UK narrow boats or barges what do we have?

There seem to be periodic narrowings of some canals local to me, formed by paired projections from each bank. I don't know the purpose of these features (traffic calming?) - is there any particular logic to where they are located or should they be included at certain distances perhaps? Thanks for any assistance.


They are called "narrows" and will be placed at either end of major embankments stop planks to be put in in the event of a breach to prevent total loss of water from the affected pound. In the days when the canal network was properly maintained the planks would have been stored (usually in some form of shelter) next to the narrows ready for use in an emergency.
 
These narrows are generally found on longer and elevated pounds of the canal, the purpose to provide a narrowed point on the canal easily staunched to facilitate maintenance.
By narrowing the canal it was easy to drop in a set of stop planks to dam the canal before draining off a section.
Look close and you will undoubtedly see two vertical grooves in the brickwork to take the ends of the stop planks.In some locations there will be 2 pair of gates, without balance beams, which when dragged into position across the cut served the same purpose as the stop planks.These narrows and there function were also useful should an emergency occur such as a breach on an elevated section.

The main line of the BCN with a width of around 30 feet, has hard standing islands built in the centre of the cut for the same purpose, that is to narrow the canal, thus enabling easy staunching.

 
Sorry Valliant, my badly written English, gives the wrong impression. Your quite correct and technically a 14 foot water course is sufficient to pass two narrow boats neither I or anybody else would be that foolish to try. Canal builders would have used and reused time and again their timber formers to build the bridges, thus all bridges on a particular canal would have been practically identical.
That is how the half dozen barrel roof cottages on the Lower Stratford came to be, built using bridge formers and the two ends bricked up. They also have tie bars through them and abutments to the walls to stop them spreading outwards under the weight of the 13" solid brick roof.

It wasn't the waterway width of bridge hole that concerned me, those are well documented, more the required length of bridge on the waterway plane, that needs to be adjustable to suit the numerous different width road assets that are available in Trainz.
There is was no standard road widths in the UK, sizes were sometimes set out by the local council but seldom.
Asset creators have made dozens of roads of all various widths so these when connect to a bridge with an inbuilt road spline they either fail to meet the bridge side wall or stick out through the brickwork and overhang whatever is beneath.
The other point I pondered, canal bridges tend to be pinched inward at the centre.
No problem to do that and recreate on a model, but how to get a spline road to do so at that point?
My very limited asset creation experience, suggests to me that can't be achieved as spline roads would have the width specified in the config file presumably.
Anyway, not too bothered about the narrowing of the bridge roadway, parallel sides will do.
Maybe one answer is to specify the Kuids that I know will fit in a read me file.
Cheers
JP


As I said in my last post I don't think this is an issue - again from study of the Oxford bridges the distance between the parapets seems to be the same whether it was a road bridge or an accommodation bridge.

People have tried it - there were two boats wedged in a bridgehole on the Coventry for the best part of a day a few years ago - and no, I wasn't one of them!
 


The main line of the BCN with a width of around 30 feet, has hard standing islands built in the centre of the cut for the same purpose, that is to narrow the canal, thus enabling easy staunching.


Those narrows on the BCN New Main Line were toll islands: http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB145_p_2079/

It's a while since I boated the whole length, but I can't think of one with stop plank grooves in and many had a culvert under the island to ease the flow of water - presumably so that a boat being gauged didn't get washed out of one side if boat passed through the other side.

Stretton Stop on the Oxford |(aka "home") is a good example of both - the narrows there being used for gauging but also having a gate built that would swing shut with the flow of water if the big embankment just north of there should fail.
 
Live and learn, as the saying goes, I thank you for that snippet of information. It has always been at the back of my mind that the explanation I was given for them was erroneous, mainly from the sheer size of the islands, but what you say makes for perfect sense. Thanks Valliant
JP
 
An amazing read considering the animosity I used to receive a 15 or so years ago.
Very interesting and the steam trains would go well with the canal era.
I think both Trainz and Blender have passed me by.
Still using Blender 2.79b but 2.8 series is a different kettle of fish and beyond my understanding.
B
 
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An amazing read considering the animosity I used to receive a 15 or so years ago.
Very interesting and the steam trains would go well with the canal era.
I think both Trainz and Blender have passed me by.
Still using Blender 2.79b but 2.8 series is a different kettle of fish and beyond my understanding.
B

Even 2 years ago Barry.
I was most kindly informed by a long standing member, and one of this forums watch dogs, that this was a Trainz sim, boats were of no consequence!
It seems that John Welan turned the tide when he posed the original question for this thread some 10 months ago, all power to his elbow.

I agree 2.8 is a little far advanced for me, or is that you can't teach old dogs...............
Biggest draw back, far as I'm concerned in 2.8, the add on for dropping a creation directly into Trainz is inoperable, that and having just spent twelve months learning 2.79 I'd like to gain a little more experience in asset creation before updating my Blender.

Happy Trainzing and seasons greetings to all :wave:
 
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Even 2 years ago Barry.
I was most kindly informed by a long standing member, and one of this forums watch dogs, that this was a Trainz sim, boats were of no consequence!
It seems that John Welan turned the tide when he posed the original question for this thread some 10 months ago, all power to his elbow.

I agree 2.8 is a little far advanced for me, or is that you can't teach old dogs...............
Biggest draw back, far as I'm concerned in 2.8, the add on for dropping a creation directly into Trainz is inoperable, that and having just spent twelve months learning 2.79 I'd like to gain a little more experience in asset creation before updating my Blender.

Happy Trainzing and seasons greetings to all :wave:

And to one and all Have a nice Christmas.
 
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I live in hope that someone one day will take up the challenge of building some detailed narrowboats to the same standards as some of the rolling stock and road vehicles we now have. (I've got drawings and plenty of real ones for reference if anyone's interested!)

Been working at producing some thing like, but bear in mind this is a wip.
Lots to sort out as yet.
Need some script, to make a coupling between motor and butty. I have read some scripts and noted there was a tolerance between objects to be connected, but would that tolerance stretch to around seventy feet, and in place of chain couplings a solid rope?
Scripting now way beyond me.
Comments?

Went to add an image but it wants an URL? May be I can post pictures with TCWW
 
Been working at producing some thing like, but bear in mind this is a wip.
Lots to sort out as yet.
Need some script, to make a coupling between motor and butty. I have read some scripts and noted there was a tolerance between objects to be connected, but would that tolerance stretch to around seventy feet, and in place of chain couplings a solid rope?
Scripting now way beyond me.
Comments?

Went to add an image but it wants an URL? May be I can post pictures with TCWW


Create a dummy boat with a length of rope between a.limfront and a.limback. Then just couple up the barge followed by the rope or chain followed by the butty.

Cheerio John
 
Excuse me for reviving an old post but has anyone gotten these narrow boats (there are many on the DLS) to work in Trainz TS12 or any other version? All I get are the red and green arrows but nothing else appears. They are a build 3.5 so should work in TS12.
 
What height have you set the track at?
Try going into wire frame view.
Your narrow boat(s) should now be visible. Try raising the track by 3 meters above the waterplane, that should solve your problem.
JP
 
Excuse me for reviving an old post but has anyone gotten these narrow boats (there are many on the DLS) to work in Trainz TS12 or any other version? All I get are the red and green arrows but nothing else appears. They are a build 3.5 so should work in TS12.


Try "Middleton with canal - Session" or KUID2:117948:100274:1 in TANE or above. If that works and it should take a closer look at how it works. My narrow boats that are tagged TS12 have all been tested in TS12.

Cheerio John
 
I downloaded the Middleton with Canal route & session into TRS19. Looks good and the narrow boats were working OK there. I had a test route in TS12 using invisible track that I was testing the narrow boats and sailing barges on. I finally found out why I was seeing the red-green arrows but no boats. They were setting below the surface like submarines. I added a postition statement to the mesh (position 0,0,3) and that brought them to the surface. I had 29 narrow boats and not all used the same 0,0,3 setting.
 
Boats and barges started off with track at -7m below water level. Then Barry introduced barges at 0m or water level so he could use existing tunnels as canal tunnels, this meant they could be placed lower in the water. Because these tracks did not show well in surveyor Vulcan brought us the +3m above water track level. These could be seen in surveyor and made placement easier. My Canals route on the DLS shows a setup with working locks and fully AI operated.
 
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