« Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal

Cheshire Ring Canoe Race »

Our earlier blog takes shows the start of the canal from its junction with the River Irwell in Salford, rather than Manchester with still more photos in the Photo Gallery for the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal.

The canal is under restoration with lock 1-2 and lock 3 completed. The first view is looking back towards lock 1 where the canal zigzags between the locks.

Lock 3 is positioned immediately after passing under a main road.

Rather surprisingly for a new design, the lock and bridge are so close together that there isn’t room for straight balance beams on the bottom lock gates as they would foul the fence along the edge of the pavement.

One gate has an offset beam while the other has a unique arrangement with a separate balance beam having its own pivot and linked with a bar to the gate. As it can’t contribute anything to balancing the lock gate it can’t really be a balance beam so I wonder what it should be called.

The short pound above lock 3, stretching around 100m to the current limit of navigation was almost drained but that didn’t stop a heron standing there hopefully looking for fish.

Standing on the edge, watching the heron, was a kingfisher. It was nice to see both of these so close to the centre of Salford.

« Diesel Declaration

Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal »

The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal runs from Salford to Bolton and Bury. Not, that’s not a typo – no part of the canal runs through Manchester.

The River Irwell forms the boundary between Manchester and Salford, with the canal junction being on the Salford bank. The canal is mostly un-navigable, although several stretches are still in water.

There are plans for restoration, and this first section from the River Irwell is already complete.

The former lock 1, adjacent to the junction, has been cut through at the lower level to allow the canal to pass under a busy new road in the Margaret Fletcher Tunnel. The tunnel is named in memory of the Chairman of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society whose great efforts enabled the restoration to progress so far.

Beyond the tunnel is a new deep lock 1-2 which replaces the first two locks. The rise or depth of the lock varies depending on the height of the River Irwell but is around 16’4" (4.98m).

That makes it the third deepest lock on the British canal system after Tuel Lane Lock 3-4 on the Rochdale Canal and Bath Deep Lock 8-9 on the Kennet and Avon Canal which are also locks combined from two former locks during restoration.

The balance beams on this lock are offset to allow them to swing without blocking the bridge immediately below the bridge.

The canal continues a little further, to be shown in our Next Blog and our Photo Gallery for the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal.

« Apparent Copyright Theft

Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal »

When boaters fill their boat with diesel they have to make a declaration about how much of the fuel will be used for propulsion, as that is taxed at a higher rate than fuel used for domestic use.

That is a legal declaration that says "I declare that [ ]% of the fuel purchased will be used for propelling a private pleasure craft" Note that is a declaration about what the fuel being put into the tank then will be used for - and NOT what you used the last lot of fuel for.

The HMRC Legal Page explains what the law says and reading that may give you all the information you need.

Try our Diesel Declaration and Fuel Duty Page! if you’d like further information and debate about what a reasonable estimated percentage might be.

It may be different from the advice your mate gives you down at the pub, or even different from what you see others doing, but it might make you better informed to make a more reasonable estimate.

« The ups and downs of life

Diesel Declaration »

A sideline, which comes from that hard work, is the production of maps.

These were initially drawn to put on my website and on the cover of the DVD boxes but now form an additional source of income by drawing maps for others for a small fee.

Occasionally I am asked if someone can use one of my maps and I usually grant permission for personal use in return for a link to show Waterway Routes as the source.

I record a continuous GPS trace as we cruise along the canals each day and theses are used as the basis for the maps I draw. They are supplemented by research trips on foot or bike, also recording GPS traces. I do not take materials from maps produced by others without their permission as that would be copyright theft.

That’s fine, so far.

Look at the two maps shown here. The first (red) map is the one I carefully produced for our BCN DVDs. The base for this map was our own GPS traces from when we filmed the BCN and cruised all of the routes. The map was then distorted slightly, so that the loops and routes of the BCN could be fitted into the small map. That distortion means the map is no longer exactly to scale but it does show things more clearly and – most importantly – means the map is unique.

Now look at the second (blue) map which is taken from another canal blog. If you click on the maps to enlarge them next to each other you will see the canals are identical. The bloggers have taken the map from our website, or scanned it from the cover of a DVD, and coloured it blue. That appears to be a clear theft of copyright material.

Just to make it worse they have added "(c) <Blog name> 2010" on top of my map and claimed it as theirs. Elsewhere on the page there are links to other sources of information they have used in the post but no mention of Waterway Routes.

The bloggers appear to have used one of my maps without asking. They have not provided any credit to Waterway Routes as the source and they have claimed the copyright themselves. You cannot scan one of my maps, extract the BCN trace, re-colour it blue, add you own copyright notice and publish it by mistake. It’s not like accidently clicking on the wrong button somewhere – it’s several deliberate acts.

The last time I dealt with a breach of copyright I agreed that the guilty party would stop using the copyright material and make a donation of several hundred pounds to a relevant charity.

I make the same offer to these bloggers and suggest the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society (BCNS) would be the best organisation to receive the money. If these bloggers immediately remove all of my copyright material from their blog and website and make a substantial donation to the BCNS on behalf of Waterway Routes then I will not pursue this any further.

Why have they done this? I don’t know why they have taken material I am using to supply a little income for my pension - I can only guess

Perhaps they have no respect for the hard work of others and want to claim it themselves. Or perhaps they are desperate to boost their hit rate on Tony Blews’ great UK Waterways Ranking Site. If you browse around their site there are more images which appear to have come from other web sites and have also been claimed as (c) <Blog name>. I hope they have permission for all those others from the copyright owners.

If anyone else wishes to use any of my copyright material for personal use then please ask and I am very likely to grant permission in return for a suitable mention and link to our website. For commercial use we may charge a small, competitive fee.

Note: Since the bloggers have now removed my copyright material from their blog I have edited this post since first publication to make them anonymous. I hope they will also remove any other copyright material on their blog they have taken from others without permission.

« Selly Oak Aqueduct

Apparent Copyright Theft »

A little over 12 months ago, Tony Blews created the wonderful UK Waterways Ranking Site (UKWRS) and it’s Tony’s hard work that has created the source data for this blog. Tony has kindly granted me permission to use the data. Thank you.

Any web site related to UK waterways can sign up and the visits to the web site are counted and the scores can be seen on the UKWRS site and the ranking displayed in a logo on the individual site.

You can see our own logo and ranking below the main menu on the left (above the comments).

I started logging the scores each day when I thought I might have a problem with my own web site towards the end of last year.

My own web stats were falling day after day and I couldn’t tell if I had a problem with my website and, perhaps, my ISP or if that was the normal seasonal fall towards the end of the year when there are less visitors.

Logging the scores from other websites soon put my mind at ease when I realised that my fall in scores was no different to all the other great sites which were falling in a similar way.

Graph 1 shows the top 15 sites and their scores on the UKWRS site for the last four months. I’ve split these into groups of five to make them easier to see in the next three graphs.

Graph 2 shows the top 5 sites where their movements can be seen a little easier.

Jim Shead and Pennine Waterways (the blue and green lines) have a very similar shape, falling to a minimum around Christmas. The Just Canals Forum had a great peak during the snow in January – perhaps a lot of people were "working at home" during the snow.

Graph 3 shows the sites ranked 6-10 and shows the time when Sue on No Problem seems to have had difficulties with changing web addresses (and I think there’s another change to come yet).

Graph 4 includes our own Waterway Routes score, which seems to go up and down more than some others. I think this is because our visitors often browse a lot of pages and a few extra (or a few less) visitors can make a big difference to the score.

Look at Alacrity’s score shooting up. I wonder what caused that and if it can be sustained.

Graph 5 shows UKWRS own scores. It may not be the highest scoring but it’s one of my favourites. It’s great for a little friendly rivalry. I hope nobody is taking this too seriously.

My records cover all sites on the UKWRS site since 8 November 2009 and I plan to keep recording them. There’s lots of different ways to present the statistics and I hope to produce occasional blogs like this to show the information. If you have any ideas, or requests so see your own statistics then please leave me a comment.

« Beat the Royal Mail postage increases

The ups and downs of life »

A new road is being constructed to relieve congestion in the centre of Selly Oak and this will pass under the canal at a new aqueduct.

To allow construction of the aqueduct the canal has been diverted into a new parallel channel a little to the west of the original alignment and very close to the railway.

Looking north, from the southern end, the approach starts with the temporary contractors lifting bridge before reaching the diversion.

« IWA Sales stock our Popular DVDs

Selly Oak Aqueduct »

Postage prices are going up on 6th April 2010.

The increases are significant, with the cost of a stamp for posting a DVD rising to 96p (from 78p this time last year) within the UK and even more for posting to Europe and the Rest of the World.

The cost of a regular first class stamp goes up from 39p to 41p.

Order by 5th April from our full range of DVDs and you’ll benefit from the lower postage rates.