensuration. An observer deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle, does not suppose, that the traces will soon vanish from his mind, and having commonly no great convenience for writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure, and better accommodation. […]

To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive.

Samuel Johnson A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland W Strahan and T Cadell 1775

The good doctor would, I think, have welcomed the invention of the digital camera with inbuild chronometer. Equipped with just such a device I arrived yesterday at the first lock on the Royal Canal to witness the lifting of the railway bridge and the passage thereunder of fleets of boats. I thought it would be interesting to record how long each stage took.

I have written before about this bridge: reporting a question by Maureen O’Sullivan TD in October 2013 and another in November 2013 and providing statistics on usage a few days later:

only 58 boats went through in 2013
the bridge was lifted on seven dates
two other scheduled lifts were cancelled as no boats wanted to travel
Irish Rail charged Waterways Ireland €1200 per weekday lift and €2000 per weekend lift.

The first 45 minutes

A lift scheduled for early July 2014 was cancelled; yesterday’s lift catered for just two boats, whose passage was assisted or monitored by eight Irish Rail staff and four from Waterways Ireland. Four of the Irish Rail people may have been in training as others seemed to be demonstrating things to them, but that’s only a guess. Three of the WI staff travelled together in WI’s stealth van and operated the first lock; the other, who travelled separately in a 4WD vehicle, visited from time to time. As far as I could see there was no contact between the Irish Rail and WI teams.

The bridge was scheduled to be lifted by 1100.

Before the lift: 0945. The lifting bridge is on the right of the photo

One minute later: 0946. A separate group of workers, perhaps contractors, is going down the west side of Spencer Dock with equipment

Four men still on the bridge 0949

Two minutes later

On the bridge 0956

Still there 0958

One minute later

The bridge 1006

The bridge 1012

The bridge 1015: another person approaches

Six men at the bridge at 1020

A seventh man approaches at 1028

Preparing to lift

The preparation stage, presumably involving the unlocking of some mechanism, took about five minutes altogether.

One man worked on the far end while another walked to do the same at the near end

An eighth man, behind the fence on the right, seemed to summon two of the men on the bridge

They went to this building, which I guess houses the controls for the bridge

Meanwhile work continued on the bridge itself

Almost done

A final check

Everybody was off the bridge by 1033

Lifting

The lift itself took just over nine minutes; the bridge was up before 1044, in good time for the arrival of the boats.

After about one minute

Another minute later

Another minute (or so)

About four minutes have elapsed

After five minutes. The sides are clear of the water in which they usually rest; they are dripping on to the canal below

Six minutes in

Seven minutes

The men behind the fence may be controlling the lift

Not much further to go

Eight minutes

It’s up

One of the jacks

Side view (taken after the boats had gone through)

Water under the bridge

Boats go through

It took just over three minutes for the two boats to go under the bridge.

Cruiser approaches; steel boat visible through the bridge

Cruiser about to enter

Heads down

Half way through

Leaving

Out

Steel boat entering

Almost through

Looking ahead to the lock

Done

I did not record the lowering of the bridge, which I presume took much the same time as the raising.

Preparation 5 minutes, lifting 9 minutes, passage 3 minutes, lowering and locking say another 14 minutes: say 45 minutes altogether, allowing some margin. But a large number of boats would take much longer as the rate at which they could move on from the bridge would be limited by the time taken to work through the lock.

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Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Safety, Sources, Tourism, Uncategorized, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged Alice O, barge, boats, bridge, canal, Dublin, Effin Bridge, Iarnrod Eireann, Ireland, Irish Rail, lock, Newcomen Bridge, Operations, Royal Canal, vessels, Waterways Ireland

The buoys of the lough

Posted on Saturday 19 July 2014 | 2 comments

Waterways Ireland’s proposed new moorings on Lough Erne. Note that the links at the bottom of the page [which do not include this or this] are to PDFs.

The “heaviest cruisers”, eh? Hmph. And “egress” is not the mot juste. But let us not carp: perhaps the idea will, in time, be applied on some southron waterways too.

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Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Operations, Safety, Scenery, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management