Manchester Ship Canal

“ Excluding the Manchester Ship Canal—the revenue per mile of the Aire and Calder Navigation, from freights as Carriers and from tolls, averages double that of any other English Waterway; and it is this Navigation which has the lowest freight rates in the kingdom. Surely no further demonstration is necessary that where a Canal is kept up to modern requirements not only does its traffic increase but a diminution in freight rates results. ”

“ CHAPTER VII THE COST OF THE CANAL OF the existing canals for ocean-going ships, that of Suez was built by a company as a commercial undertaking to earn dividends by tolls. It cost $90,000,000.
The Manchester Ship Canal was partly commercial, partly industrial, i.e., the large contribution of the city of Manchester was made not as a financial speculation, but in order to promote an undertaking likely to develop the industries of the city. This canal, partly commercial, partly industrial, cost $75,000,000. ”

“ Lloyd thinks that the heavy cost involved in constructing canals of sufficient size to pass craft suitable for coasting and short continental voyages would be fatal to cheap conveyance.
The largest locks hitherto constructed are those on the St. Mary’s Falls Canal, in the United States, and the Welland Canal in Canada. On the former canal the lock opened in 1851 is 515 feet in length and 80 feet wide. The great tidal lock at Eastham, on the Manchester Ship Canal, will be 600 feet long and 80 feet wide. ”

“ Henry Hunter, Engineer of the Manchester Ship Canal, declared that Culebra Cut presented no serious problems at all; that a sea-level cut could be dug more quickly than the locks of the other type of canal could be built. He further declared that it was as clearly demonstrable as any engineering problem could be, that it would be possible to use 100 steam shovels in Culebra Cut. No one has accused the engineers on the canal of lack of ability in maneuvering shovels, yet at no time were they able to use more than 46. ”

“ On the Manchester Ship Canal and the Weaver, the culvert-openings are distributed along the side walls, but even then, with only a fall of 16 ft., great care is necessary to prevent damage to small craft during the filling of the lock.
Pumping for Locks. The only way of meeting the difficulty of a deficient water supply for the use of the lock, is by pumping. ”

“ It is claimed that vessels will be able to navigate the canal with safety at a speed of five miles an hour, and it is estimated that the journey from the entrance at Eastham to Manchester will be accomplished in eight hours, which is less time than is now taken to cart goods from ship to rail in Liverpool, and to carry them thence by rail to Manchester. ”

“ The first was that built by Sir E. Leader Williams to replace Brindley’s aqueduct at Barton, which was only high enough to give room for barges (see Manchester Ship Canal) . One of the earliest canal tunnels was made in 1766–1777 by Brindley at Harecastle on the Trent and Mersey canal; it is 2880 yds. long, 12 ft. high and 9 ft. wide, and has no tow-path, the boats being propelled by men lying on their backs and pushing with their feet against the tunnel walls (“leggers”) . A second tunnel, parallel to this but 16 ft. high and 14 ft. ”

“ Its district is rich in coal-mines. The Bridgewater Canal dates from 1761, the principal one in the country. A greater, though apparently a less wise, because unprofitable, enterprise, has been the ship-canal. American cotton has always been unshipped at Liverpool, by which its brokers have greatly profited. To save tolls, delays and cost of rail transport, Manchester men made an imitation Suez Canal by deepening and adapting certain waterways, by which ships can pass into the new port of Manchester without troubling Liverpool. ”

“ The curvature in the proposed sea-level canal is gentle, but for 19 miles of its course a large ship would continually be changing direction in a channel having a width of from one-fourth to one-fifth of her own length and in a current which may be as great as 5 feet per second. On the Manchester Canal all large vessels are aided by two tugs whose duty it is to help in steering. ”

“ Time was, and not so long since, when the park railings, along the Chester Road, at the outskirts of Manchester, disclosed broad stretches of wooded lawns, sloping to the Irwell, but it is now as though some magician’s wand had waved away the trees and the lawns and in one act had replaced them with a close imitation of the East India Docks, where skyscraping blocks of fireproof warehouses and mazes of railway sidings form amazing evidences of what the Canal has already done for Manchester. It has certainly “done for” any lingering rural fringe. ”

“ The proposal to construct a canal is by no means a new one. Manchester, as every one knows, has for more than a century and a quarter been the foremost in all plans and operations designed to secure economy and facility of transport. Many years ago it was proposed to convert the Irwell into a navigable river, and this, of course, would have connected Manchester with the Mersey and so with the sea. ”

“ At Partington branches from the railways connect the canal with the Yorkshire and Lancashire coal-fields, and the canal is widened out 65 ft. on each side for six hydraulic coal tips. At Mode Wheel there are extensive abattoirs and lairages, erected by the Manchester Corporation; also large petroleum oil tanks, graving dock and pontoons, cold-air meat stores and other accommodation for traffic. At Manchester the area of the docks is 104 acres, with 152 acres of quay space, having over 5 m. ”

“ Ships with a length of 550 feet, a beam of 61 feet, a height of 70 feet, and a draft of 27 feet can use the canal. There is a difference of 58 feet 6 inches in level between Eastham and Manchester, and this is overcome by five sets of locks. The highest lift is 16 feet.
The Manchester Canal Company owns the Bridgewater Canal and makes connections with 13 other barge canals. It handles about 6,000,000 tons of freight a year, of which the bulk is sea-borne. Although it connects with 13 barge canals, the amount of barge traffic handled is less to-day than it was a decade ago. ”

“ But upon the proposal as just stated there are two important remarks to be made—the first, that the suggested expenditure of 12,000l. per mile would only give us canals adapted for the navigation of large barges or vessels of not more than 150 to 200 tons, whereas what is chiefly required is internal water communication that would enable an ordinary merchant steamer to sail right up to Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, and other large towns; the second, that no such maritime ship canal has hitherto been constructed for less than 120,000l. per mile, including all contingencies. ”

“ By his efforts, a thorough system of canal communication was established and maintained, and greater punctuality was observed in the arrival and departure of the boats. Express or fly boats also came into use for the more important merchandise and for passenger traffic. On the Bridgewater Canal, they plied with passengers between Manchester and Liverpool; and in the neighbourhood of the larger towns they conveyed the market-women home to the surrounding villages. In 1798, many of the troops for the Irish campaign were conveyed by canal from London to Liverpool. ”

“ There are nine main roads requiring swing bridges across the canal; all below Barton have a span giving a clear waterway of 120 ft. The width of these bridges varies with the importance of the roads from 20 to 36 ft., and they are constructed of steel, their weight ranging from 500 to 1000 tons each. They work on a live ring of conical cast-iron rollers and are moved by hydraulic power supplied by steam, gas or oil engines. The Trafford Road bridge at the docks at Manchester is the heaviest swing bridge on the canal; being of extra width, it weighs 1800 tons. ”

“ Too great praise cannot be given to the engineers and constructors of these canals. Brindley considered canals not as adjuncts of rivers and bays, on the contrary “rivers were only meant,” he said, “to feed canals.” He carried this canal by means of an aqueduct over the river to Manchester, thus bringing the coal to a new thriving manufacturing city. Green further says (Paragraph 1528)
To English trade the canal opened up the richest of all markets, the market of England itself. ”

“ Even before the Manchester and Runcorn Canal was opened for traffic, Brindley had started on a much bolder project. The new scheme was one for a canal connecting the Mersey with the Trent, and, also, with the Severn, thus opening up direct inland water communication between Liverpool, Hull and Bristol, and affording an alternative to road transport not only for the Potteries, but, by means of branch canals, for the industrial centres of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, then, as it were, more or less landlocked. ”

“ Yet experience may teach us, that the spirit of project and speculation is not always the source of solid advantage, and possibly the unbounded extension of canal navigation may in part have its source in the passion for bold and precarious adventure, which scorns to be limited by reasonable calculations of profit. Nothing but highly flourishing manufactures can repay the vast expense of these designs. The town of Manchester, when the plans now under execution are finished, will probably enjoy more various water-communication than the most commercial town of the Low Countries has ever done. ”

“ Improvements in Agriculture keep pace with those of Trade.” The canals, which were extended rapidly after the success of the Bridgewater Canal, constructed in 1758 to connect Manchester with coal mines seven miles distant, lowered the cost of transportation to one quarter or less, in the districts which they served. As a result manufacturers could rely on a steady supply of raw material for their works, and of food for their employees, and had also a chance to put their finished goods on the market. ”

“ From information derived from official sources in England, France, and the United States of America, it is estimated that the tonnage of vessels [Pg 17] belonging to those countries and to Holland, trading in countries to which the Canal through the Isthmus will be the shortest voyage, amount to 799,427 tons per annum; and there can be no doubt that the opening of the Canal would create a great extension of trade to the South Seas, as well as induce the owners of many of the vessels now using the navigation by the Cape of Good Hope to prefer the shorter voyage through the Isthmus ”

“ For reasons which will be indicated later on, it is impossible to improve the Black Country canals on any large scale; but, in addition to what I have already related, the London and North-Western Railway Company are constantly spending money on small improvements, such as dredging, widening waterway under-bridges, taking off corners, and putting in side walls in place of slopes, so as to give more space for the boats. In the latter respect many miles have been so treated, to the distinct betterment of the canal. ”

“ The exigiencies of their trade calling imperatively for further improvements, the engineers furnished them with the design for a new ship canal, which reduces the navigable distance to 151⁄2 miles, on a course about west from Amsterdam to the North Sea, available for larger vessels than formerly entered the port—and has provided a new harbour on the coast, with an area of 250 acres, bounded by breakwaters formed of concrete blocks set in regular courses, with 853 feet of entrance between the pier heads, and 261⁄4 feet minimum depth of water. ”

“ Then again, the speed on British canals can seldom be carried above 21⁄2 miles per hour, not to speak of the delay in getting through the locks, of which there are ninety-three between Leeds and Liverpool.
It would be the idlest of idle dreams to expect that the canal system of this or any other country, as originally constructed, can be resuscitated, or even temporarily galvanised into activity, in competition with railways. Canals as they were built a century ago have no longer any function to fulfil that is worthy of serious consideration. ”

“ Boats of 163 feet by 29 feet 6 inches can also travel on the Gloucester and Birmingham Navigation, while the Severn can take craft of 270 feet by 35 feet, and the Thames, from London Bridge, can carry vessels of 140 feet by 22 feet. Again, on part of the Kennett and Avon Canal, craft of 120 feet by 18 feet can be navigated. Mr. Lloyd, who has had a great deal of experience in canal navigation, has proposed the adoption of improved locks on the leading English canals capable of taking boats 110 feet long, 111⁄2 feet wide, and 6 feet draught, the carrying capacity being about 120 tons. ”

“ Deep-water quay walls of considerable length have been built; warehouses for general merchandise, with an excellent system of hydraulic cranes, have been provided; a large grain depôt, fully equipped with grain elevators and other appliances, has been constructed at a cost of £80,000 to facilitate, more especially, the considerable grain transport by canal that is done between the River Mersey and the Chester district; and at the present time the dock area is being enlarged, chiefly for the purpose of accommodating deeper barges, drawing about 7 feet of water. ”

“ Before the construction of the canal, large manufacturers had left Manchester to establish their works at ports like Glasgow, where they could save the cost of inland carriage. Since its opening, new industries have been started at Manchester and along its banks, warehouses and mills that were formerly empty are now occupied, while nearly 10,000 new houses have been built for the accommodation of the workpeople required to meet the enlarged trade of the city. ”