STEVE if you talk over the video you're gonna miss what's said, formerly 2 canals were linked by 11 locks this is a form of boat lift, there are much older boat lifts see Anderton boat lift for an example Also checkout near Falkirk are The Kelpies.& Falkirk Palace.
John , Steve does it on every video.!! The amount of information he misses is unreal, what's even worse is after his missed the relevant information, he then asks the question not knowing his just talked over the anwser..!!
@@kathleenhyde771 agree with you, Kathleen! Love watching their vids but time after time, a question comes into Steve's mind and he turns to Lindsay to talk about it, forgetting to pause the video first, so when he has stopped watching the video and listening to the narrator he sometimes misses important information that might address/answer the question he has raised with Lindsay. Got to love his enthusiasm though!
Steve always talks loudly over the videos, he cannot contain his excitement and enthusiasm and so often he misses completely the information being given by the narrator, and the volume Steve sets on the video is often quieter than his own mic set up, so we find it difficult to hear the narrator too. At least _this_ narrator was (is) a real person instead of an AI voiceover which means we will often have to interpret it's mispronounced explanations / errors...!! I found myself saying to my screen 'Sshhh Steve just _Listen_ and learn!!' but understood how eagwe he was to see and try to work out for himself how the Falkirk Wheel works, whilst Lindsay was eager to see what else was available around it as though the place was soley set up as a tourist destination, which of course is only a small part of its need to be so brilliantly designed and constructed. Kudos to all involved with the thoughts and actions which went into and maintains the beautiful Falkirk Wheel. I do hope Steve and Lindsay will look at more in-depth narrow boat videos, and someday get the opportunity to try one out plus this wheel and maybe the Anderson BoatLift too... We have so many wonderful things, buildings, creations, landscapes, etc to be explored, I hope they take enough time so to do, as rushing to fit everything in during a brief vacation slot would be very tiring, and there's Sophia to consider too, as a youngster, so much to see and experience could be highly frustrating for a tired kiddie, bless her heart.
If you liked this, it's only right you see the Anderton Boat Lift! It was built in the 1800s and still runs today. It's the world's oldest working boat lift. This video here gives a look at it, how it operates and some history on it "The Anderton Boat Lift as you've NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE! Ep. 153."
The Anderton lift is set up so that the top tank has 4 inches more water in it. This is enough to counteract the lower tank, so the whole system uses very little power, just like the Falkirk wheel.
@@sddsddean Very similar to the defunct (but hopefully future restored) Foxton inclined plane and basin, which was an attempt to replace the 10 locks there, but originally they found out that the cost of the steam engine and boiler etc to operate it and the need to keep it manned and maintained was not cost-effective, so the locks were retained, the plane was abandoned, and the mechanical equipment sold on.
@ Used to live near there and have taken a boat through the two 5 staircases several times. If the plane had been built about 10 years later it would have been electric and would probably still be working now.
I don’t think the video done justice to how the wheel actually works as it’s an incredibly clever concept and very energy friendly. I actually now live in Falkirk and the wheel is a nice place to chill out for a couple of hours. It also has a pleasant walk up to a section of the Antonine wall and a Roman camp (a wall built by the Roman armies). Falkirk gets a lot of flak as on the surface it’s not the nicest looking town but it does have quite a few hidden treasures to visit.
Hey Harry, you sound a bit American with your "done justice" instead of "did justice" or "does justice", and talking about a place to "chill out', instead of a place "to relax". And Falkirk "getting flak" instead of "taking criticism".
A few points that weren't mentioned: 1) it's incredibly efficient. It takes the same amount of energy as it takes to boil seven kettles. 2) the guy that designed it built his prototype using his daughter's Lego. 3) the design is shaped like a Celtic axe which was found on the site when it was being excavated. You should also check out The Kelpies, which are nearby.
@@dougiemilnephotography756 Evaporates in the summer and leaks in the winter when the cold contracts the steel. That's my explanation anyway although its Friday night and I`m just back from the pub 🍻🍻🤣
Steve, I just wanted to say that I've always enjoyed your channel, and when you first invited Lindsay (not sure if that's the correct spelling, sorry!) along for the ride, I was a little concerned about whether you were doing the right thing. But how wrong was I??!! She's turned out to be such a wonderful addition to the channel, to the extent that I can no longer imagine it without her! 😄 Lindsay, you have so much character and soul, together you make such a great double act! 😊
You asked a few times in this video why this was an improvement/a necessity - you sort of got some of this from your reading after the video, but I will still summarise for you! Before the Falkirk Wheel, the only way to get between the two canals was through a series of 11 "locks". Locks are the only way, traditionally, to change elevation in a canal - canals have to be flat, otherwise the water would all flow downhill. However, that series of 11 locks took almost a full day to navigate, requiring you to allow those "pond" areas you spotted in the aerial footage to drain to sloooowly lower the narrowboats, move them past a gate, then allowing the water to move again. The wheel on the other hand takes only ~10 minutes to achieve the same elevation change! As to why the canals were on different elevations - they were simply connecting different places which were at different elevations! If you are connecting two places which are, say, 200ft above sea level, you aren't going to randomly dig down to sea level to make the canal! So they were simply made at the appropriate elevations for their purposes, and then they later wanted to connect them to expand/interconnect the canal network - simple as that!
Another serious problem with locks, especially a 'staircase' that would be needed here is water loss, (Yes I know that there are settling pools by each lock, I live quite near the Foxton 10 lock 'staircase'), especially in a period of drought as a few minor canals of the time found out to their detriment when feeder reservoirs were too small, and of course if a canal dries out the clay lining can crack, and it is no longer watertight until extensive - and expensive - repairs are made.
I was interested in this but you made it difficult to listen. I missed half of what was being said. I love you guys but as a teacher I feel that saying less and listening more would benefit yourselves and the viewers. But please don’t stop talking altogether because I do love your reactions. I love your enthusiasm. Your enthusiasm is a compliment to all things British to which you are always kind and generous however sometimes we need to listen more. Please don’t be offended because I will never stop watching your channel. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother commenting. X
Hi , that’s why we have two ears and one mouth , so we can listen twice as much as we can speak , it is a little annoying at times I agree with you , but they are well meaning people Regards
This is specifically a 'reaction' video, not a tour guide ! If you don't want the reaction 'getting in your way', maybe best to consider watching the original video ( search for 8NHRqaYrfhQ). The whole point of these ones is seeing other people's learning/response, not our own.
They have to talk a lot because of "fair use" clause. If they just listened without interrupting much they would lose their channel. What they should do though is pause the video before speaking, and then resume play, but go back by 2 or 3 seconds to before they paused. Result: no words/pictures lost.
I lived on a narrowboat for 20 years and worked on a marina. Narrowboats are supposed to keep to a 4 mph speed limit. You stop one by reversing the prop, and it takes a few feet to stop. The thing with the gates is a lock, where the boat is raised or lowered to fit the contours of the land. There are videos about locks. Living on a narrowboat is a great way of life.
I love your comment about narrowboats being like an RV. I would describe it more like being a tortoise, moving slowly with your home. The maximum speed is 4mph and we often only travelled at 2mph. If you like speed this is not for you. I used to enjoy walking on the towpath from lock to lock. Often getting there before the boat
As a Blue Badge tourist guide, I take tour groups here many times each year. It is a really elegant piece of engineering, and my groups are always wowed by the experience. The mechanism is so smooth that if you didn't look out of the window you wouldn't know you were moving!
Was on the wheel early on this year, quite exciting. Engineering only UK is capable of.. Its great once off lovely to sit and watch. I was with a group of people so we all got in and got all the story remember going through a tunnel. Near by are the Kelpies again something never seen anywhere else.
The main advantage of the wheel is that it is balanced and takes relatively little power to revolve the wheel, a lift would take much more power to operate. We visited this and the Kelpie statues at Falkirk when we worked in Edinburgh, and one of the vote counting centres managed by my wife was at Falkirk. You should check out the Kelpie statues, also at Falkirk and were commissioned as part of the waterways development, both of these are fantastic places to visit, the Kelpies were water spirits and the statues were dedicated to the original Clydesdale horses that pulled the boats on the canal. The sculptures are like nothing, but nothing you have seen before, and have to be seen to be believed, and are difficult to really experience except by visiting, but it's well worth a look see. Canals in the UK were mainly built as narrow waterways due to the costs of tunnelling in the 18th century, and of course as soon as one tunnel is built it dictates the size of the boats that can use the canal, hence the size of the canal, which were also cheaper to cut, as most are artificial waterways. Have a look at an old map of the canals of the UK and you will be amazed. The area where I was born and raised in the West Midlands (the Black Country) was reputed to have more miles of canals per square mile than Venice.
@@pda3095 It's all due to the extreme care to balance the wheel components themselves, and the fact that it exactly balances whether there is one boat, or a boat in each tank, due to Archimedes principle (which the engineer was explaining while Steve was talking), and of course special bearings
The real benefit is in time - the wheel only take a few minutes to achieve a total change in height of the canal which would take all day in a flight of locks.
Was going to say the Kelpies wasnt too far away. Did both when i visited my brother in Stirling although as not a local, I live nr Dover, I could have got it wrong
There are a couple of boats you can go on that go up and down all day, its a trip up, then turn around and come back down. It costs £17.50 for an adult and takes 50 minutes. However, if you have your own boat, or are renting a canal boat for a holiday, it is free to use the Falkirk wheel
The idea behind canals is that the canal is level and has no slope which makes it easier to pull the barges along it in either direction. (They were pulled by people and horses before engines were added.) Barges started off as the means of moving coal, steel, and products from factories in the industrial revolution. It was more cost effective than carts. Where there is a hill or a slope, then the canal either goes through as a tunnel, or get dropped or lifted by a series of canal locks, or goes on a viaduct to cross a gap. Tunnels are as you would expect. THey lay on their backs and "walked" the barge through by pushing off the ceiling of the tunnel in the direction of travel. Locks are usually in series - the one set of gates open and the boat goes in, those gates close, the water level drops or climbs to match the canal section in your direction of travel. When they match you can open the second set of gates to enter the new section of canal. Some gates use a winch to open and close, but some just use long levers. Viaducts are where they extend the canal out on trestles over a drop, like a bridge. Barge lifts are like the Falkirk wheel - while lifting one barge, it drops another. Because of the principle mentioned, both ends always weight the same, evern if one end doesn't have a barge in it. The water displaced by a barge in one or both ends of the lift, means that both sides always weigh the same. The reason they built this Wheel, was because it used to take nine locks to move the barges up the incline. Scotland is hilly - England is flat, that's why we had to be more creative with our canals. The reason they never recreated the nine locks - going up nine locks is a lot of work and takes time, plus they had been building houses on the land for years and there was no where else to build the locks needed to get to that height. They hoped it would become a tourist attractions and bring people to the district.
As the boat displaces its own weight of water it will always be balanced, even with just one boat. Two boats at a time will still halve the number of operations.
Water doesn’t go uphill, so in order for boats to connect to a higher canal, they need to lift the boat to the new height. I’m pretty sure I suggested Falkirk to you when you first got intrigued by narrow boats. Brilliant engineering!
Visited The Wheel in Summer, nice place to chill for 2 - 3 hours, my kid loved the water orbs and playpark and it was a lovely day weather wise, but 2 - 3 hours is enough. You can do a tourist ride on the wheel for a few pounds, you jump on a boat it takes you up, you turn around and come back down, takes about 20 mins.
I remember, many years ago, seeing the Falkirk Wheel in person for the first time. They do a boat trip so that you can experience being lifted and lowered by the wheel. It is even more impressive in person - no video can do it justice.
Locks hold water back and in. You open to allow a boat in or out. Close then open sluice gates to alter water level. Once it's equal to the level you are either entering or exiting, you can reopen lock gates. Previous to the wheel, there were 11 locks in a step you had to negotiate. Problem if someone failed to close a gate properly or sluice, it could empty the whole lot and strand a boat. It would then take hrs to refill all the locks. The wheel removed this problem
Steve, canals are not as narrow as camera might suggest. They are wide enough for two narrow boats travelling in opposite directions to pass each other with room to spare. However, there are times when narrow boats want to turn around and change their direction of travel - hence parts of the canal network with wider areas to allow boats to turn around if they wish to change direction. Some wider parts of the canal also serve a function equivalent to a parking lot for narrow boats 😁
You ought to have said that 'many' locks are two boats wide - but the oldest are only just over seven feet wide- hence 'narrow boats' for canal barges.
To raise a narrow boat over a hundred feet would require the use of far too many traditional locks, slowing the journey so much that no one would be willing to undertake it. The Falkirk Wheel is an ingenious solution that cuts time to (probably) no longer than a single traditional lock. And, unlike most traditional locks, can also handle 2 boats at once! A modern miracle. EDIT: I mean, one boat going up and one going down simultaneously.
@jonathanpringle8238 Thanks for letting me know. However, my point was about the limitations of traditional locks, which generally were only wide enough and long enough for 1 boat and in one direction only. Multiply that by the number the amazing FW replaces (11, I believe) and the savings in time and money is enormous.
It's a practical lock that became an attraction It can carry two narrow boats at a time in each casson. There is a gate at each end The canal systems are basically tourist lead now The Falkirk wheel replaced 11 locks and took a day to travers A
1, Google " what are canal locks " 2 , this modern engineering structure removed the need for the 11 locks in this stretch of canal 3 , due to modern development they had to find an alternative as the old locks had been built on and no longer existed
Omg I live in this town lol saw the falkirk wheel be built from the ground up. It is an attraction of falkirk and u can even going on a boat on the wheel for a small price. There's a cafe and gift shop and lots of other things to do.
Such a clever bit of engineering. Using weights and gravity it takes the power of a lightbulb to move! The Falkirk wheel is part of Helix Park, you should check out the Kelpies too!
@ you’re quite right to correct me, my mistake. I knew it was low energy and have mixed up consumption with something else. I read the power is equivalent to 8 kettles! Amazing!
At the top of the wheel is The Kelpies and amazingly the Antonine wall (AD 142) which was built by the Romans runs along the ridge which they eventually abandoned to retreat to Hadrians wall. So ruins of a roman fort remains a few minutes walk from this and you see the foundations of all the buildings.
I was just about to post the same comment but you beat me to it! It isn't that far from me (30 miles in Cheshire - am at the north of Bolton). Of course St Peters Way (A666) was built on top of the Bolton and Bury canal - such a shame as there used to be an amazing canal wharf in Bolton.
Please please just listen a little more and interrupt / speculate just a little less. You missed a key aspect which is because the weight of water going up and down are equal, it's very well balanced, so requires very little energy to run. Much less than a simple up/down lift. Love to see your reactions, but you frequently miss important details because of over-talking.
Reaction channels are supposed to be like that. You either like it or don't. It's about natural approaches to content. Trying to manage and direct people's channels is obnoxious behaviour. You all get too comfortable trying to tell people when to speak or not.
He said that there were 11 locks to take the canal up (or down) the 110 feet height difference. Where they were is now tower blocks so they had to relocate the canal and that is when they decided to use the wheel rather than locks. I recently watched a video of boat lifts in China lifting huge boats of hundreds of tons in weight and the 3 lifts took 40 minutes instead of the 3-4 hours going through locks.
The top of the Wheel actually goes into a Tunnel under the Antonine Wall, as others have said a turf and wood wall built by the Romans across Scotland. Falkirk takes its name from the oldest church in the town used to look spotted or variegated and is a corruption of the Scots for variegated church which is in turn comes from the Brittonic Egglesbreth or speckled church.
The gates you see are part of a "Lock". Where 2 canals meet that are at different elevations, they are separated by a lock (or multiple locks). Essentially there are 2 gates. The water inside the lock can be raised and lowered to match the water level at each joining canal. So when you approach the lock, you raise the water level inside the lock to the same height as the canal you are entering from. Then open the gate and move inside. Then you can close the gate behind you and lower the water level inside the lock to match the canal at the other end, then you can open the the other gate an exit at the new elevation. Essentially. The gates hold back the canal water at both ends, and the water in between the gates can be raised/lowered
I'm not surprised you hadn't heard of it, we were kind of passing it on a holiday a few years ago so we took a detour to it, my Dad had no idea where were guiding him to (he was driving) as he'd never heard of it either! All of my family have lived in the UK pretty much our whole lives, no idea how he was the only one who'd never heard of it or the Kelpies which are nearby and easy to do on the same day!
In answer to the question of why there's such a vertical difference between the two canals ... Scotland is a hilly country! Previously, the two canals were connected by a flight of 11 locks, but that takes up a lot of linear space as well as being very slow to traverse. The section that you commented where there was a wide pool and then a narrow bit - the narrow bits were locks, and the wider pools are to allow boats to stack up and wait for their turn to get through the lock. Like a funicular railway, the Falkirk Wheel is very energy efficient because it is perfectly balanced - apart from any boats using it, the weight going up is equal to the weight going down.
The reason for those big round ponds in between the locks is not for boats to wait in, although obviously they may have to if they are too close to the boat in front. What they are really for is because it is necessary to have a far greater volume of water between two locks than it is inside the lock itself. The idea is for the water in the lock to rise or fall by maybe 8 feet but the water between locks to only change by an inch or so. If those ponds weren’t there and you only had a narrow bit of canal between the two locks, when the water in the lock went up by 8 feet the water outside the lock would go down by 8 feet, and in fact as the water between lock is probably only a couple of feet deep it will probably drain out completely which kind of defeats the object.
I think, you should suss out how locks work (those gate things you mentioned). How locks make canals go up and down hill, and the way the water is kept flowing from the feed ponds (those circles of water).
Hi Steve and Lindsay, Falkirk is a town in Central Scotland it’s where two canals the Forth and Clyde which joins the East to the West coasts ( River Forth to River Clyde ) and the Union Canal ran from Falkirk to Edinburgh the capital city. Due to water always being level when canals come across differences in levels throughout the country they built locks . ( worth looking at how a lock worked on You Tube ) previously to join the both canal’s a series of locks lifted boats between the two canal’s which probably would have taken hours to navigate as these canal boats were used to haul coal , timber etc throughout the country. Nowadays canal’s are mainly used for pleasure and companies hire out boats which you live on for holidays the amazing thing about the Falkirk Wheel is only uses the same amount of power of boiling a kettle to do a revolution . A great place to visit another part of the canal network not far from the Falkirk Wheel is The Kelpies at the end of the canal ( again you can see the Kelpies on You Tube ) I could keep going with the history but better stop there 😂 Great video guys from my local area.
I did a project in Falkirk several years back. The Wheel was open for business as was the visitor centre but I never made time to go on it. There were several high profile projects running after the Millennium one of which was improving access to local woodlands. The Wheel is just a short distance from one of the woodland areas that was improved to allow people to walk, cycle, take children on bikes or in baby buggies / baby carriers. A 10 miles stretch was opened up through 3 woodlands. You commented on the views, I can confirm the views are stunning, especially from the top of the Wheel. On a clear day you can see all the way to Ben Lomond in the west and the Forth River in the eas not to mention all the Campsies and Ochill Hills. There is so much history associated with Falkirk that it is worth a visit. The Kelpies, sculptures of horses heads, had been given the green light just as my work ended but I've driven by them and they certainly are impressive.
There are 2 canals, One is 120 feet higher than the other. They used to connect by a number of locks but over the years the canals fell into disrepair, buildings being build on top of the old locks. The Falkirk wheel now lifts boats up and down from one canal to the other. It is impressive, i have been to see it.
I'm sure it's already been said somewhere in here but the narrow locks work to go up or down gradients in the landscape. Theres a gate either end with flaps you can open or close with crank handle. Fill/empty the lock water to the level your entering at, drive in, close gate and flaps, then open on the gates the other end to fill/empty to the desired water level, open the gates and leave.
I rode the Falkirk Wheel two years ago and it was an amazing experience. It takes about five minutes to change levels and using the same amount of power as boiling eight electric kettles. If you ever get the chance to visit don't pass up the opportunity to see the Scottish Kelpies, statues of mythical horses, which are nearby and are about 80 metres tall.
Hi guys I'm 74 now so I grew up with the devestation of the canal system. It's amazing how so much has been brought back to life. These were the highways of the UK in the 18th century. Now they offer us great cultural and holiday experiences. Great video, and keep reacting as you normally do. It is far more natural!!!
It is amazing engineering. My Great GT Grandad was a coal merchant working on the Grand Union Canal, he had two narrow boats. 'They built The Foxton Inclined Plane the canal inclined plane on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 3.1 miles west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough, named after the nearby village of Foxton.' It was dismantled in 1910.
@gillfox9899 when they dismantled the inclined plane my GT GT Grandad bought some of it as scrap. He overloaded one of his boats called 'Margaret' and it sunk but they saved the valuables.. the Cheese & Bread 🤣 Glad found Foxton interesting x
Guys to fully understand the Falkirk Wheel you need to watch a video on the Anderton Boat Lift which is a lift( elevator in American slang) for boats which raises boats up and down off a canal on to a wide river below or off the wide river on to the canal above, it operates in a similar way as the Falkirk wheel but instead of moving in a circular direction the boat lift just moves straight up & down
The thing that BLOWS MY MIND, but hardly anyone mentions, is the fact that this HUGE machine is run on electricity. It lifts and lowers literally hundreds of tons of water using less electricity to boil a pint of water in a domestic kettle.
its good for a couple of hours. i've been a few times my dad worked on the boat taking visitors through the wheel, there is also a visitors centre there. and because my dad worked there i did get a free trip on the wheel takes about 6 minutes. not to far from the wheel is the kelpies you want to check them out i've been inside that too
The reason for the wheel is to link two separate canal networks that were originally built to connect areas of different elevations (Scotland being infamous for this). Later, to expand the network, they were linked by 11 locks - traditionally the only way to change elevation on a canal, which is flat to avoid water flow. Locks are areas on canals that can be closed off with gates at each end and the water level raised or lowered, allowing access to different 'levels' of the canal. With the decline in use of canals, that flight of 11 locks were dismantled in 1933 and the land used for flats (apartments). They covered over half a mile and took almost a day to traverse. The wheel takes up less space and does the same traversal in 5 minutes.
When you are on the upper level, it feels like you're floating in the sky, looking out over the countryside. Then, the transition when the wheel turns, is really great fun - super smooth movement.
Also If you were thinking of visiting this it would be worth visiting The Helix, which is home of The Kelpies in Falkirk. The largest equine sculptures in the world which is just under 5 miles away from the wheel.
Steve you missed most of the explanation talking over it, the canal chap actually answered all your questions. The wheel replaced 11 locks which has been built over. it is a counter balanced wheel and very efficient because the weight going up is the same as the weight going down. Friends of mine are retired and live aboard a narrow boat and have been on the wheel several times. You should do a video about canals try 'cruising the cut' series by a BBC journalist that lives on a narrow boat.
Me and my wife have visited the Falkirk wheel 3 times now,you can get on a tourist boat and ride the wheel it takes about half an hour to go up then down ,there is a visitors centre there and a cafe plus lots of things for the kids to do love your videos keep up the good work thanks 👍.
Wherever you see those gates on a canal, that's a lock designed to transition boats between sections of canal at different elevations because unlike rivers, canals have to be flat to maintain water level. You sail between a pair of gates, the gates close, and water is then either pumped into or out of the "locked" section to raise or lower to the new elevation for you to continue your journey. Because of the power of water pressure there's a limit to how high a lock can lift in one go, so the 100ft transition used to need 11 locks to execute. The Wheel lets it happen all at once and the weight of the boats is insignificant to the weight of water held at each end of the wheel keeping it balanced even if only one boat is using the Wheel at once...
They used to be connected by a flight of locks nearby, But that site had been built upon. A lock is the original canal way of traversing differences in elevation. The bit of the video where you were wondering about the wide pools and narrow connections between them are locks, how they work is worth a look, to understand how the canals used to work.
You mentioned at one point that that it would make sense that if one had a boat at the top and at the bottom that it would be more efficient to have them move at the same time; the whole point is that it does net matter f there is one boat or multiple boats. The principle is that, each boat, upon entering either the top of bottom of the top section would displace the exact weight in water of the boats weight, thus at that point both the upper an lower basin would have identical weight. This would apply to if there were two boats, five boats between them of any variant possible. The sum total of any boats would displace the exact amount of weight in water. This means that every time the operation moved it would be transferring the exact and same weight (every time, with boats or not). This means that every time the operation is made, the same weight at both ends is the same which ensures a consistent weight is transferred every time which makes the operation much easier to manage, since there is no variation or calculation to be applied to leach lift/descent. The upshot of all this is to replace 11 or more locks with a single operation.
so the gates are locks. the purpose of the lock is to block water. on gradients you'd have locks behind and in front so you could add add and remove water depending if you are going up or down. the locks open once the water is balanced for the lock you need to open. the long wooden beams are how they open. you push them. think of how you open a car door underwater. you can't until you let the water in. similar principle
2:45 it's partly for boats to wait to go up/down the flight of locks, it's also to retain more water in the basins between the locks - water has to be pumped up the hill from the bottom to the top as every time you send a boat through the locks water always moves downwards (since it can't resist gravity) regardless of whether the boat is going up or down the locks. Therefore it's important to have a reserve of water "above" each lock so that you aren't relying on the water being passed directly from one lock to the next, since they do all leak a bit you'd run out of water by the end. Having a water reserve also allows for a lot of boats to pass in a small amount of time with the pump running constantly at a lower rate to refill the lock basins in gaps in traffic.
I did the IT Support for the company that made the wheel. The company was called Butterly Engineering and were based in Ripley Derbyshire. There are all sorts of facts about the number of nuts and bolts in the wheel and how each bolt needed torquing individually. The funniest, and I don't know if this actually happened, was to put a b-low up d-oll in one of the arms as somebody needs to get inside via an inspection hatch to give the individual a little scare 🙂 The company is long gone, and I believe the land has been converted to housing. But one strange fact, Under the site ran a canal and every so often the fire brigade would turn and go down via an access tunnel to check for gas build up. It was said there were some narrow boats still down there.
My family came up on holiday and i suggested going to the Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel. The Kelpies is an amazing structure and there's a really good park which my nephews loved and a nature reserve. After a couple of hours there we went to the Wheel. It also has a playpark, places to sit, eat and enjoy watching the Wheel in action. You can even pay to experience it. They have 2 boats which go up and down all day. When it reaches the top the boat travels a little to a tunnel then heads back down. A day visiting these 2 attractions is well worth your time.
It's all about the canal lock . There are gates at each end. You go in close the gate you went through then you lower or raise the water and your boat together. Open the other gate out you go. On the Falkirk wheel same thing except the raising or lowering of the water the wheel moves you and the water.... 🇬🇧🙏😇🙄
There was a "staircase" of 11 locks that connected the 2 canals they were demolished and built over. This is the modern solution, there is an modernised (hydraulic) 8 lock system called Neptunes Staircase near Fort William. The principal in this is simple, imagine rain gutter with the ends blocked that stops the water escaping. The ponds are waiting bays. Like at a drive through.
It's amazing.I live about fifteen miles away. When you go on it, you don't even notice that it has moved. You feel a very slight jolt and that's it. It would have taken hours to go through all the locks. I worked at the Kelpies for a while. They are giant sculptures of horse' s heads and we would take people inside one of them. They are on a lock on the Forth and Clyde canal, a few miles from the Wheel. They are both huge attractions. The Forth and Clyde links up to the Rivers Forth and Clyde, so sea going yachts would come on to the canal from the Firth of Forth.
The best way I can describe these is that you pull up to the end of the "canal" and once you're in position the other end is sealed off as if your boat is in a giant bath. It can then be moved to allow you to go up or down.
My grandmother was born at Muirhouse Farm , then on the edge of Falkirk at the high station but now built over. She later lived at , and was married from West Carmuirs Farm which had the canal a couple of field lengths away and is less than a mile from the wheel as the crow flies.. I see the address of the Wheel given as Tamfourhill which used to be a farm ( now built over) and Granny knew the folk in that farm.
The ponds between the canals are for turnaround, if you were on a day out, for instance, and had to go back the way you came: also it's a place to park as traffic comes through and needs to wait for others to take their turn.
The Falkirk Wheel may be in Scotland, but all of the steelwork was made in England. It was made by a firm called Butterley Engineering, who were one of the very first engineering companies of the Industrial Revolution in the 1770s, at their works in Ripley, Derbyshire. This was just down the road from the house where Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the "Bouncing Bomb", was born.
Its extraordinary to see this working in real life . Theres also the Anderton Lift which was made in the hayday of canals . You can take a boat ride or even hire a boat and travel at this wonderful slow pace of life .
The way it works is that the boat goes on and then hydrolics close on boat sides like a boat and water in a bath being lifted up and docks with the water in the higher or lower canal .
its also done this way because the weight of the water and boats on each side is equal so it take very little energy to rotate it. Each compartment is full of water of same weight, when boats enter they displace the same amount of water as the boat weighs (Archimedes principle) so even if the boats are different weights or there is a boat on 1 side and only water on the other both sides always weigh exactly the same.
The water is held back by a lock. 2 gates (one in front of the boat, and one behind), that close together, to keep the water in, and open to let the boats out.
2:30 If you look, the sections are at different levels/heights, the boat goes into one of the narrow segments, it blocks off then the water level is raise or lowered to bring the boat to the level of the next section.
Norrmally, if a canal needs to climb or drop, there is a series of locks that connect two canals running at different heights, as was historically the case with these two. It is a time consuming and energy consuming process, though the latter is often human power in the modern age... So, for argument's sake, let's say we have to use 12 locks to connect us with another canal, that runs 48 feet lower than the one we're on. Your boat needs to sit in the same depth of water, maintaining the same level in each lock. This is achieved by sailing into the first lock - which has large gates holding back the water both in front of and then closed behind you, after which you need to wait until the water level in your lock is the same as in the lock four feet beneath you. When it does, the gates in front of you are opened, so that you can move forward into the second lock, and the gates behind you are closed, and water is pumped out to allow the water level to become the same as the lock beneath you. The process is then repeated for each lock, until all 12 of them (or four-foot steps, if you like) have been cleared; and you're able to continue with your boat still level and in the same depth of water, onto the second canal. Obviously, the locks you've left need to be refilled so the nextboat can use them, and they can only be used in one drection at a time. Hence, queues can build up if there are many boats wanting to go in the other direction! The locks on some canals arre however large enough to carry several boats at a time... The Falkirk Wheel operates on the same principle, but by revolving as it does with effectively, one whole lock and its' contents - i.e. your boat, and another that might be wishing to come up at the same time, plus all the water needed to maintain you both at the same levels when the gates open both above and below, from top to bottom, and bottom to top. As each 'lock' is the same weight because it contains the same amount of water and is constantly held in cradles that are always 180 degrees apart, the movement uses very little electricity and lots of gravity! Hence the entire movement from upper to lower canals and vice-versa is achieved in the equivalent of one lock movement - and unlike manual locks, it can carry traffic in both directions, at the same time. The high viaduct you see connecting with the upper level connects with a large basin in the upper canal, which is at right angles to it - similar to those you see in the lower canal. Indeed, each revolution uses only about the same amount of electricity as the simultaneous boiling of five kettles of water. If you want to see a flight of locks in operation for comparison, check out: ua-cam.com/video/E8qEvA1xJVg/v-deo.html
Practically anywhere in the centre of UK you will find a canal because they were used in the industrial revolution for moving goods and raw materials. Most were in a state of disrepair until the middle of the 20th century when people realised that they could be used for recreational purposes as also happened with disused railways The canal in our village actually runs under the Pennines and has been restored and had a new marina attached over many decades Some people actually live on the narrow boats but many are used for day trips or cafes etc As many have also commented you should check out the Anderton Boat Lift which is near Nantwich Cheshire and was opened in 1875 to connect 2 waterways like the Falkirk Lift and closed in 1983 due to corrosion of the structure. It has since been renovated and reopened in 2002. Well worth investing
I am a bit bias toward this area but I think you might like to see a bit of south Wales with people from across the pond (4 surprising days on a CANAL BOAT in WALES - Ep.1)
Also, check out the "Plan Incliné" at Ronquieres in Belgium. This works on the same principle, except they have to basins attatched together on a long rail system which replaces 14 locks. I used to live on a Barge (Arthur) on the old lock system.
There is a 5 rise lock at Bingley in Yorkshire that takes 30 minutes to go down and 45 minutes to go up so an 11 lock system would be at least double that time. This is a much faster , though modern system. There is a restored elevator style system at Anderton Boat lift, Cheshire
It's a canal it takes Barges up to the next canal. It's an amazing experience. I have been on it the history of this is amazing. Burke and Hare met up while they worked on the barges .The barge us slow to stop and its safe to go on. Your closed in. There is a park and a wee boating lake. There are also locks along this part leading to the wheel. I gave opened and closed the locks for the barges. To get on the wheel you have to book a slot and the barge.
STEVE if you talk over the video you're gonna miss what's said, formerly 2 canals were linked by 11 locks this is a form of boat lift, there are much older boat lifts see Anderton boat lift for an example Also checkout near Falkirk are The Kelpies.& Falkirk Palace.
I think its his excitement makes him do that, I love watching their reactions
Um, Falkirk doesn't have a Palace - we've got a French Chateau though. Linlithgow has the Palace 😀
John , Steve does it on every video.!! The amount of information he misses is unreal, what's even worse is after his missed the relevant information, he then asks the question not knowing his just talked over the anwser..!!
@@kathleenhyde771 agree with you, Kathleen! Love watching their vids but time after time, a question comes into Steve's mind and he turns to Lindsay to talk about it, forgetting to pause the video first, so when he has stopped watching the video and listening to the narrator he sometimes misses important information that might address/answer the question he has raised with Lindsay. Got to love his enthusiasm though!
Steve always talks loudly over the videos, he cannot contain his excitement and enthusiasm and so often he misses completely the information being given by the narrator, and the volume Steve sets on the video is often quieter than his own mic set up, so we find it difficult to hear the narrator too. At least _this_ narrator was (is) a real person instead of an AI voiceover which means we will often have to interpret it's mispronounced explanations / errors...!! I found myself saying to my screen 'Sshhh Steve just _Listen_ and learn!!' but understood how eagwe he was to see and try to work out for himself how the Falkirk Wheel works, whilst Lindsay was eager to see what else was available around it as though the place was soley set up as a tourist destination, which of course is only a small part of its need to be so brilliantly designed and constructed. Kudos to all involved with the thoughts and actions which went into and maintains the beautiful Falkirk Wheel. I do hope Steve and Lindsay will look at more in-depth narrow boat videos, and someday get the opportunity to try one out plus this wheel and maybe the Anderson BoatLift too... We have so many wonderful things, buildings, creations, landscapes, etc to be explored, I hope they take enough time so to do, as rushing to fit everything in during a brief vacation slot would be very tiring, and there's Sophia to consider too, as a youngster, so much to see and experience could be highly frustrating for a tired kiddie, bless her heart.
If you liked this, it's only right you see the Anderton Boat Lift! It was built in the 1800s and still runs today. It's the world's oldest working boat lift. This video here gives a look at it, how it operates and some history on it
"The Anderton Boat Lift as you've NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE! Ep. 153."
The Anderton lift is set up so that the top tank has 4 inches more water in it. This is enough to counteract the lower tank, so the whole system uses very little power, just like the Falkirk wheel.
@@sddsddean Very similar to the defunct (but hopefully future restored) Foxton inclined plane and basin, which was an attempt to replace the 10 locks there, but originally they found out that the cost of the steam engine and boiler etc to operate it and the need to keep it manned and maintained was not cost-effective, so the locks were retained, the plane was abandoned, and the mechanical equipment sold on.
@ Used to live near there and have taken a boat through the two 5 staircases several times. If the plane had been built about 10 years later it would have been electric and would probably still be working now.
I don’t think the video done justice to how the wheel actually works as it’s an incredibly clever concept and very energy friendly.
I actually now live in Falkirk and the wheel is a nice place to chill out for a couple of hours.
It also has a pleasant walk up to a section of the Antonine wall and a Roman camp (a wall built by the Roman armies).
Falkirk gets a lot of flak as on the surface it’s not the nicest looking town but it does have quite a few hidden treasures to visit.
I agree. Others have done videos on board that demonstrate the action from a boaters perspective much better
It did seem like this video was a bit too corporate/promo rather than educational
Hey Harry, you sound a bit American with your "done justice" instead of "did justice" or "does justice", and talking about a place to "chill out', instead of a place "to relax". And Falkirk "getting flak" instead of "taking criticism".
@@harryc8415 who is that directed at?
@@sharonmartin4036 Curious as to whether you’re in the U.K. or US?
A few points that weren't mentioned:
1) it's incredibly efficient. It takes the same amount of energy as it takes to boil seven kettles.
2) the guy that designed it built his prototype using his daughter's Lego.
3) the design is shaped like a Celtic axe which was found on the site when it was being excavated.
You should also check out The Kelpies, which are nearby.
Thanks for the info! :) That's pretty cool
You forgot to point out that t loses no more that a teacup of water a day.
@@mothmagic1Where does it go, I wonder
@@dougiemilnephotography756 Evaporates in the summer and leaks in the winter when the cold contracts the steel.
That's my explanation anyway although its Friday night and I`m just back from the pub 🍻🍻🤣
Steve, I just wanted to say that I've always enjoyed your channel, and when you first invited Lindsay (not sure if that's the correct spelling, sorry!) along for the ride, I was a little concerned about whether you were doing the right thing. But how wrong was I??!! She's turned out to be such a wonderful addition to the channel, to the extent that I can no longer imagine it without her! 😄 Lindsay, you have so much character and soul, together you make such a great double act! 😊
I love Lindsay !!
Thanks, Andy! Appreciate your support of the channel :)
You asked a few times in this video why this was an improvement/a necessity - you sort of got some of this from your reading after the video, but I will still summarise for you! Before the Falkirk Wheel, the only way to get between the two canals was through a series of 11 "locks". Locks are the only way, traditionally, to change elevation in a canal - canals have to be flat, otherwise the water would all flow downhill. However, that series of 11 locks took almost a full day to navigate, requiring you to allow those "pond" areas you spotted in the aerial footage to drain to sloooowly lower the narrowboats, move them past a gate, then allowing the water to move again. The wheel on the other hand takes only ~10 minutes to achieve the same elevation change!
As to why the canals were on different elevations - they were simply connecting different places which were at different elevations! If you are connecting two places which are, say, 200ft above sea level, you aren't going to randomly dig down to sea level to make the canal! So they were simply made at the appropriate elevations for their purposes, and then they later wanted to connect them to expand/interconnect the canal network - simple as that!
Yes, I feel like they should learn about locks from a video too.
...and as stated in the video the locks had been filled in and built on.
He was also explaining the lock rise had been built on while the canal was disused, so they needed something that would fit in the available space.
Another serious problem with locks, especially a 'staircase' that would be needed here is water loss, (Yes I know that there are settling pools by each lock, I live quite near the Foxton 10 lock 'staircase'), especially in a period of drought as a few minor canals of the time found out to their detriment when feeder reservoirs were too small, and of course if a canal dries out the clay lining can crack, and it is no longer watertight until extensive - and expensive - repairs are made.
I'm so glad you posted this additional information for Steve and Lindsay. Apologies to both, if they had already twigged !
This is a stones throw away from The Kelpies, which are definitely worth a visit.
agree, the west of scotland is stunning beauty yet few would ever visit thinking uk /scotland is london and no only places
The Falkirk Wheel is so finely balanced that it uses only 1.5Kw/hr per rotation. Less than the average little heater in the home.
Wow. That’s unbelievable😮
@@SH-yo3du though the hydraulic pumps consume 23 Kw, a full rotation consumes 3Kw/h which is very impressive.
@@georgebarnes8163 It is electric motors that move it no hydrolics.
@@davidtube79 the hydraulics are powered by electric motors
I heard it takes less energy for a full rotation of the wheel than it takes to boil a kettle of water.
I was interested in this but you made it difficult to listen. I missed half of what was being said. I love you guys but as a teacher I feel that saying less and listening more would benefit yourselves and the viewers. But please don’t stop talking altogether because I do love your reactions. I love your enthusiasm. Your enthusiasm is a compliment to all things British to which you are always kind and generous however sometimes we need to listen more. Please don’t be offended because I will never stop watching your channel. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother commenting. X
Hi , that’s why we have two ears and one mouth , so we can listen twice as much as we can speak , it is a little annoying at times I agree with you , but they are well meaning people
Regards
This is specifically a 'reaction' video, not a tour guide ! If you don't want the reaction 'getting in your way', maybe best to consider watching the original video ( search for 8NHRqaYrfhQ). The whole point of these ones is seeing other people's learning/response, not our own.
@@davidpattison5860 If I use my other aperture, I can sing in vertical stereo. 😸
Couldn’t agree more.
They have to talk a lot because of "fair use" clause. If they just listened without interrupting much they would lose their channel. What they should do though is pause the video before speaking, and then resume play, but go back by 2 or 3 seconds to before they paused. Result: no words/pictures lost.
I lived on a narrowboat for 20 years and worked on a marina. Narrowboats are supposed to keep to a 4 mph speed limit. You stop one by reversing the prop, and it takes a few feet to stop. The thing with the gates is a lock, where the boat is raised or lowered to fit the contours of the land. There are videos about locks.
Living on a narrowboat is a great way of life.
I love your comment about narrowboats being like an RV. I would describe it more like being a tortoise, moving slowly with your home. The maximum speed is 4mph and we often only travelled at 2mph. If you like speed this is not for you.
I used to enjoy walking on the towpath from lock to lock. Often getting there before the boat
As a Blue Badge tourist guide, I take tour groups here many times each year. It is a really elegant piece of engineering, and my groups are always wowed by the experience. The mechanism is so smooth that if you didn't look out of the window you wouldn't know you were moving!
Was on the wheel early on this year, quite exciting. Engineering only UK is capable of.. Its great once off lovely to sit and watch. I was with a group of people so we all got in and got all the story remember going through a tunnel. Near by are the Kelpies again something never seen anywhere else.
The main advantage of the wheel is that it is balanced and takes relatively little power to revolve the wheel, a lift would take much more power to operate. We visited this and the Kelpie statues at Falkirk when we worked in Edinburgh, and one of the vote counting centres managed by my wife was at Falkirk.
You should check out the Kelpie statues, also at Falkirk and were commissioned as part of the waterways development, both of these are fantastic places to visit, the Kelpies were water spirits and the statues were dedicated to the original Clydesdale horses that pulled the boats on the canal. The sculptures are like nothing, but nothing you have seen before, and have to be seen to be believed, and are difficult to really experience except by visiting, but it's well worth a look see.
Canals in the UK were mainly built as narrow waterways due to the costs of tunnelling in the 18th century, and of course as soon as one tunnel is built it dictates the size of the boats that can use the canal, hence the size of the canal, which were also cheaper to cut, as most are artificial waterways. Have a look at an old map of the canals of the UK and you will be amazed. The area where I was born and raised in the West Midlands (the Black Country) was reputed to have more miles of canals per square mile than Venice.
I was told by the staff the amount of power used is the equivalent of boiling a kettle 🤯 well worth visiting.
@@pda3095Wow! That’s crazy!
@@pda3095 Yep. There are better videos about the wheel that make this clear. The low energy consumption is insane.
@@pda3095 It's all due to the extreme care to balance the wheel components themselves, and the fact that it exactly balances whether there is one boat, or a boat in each tank, due to Archimedes principle (which the engineer was explaining while Steve was talking), and of course special bearings
The real benefit is in time - the wheel only take a few minutes to achieve a total change in height of the canal which would take all day in a flight of locks.
Im from Falkirk, still live here. Check out The Kelpies too.
If they like the wheel they'll love the kelpies.
Love the Kelpies. I ride the Falkirk Wheel when it first opened.
Was going to say the Kelpies wasnt too far away. Did both when i visited my brother in Stirling although as not a local, I live nr Dover, I could have got it wrong
@@jasonsmart3482 Maybe 3 or 4 miles away but you can walk the canal path from one to the other.
Hi guys ,iam a tour guide ,and go here many times ,we'll worth a visit.
There are a couple of boats you can go on that go up and down all day, its a trip up, then turn around and come back down. It costs £17.50 for an adult and takes 50 minutes.
However, if you have your own boat, or are renting a canal boat for a holiday, it is free to use the Falkirk wheel
The idea behind canals is that the canal is level and has no slope which makes it easier to pull the barges along it in either direction. (They were pulled by people and horses before engines were added.) Barges started off as the means of moving coal, steel, and products from factories in the industrial revolution. It was more cost effective than carts.
Where there is a hill or a slope, then the canal either goes through as a tunnel, or get dropped or lifted by a series of canal locks, or goes on a viaduct to cross a gap.
Tunnels are as you would expect. THey lay on their backs and "walked" the barge through by pushing off the ceiling of the tunnel in the direction of travel.
Locks are usually in series - the one set of gates open and the boat goes in, those gates close, the water level drops or climbs to match the canal section in your direction of travel. When they match you can open the second set of gates to enter the new section of canal. Some gates use a winch to open and close, but some just use long levers.
Viaducts are where they extend the canal out on trestles over a drop, like a bridge.
Barge lifts are like the Falkirk wheel - while lifting one barge, it drops another. Because of the principle mentioned, both ends always weight the same, evern if one end doesn't have a barge in it. The water displaced by a barge in one or both ends of the lift, means that both sides always weigh the same.
The reason they built this Wheel, was because it used to take nine locks to move the barges up the incline. Scotland is hilly - England is flat, that's why we had to be more creative with our canals. The reason they never recreated the nine locks - going up nine locks is a lot of work and takes time, plus they had been building houses on the land for years and there was no where else to build the locks needed to get to that height. They hoped it would become a tourist attractions and bring people to the district.
They put a boat in each bay , they counter each other's weight , thus makes the energy needed to move the wheel minimal ...
As the boat displaces its own weight of water it will always be balanced, even with just one boat. Two boats at a time will still halve the number of operations.
Water doesn’t go uphill, so in order for boats to connect to a higher canal, they need to lift the boat to the new height. I’m pretty sure I suggested Falkirk to you when you first got intrigued by narrow boats. Brilliant engineering!
Visited The Wheel in Summer, nice place to chill for 2 - 3 hours, my kid loved the water orbs and playpark and it was a lovely day weather wise, but 2 - 3 hours is enough.
You can do a tourist ride on the wheel for a few pounds, you jump on a boat it takes you up, you turn around and come back down, takes about 20 mins.
I remember, many years ago, seeing the Falkirk Wheel in person for the first time. They do a boat trip so that you can experience being lifted and lowered by the wheel. It is even more impressive in person - no video can do it justice.
Locks hold water back and in. You open to allow a boat in or out. Close then open sluice gates to alter water level. Once it's equal to the level you are either entering or exiting, you can reopen lock gates. Previous to the wheel, there were 11 locks in a step you had to negotiate. Problem if someone failed to close a gate properly or sluice, it could empty the whole lot and strand a boat. It would then take hrs to refill all the locks. The wheel removed this problem
Steve, canals are not as narrow as camera might suggest. They are wide enough for two narrow boats travelling in opposite directions to pass each other with room to spare. However, there are times when narrow boats want to turn around and change their direction of travel - hence parts of the canal network with wider areas to allow boats to turn around if they wish to change direction. Some wider parts of the canal also serve a function equivalent to a parking lot for narrow boats 😁
You ought to have said that 'many' locks are two boats wide - but the oldest are only just over seven feet wide- hence 'narrow boats' for canal barges.
To raise a narrow boat over a hundred feet would require the use of far too many traditional locks, slowing the journey so much that no one would be willing to undertake it. The Falkirk Wheel is an ingenious solution that cuts time to (probably) no longer than a single traditional lock. And, unlike most traditional locks, can also handle 2 boats at once! A modern miracle.
EDIT: I mean, one boat going up and one going down simultaneously.
it can take 4 at one time, two at each levels but on average its only 2
@jonathanpringle8238 Thanks for letting me know. However, my point was about the limitations of traditional locks, which generally were only wide enough and long enough for 1 boat and in one direction only. Multiply that by the number the amazing FW replaces (11, I believe) and the savings in time and money is enormous.
It's a practical lock that became an attraction
It can carry two narrow boats at a time in each casson.
There is a gate at each end
The canal systems are basically tourist lead now
The Falkirk wheel replaced 11 locks and took a day to travers
A
1, Google " what are canal locks "
2 , this modern engineering structure removed the need for the 11 locks in this stretch of canal
3 , due to modern development they had to find an alternative as the old locks had been built on and no longer existed
This never ceases to amaze me. It is incredible what man can do.
If we build enough of these, we can connect to the canals on Mars. 😽
Omg I live in this town lol saw the falkirk wheel be built from the ground up. It is an attraction of falkirk and u can even going on a boat on the wheel for a small price. There's a cafe and gift shop and lots of other things to do.
Im in Falkitk too
I've always been curious: is the 'L' in Falkirk silent like in Kircaldy?
@scotmark no its not
@@laura8933 Thanks for the clarification. Is that universal, or is there a minority that disagrees?
@scotmark no not officially lol ut slang we would say like faw kirk
Such a clever bit of engineering. Using weights and gravity it takes the power of a lightbulb to move! The Falkirk wheel is part of Helix Park, you should check out the Kelpies too!
Indeed. It's very energy efficient.
23 Kw of hydraulic pumps is one hell of a big light bulb
@ you’re quite right to correct me, my mistake. I knew it was low energy and have mixed up consumption with something else. I read the power is equivalent to 8 kettles! Amazing!
The Falkirk Wheel is not a fairground attraction- it is a modern miracle of civil engineering to solve a problem .
At the top of the wheel is The Kelpies and amazingly the Antonine wall (AD 142) which was built by the Romans runs along the ridge which they eventually abandoned to retreat to Hadrians wall. So ruins of a roman fort remains a few minutes walk from this and you see the foundations of all the buildings.
The Kelpies are miles away from the Falkirk Wheel. They're on the opposite side of town.
Everyone saying they’re talking too much… this a REACTION video. If you want the uninterrupted version…watch the original…obviously.
Exactly
I haven't been on the Falkirk wheel but have travelled on the Anderton boat lift a couple of times when we were travelling around on our narrowboat
Next you should check out the Anderton boat lift
I was just about to post the same comment but you beat me to it! It isn't that far from me (30 miles in Cheshire - am at the north of Bolton). Of course St Peters Way (A666) was built on top of the Bolton and Bury canal - such a shame as there used to be an amazing canal wharf in Bolton.
Please please just listen a little more and interrupt / speculate just a little less. You missed a key aspect which is because the weight of water going up and down are equal, it's very well balanced, so requires very little energy to run. Much less than a simple up/down lift. Love to see your reactions, but you frequently miss important details because of over-talking.
I agree, 10 seconds in and he's like, Wait!
Check out a video of narrowboats navigating a series of locks to understand how the Wheel replaces that
On the boat trip they say it uses less power than it takes to boil a gallon of water regardless of how many boats are trasncending.
He's the same every video .
Reaction channels are supposed to be like that. You either like it or don't. It's about natural approaches to content. Trying to manage and direct people's channels is obnoxious behaviour. You all get too comfortable trying to tell people when to speak or not.
He said that there were 11 locks to take the canal up (or down) the 110 feet height difference. Where they were is now tower blocks so they had to relocate the canal and that is when they decided to use the wheel rather than locks. I recently watched a video of boat lifts in China lifting huge boats of hundreds of tons in weight and the 3 lifts took 40 minutes instead of the 3-4 hours going through locks.
The top of the Wheel actually goes into a Tunnel under the Antonine Wall, as others have said a turf and wood wall built by the Romans across Scotland.
Falkirk takes its name from the oldest church in the town used to look spotted or variegated and is a corruption of the Scots for variegated church which is in turn comes from the Brittonic Egglesbreth or speckled church.
The gates you see are part of a "Lock". Where 2 canals meet that are at different elevations, they are separated by a lock (or multiple locks). Essentially there are 2 gates. The water inside the lock can be raised and lowered to match the water level at each joining canal. So when you approach the lock, you raise the water level inside the lock to the same height as the canal you are entering from. Then open the gate and move inside. Then you can close the gate behind you and lower the water level inside the lock to match the canal at the other end, then you can open the the other gate an exit at the new elevation. Essentially. The gates hold back the canal water at both ends, and the water in between the gates can be raised/lowered
I'm not surprised you hadn't heard of it, we were kind of passing it on a holiday a few years ago so we took a detour to it, my Dad had no idea where were guiding him to (he was driving) as he'd never heard of it either! All of my family have lived in the UK pretty much our whole lives, no idea how he was the only one who'd never heard of it or the Kelpies which are nearby and easy to do on the same day!
In answer to the question of why there's such a vertical difference between the two canals ... Scotland is a hilly country!
Previously, the two canals were connected by a flight of 11 locks, but that takes up a lot of linear space as well as being very slow to traverse.
The section that you commented where there was a wide pool and then a narrow bit - the narrow bits were locks, and the wider pools are to allow boats to stack up and wait for their turn to get through the lock.
Like a funicular railway, the Falkirk Wheel is very energy efficient because it is perfectly balanced - apart from any boats using it, the weight going up is equal to the weight going down.
The reason for those big round ponds in between the locks is not for boats to wait in, although obviously they may have to if they are too close to the boat in front.
What they are really for is because it is necessary to have a far greater volume of water between two locks than it is inside the lock itself. The idea is for the water in the lock to rise or fall by maybe 8 feet but the water between locks to only change by an inch or so. If those ponds weren’t there and you only had a narrow bit of canal between the two locks, when the water in the lock went up by 8 feet the water outside the lock would go down by 8 feet, and in fact as the water between lock is probably only a couple of feet deep it will probably drain out completely which kind of defeats the object.
I think, you should suss out how locks work (those gate things you mentioned). How locks make canals go up and down hill, and the way the water is kept flowing from the feed ponds (those circles of water).
Take a look at the Mindful Narrowboat. She lives full time and travels the whole 2,000+ miles of canals.
Hi folks- the Anderton boat lift deserves a review too- the oldest in the world and still working 🇬🇧🏴
Hi Steve and Lindsay, Falkirk is a town in Central Scotland it’s where two canals the Forth and Clyde which joins the East to the West coasts ( River Forth to River Clyde ) and the Union Canal ran from Falkirk to Edinburgh the capital city. Due to water always being level when canals come across differences in levels throughout the country they built locks . ( worth looking at how a lock worked on You Tube ) previously to join the both canal’s a series of locks lifted boats between the two canal’s which probably would have taken hours to navigate as these canal boats were used to haul coal , timber etc throughout the country. Nowadays canal’s are mainly used for pleasure and companies hire out boats which you live on for holidays the amazing thing about the Falkirk Wheel is only uses the same amount of power of boiling a kettle to do a revolution . A great place to visit another part of the canal network not far from the Falkirk Wheel is The Kelpies at the end of the canal ( again you can see the Kelpies on You Tube ) I could keep going with the history but better stop there 😂 Great video guys from my local area.
I did a project in Falkirk several years back. The Wheel was open for business as was the visitor centre but I never made time to go on it. There were several high profile projects running after the Millennium one of which was improving access to local woodlands. The Wheel is just a short distance from one of the woodland areas that was improved to allow people to walk, cycle, take children on bikes or in baby buggies / baby carriers. A 10 miles stretch was opened up through 3 woodlands. You commented on the views, I can confirm the views are stunning, especially from the top of the Wheel. On a clear day you can see all the way to Ben Lomond in the west and the Forth River in the eas not to mention all the Campsies and Ochill Hills. There is so much history associated with Falkirk that it is worth a visit. The Kelpies, sculptures of horses heads, had been given the green light just as my work ended but I've driven by them and they certainly are impressive.
There are 2 canals, One is 120 feet higher than the other. They used to connect by a number of locks but over the years the canals fell into disrepair, buildings being build on top of the old locks. The Falkirk wheel now lifts boats up and down from one canal to the other. It is impressive, i have been to see it.
It’s an amazing feat of engineering and great to visit 🏴🏴🏴
I'm sure it's already been said somewhere in here but the narrow locks work to go up or down gradients in the landscape. Theres a gate either end with flaps you can open or close with crank handle.
Fill/empty the lock water to the level your entering at, drive in, close gate and flaps, then open on the gates the other end to fill/empty to the desired water level, open the gates and leave.
I rode the Falkirk Wheel two years ago and it was an amazing experience. It takes about five minutes to change levels and using the same amount of power as boiling eight electric kettles. If you ever get the chance to visit don't pass up the opportunity to see the Scottish Kelpies, statues of mythical horses, which are nearby and are about 80 metres tall.
Hi guys I'm 74 now so I grew up with the devestation of the canal system. It's amazing how so much has been brought back to life. These were the highways of the UK in the 18th century. Now they offer us great cultural and holiday experiences. Great video, and keep reacting as you normally do. It is far more natural!!!
I've been on it. Its an incredible experience a true example of briliant engineering.
It is amazing engineering.
My Great GT Grandad was a coal merchant working on the Grand Union Canal, he had two narrow boats.
'They built The Foxton Inclined Plane the canal inclined plane on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 3.1 miles west of the Leicestershire
town of Market Harborough, named after the nearby village of Foxton.'
It was dismantled in 1910.
I've been up the Foxton flight of locks and we walked around to look at where the incline was. Fascinating
@gillfox9899 when they dismantled the inclined plane my GT GT Grandad bought some of it as scrap. He overloaded one of his boats called 'Margaret' and it sunk but they saved the valuables.. the Cheese & Bread 🤣
Glad found Foxton interesting x
We went on it during our holiday in Scotland
Guys to fully understand the Falkirk Wheel you need to watch a video on the Anderton Boat Lift which is a lift( elevator in American slang) for boats which raises boats up and down off a canal on to a wide river below or off the wide river on to the canal above, it operates in a similar way as the Falkirk wheel but instead of moving in a circular direction the boat lift just moves straight up & down
The thing that BLOWS MY MIND, but hardly anyone mentions, is the fact that this HUGE machine is run on electricity.
It lifts and lowers literally hundreds of tons of water using less electricity to boil a pint of water in a domestic kettle.
I’ve been there and it’s an amazing piece of engineering.
its good for a couple of hours. i've been a few times my dad worked on the boat taking visitors through the wheel, there is also a visitors centre there.
and because my dad worked there i did get a free trip on the wheel takes about 6 minutes.
not to far from the wheel is the kelpies you want to check them out i've been inside that too
Beautiful piece of engineering.
Your day is already good on a narrowboat. And then you see that.
The reason for the wheel is to link two separate canal networks that were originally built to connect areas of different elevations (Scotland being infamous for this). Later, to expand the network, they were linked by 11 locks - traditionally the only way to change elevation on a canal, which is flat to avoid water flow. Locks are areas on canals that can be closed off with gates at each end and the water level raised or lowered, allowing access to different 'levels' of the canal.
With the decline in use of canals, that flight of 11 locks were dismantled in 1933 and the land used for flats (apartments). They covered over half a mile and took almost a day to traverse. The wheel takes up less space and does the same traversal in 5 minutes.
When you are on the upper level, it feels like you're floating in the sky, looking out over the countryside. Then, the transition when the wheel turns, is really great fun - super smooth movement.
Hopefully one day we can experience it! Looks like a fun experience.
All canals have locks, but Falkirk needed much more than just a lock. The Falkirk Wheel is the ultimate lock!
For locks look up Foxton Locks, you’ll love them
Also If you were thinking of visiting this it would be worth visiting The Helix, which is home of The Kelpies in Falkirk. The largest equine sculptures in the world which is just under 5 miles away from the wheel.
Steve you missed most of the explanation talking over it, the canal chap actually answered all your questions. The wheel replaced 11 locks which has been built over. it is a counter balanced wheel and very efficient because the weight going up is the same as the weight going down. Friends of mine are retired and live aboard a narrow boat and have been on the wheel several times. You should do a video about canals try 'cruising the cut' series by a BBC journalist that lives on a narrow boat.
Me and my wife have visited the Falkirk wheel 3 times now,you can get on a tourist boat and ride the wheel it takes about half an hour to go up then down ,there is a visitors centre there and a cafe plus lots of things for the kids to do love your videos keep up the good work thanks 👍.
Wherever you see those gates on a canal, that's a lock designed to transition boats between sections of canal at different elevations because unlike rivers, canals have to be flat to maintain water level.
You sail between a pair of gates, the gates close, and water is then either pumped into or out of the "locked" section to raise or lower to the new elevation for you to continue your journey.
Because of the power of water pressure there's a limit to how high a lock can lift in one go, so the 100ft transition used to need 11 locks to execute. The Wheel lets it happen all at once and the weight of the boats is insignificant to the weight of water held at each end of the wheel keeping it balanced even if only one boat is using the Wheel at once...
They used to be connected by a flight of locks nearby, But that site had been built upon. A lock is the original canal way of traversing differences in elevation. The bit of the video where you were wondering about the wide pools and narrow connections between them are locks, how they work is worth a look, to understand how the canals used to work.
You mentioned at one point that that it would make sense that if one had a boat at the top and at the bottom that it would be more efficient to have them move at the same time; the whole point is that it does net matter f there is one boat or multiple boats.
The principle is that, each boat, upon entering either the top of bottom of the top section would displace the exact weight in water of the boats weight, thus at that point both the upper an lower basin would have identical weight. This would apply to if there were two boats, five boats between them of any variant possible. The sum total of any boats would displace the exact amount of weight in water. This means that every time the operation moved it would be transferring the exact and same weight (every time, with boats or not). This means that every time the operation is made, the same weight at both ends is the same which ensures a consistent weight is transferred every time which makes the operation much easier to manage, since there is no variation or calculation to be applied to leach lift/descent. The upshot of all this is to replace 11 or more locks with a single operation.
so the gates are locks. the purpose of the lock is to block water. on gradients you'd have locks behind and in front so you could add add and remove water depending if you are going up or down. the locks open once the water is balanced for the lock you need to open. the long wooden beams are how they open. you push them. think of how you open a car door underwater. you can't until you let the water in. similar principle
2:45 it's partly for boats to wait to go up/down the flight of locks, it's also to retain more water in the basins between the locks - water has to be pumped up the hill from the bottom to the top as every time you send a boat through the locks water always moves downwards (since it can't resist gravity) regardless of whether the boat is going up or down the locks. Therefore it's important to have a reserve of water "above" each lock so that you aren't relying on the water being passed directly from one lock to the next, since they do all leak a bit you'd run out of water by the end. Having a water reserve also allows for a lot of boats to pass in a small amount of time with the pump running constantly at a lower rate to refill the lock basins in gaps in traffic.
I did the IT Support for the company that made the wheel. The company was called Butterly Engineering and were based in Ripley Derbyshire.
There are all sorts of facts about the number of nuts and bolts in the wheel and how each bolt needed torquing individually. The funniest, and I don't know if this actually happened, was to put a b-low up d-oll in one of the arms as somebody needs to get inside via an inspection hatch to give the individual a little scare 🙂
The company is long gone, and I believe the land has been converted to housing. But one strange fact, Under the site ran a canal and every so often the fire brigade would turn and go down via an access tunnel to check for gas build up. It was said there were some narrow boats still down there.
My family came up on holiday and i suggested going to the Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel. The Kelpies is an amazing structure and there's a really good park which my nephews loved and a nature reserve. After a couple of hours there we went to the Wheel. It also has a playpark, places to sit, eat and enjoy watching the Wheel in action. You can even pay to experience it. They have 2 boats which go up and down all day. When it reaches the top the boat travels a little to a tunnel then heads back down. A day visiting these 2 attractions is well worth your time.
Canal narrowboats have a beam of 6'10" and can be up to 70' long.
They are usually made of steel and larger ones can weigh around 10 tons or so.
we also have the remains of the Antonine Wall running through Falkirk, its the second cross country wall the Romans built in Britain
It's all about the canal lock . There are gates at each end. You go in close the gate you went through then you lower or raise the water and your boat together. Open the other gate out you go. On the Falkirk wheel same thing except the raising or lowering of the water the wheel moves you and the water.... 🇬🇧🙏😇🙄
There was a "staircase" of 11 locks that connected the 2 canals they were demolished and built over. This is the modern solution, there is an modernised (hydraulic) 8 lock system called Neptunes Staircase near Fort William.
The principal in this is simple, imagine rain gutter with the ends blocked that stops the water escaping. The ponds are waiting bays. Like at a drive through.
It's amazing.I live about fifteen miles away. When you go on it, you don't even notice that it has moved. You feel a very slight jolt and that's it. It would have taken hours to go through all the locks. I worked at the Kelpies for a while. They are giant sculptures of horse' s heads and we would take people inside one of them. They are on a lock on the Forth and Clyde canal, a few miles from the Wheel. They are both huge attractions. The Forth and Clyde links up to the Rivers Forth and Clyde, so sea going yachts would come on to the canal from the Firth of Forth.
The best way I can describe these is that you pull up to the end of the "canal" and once you're in position the other end is sealed off as if your boat is in a giant bath. It can then be moved to allow you to go up or down.
My grandmother was born at Muirhouse Farm , then on the edge of Falkirk at the high station but now built over. She later lived at , and was married from West Carmuirs Farm which had the canal a couple of field lengths away and is less than a mile from the wheel as the crow flies.. I see the address of the Wheel given as Tamfourhill which used to be a farm ( now built over) and Granny knew the folk in that farm.
The ponds between the canals are for turnaround, if you were on a day out, for instance, and had to go back the way you came: also it's a place to park as traffic comes through and needs to wait for others to take their turn.
The Falkirk Wheel may be in Scotland, but all of the steelwork was made in England. It was made by a firm called Butterley Engineering, who were one of the very first engineering companies of the Industrial Revolution in the 1770s, at their works in Ripley, Derbyshire. This was just down the road from the house where Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the "Bouncing Bomb", was born.
Its extraordinary to see this working in real life .
Theres also the Anderton Lift which was made in the hayday of canals .
You can take a boat ride or even hire a boat and travel at this wonderful slow pace of life .
The way it works is that the boat goes on and then hydrolics close on boat sides like a boat and water in a bath being lifted up and docks with the water in the higher or lower canal .
It's designed like that because the two water holders balance themselves therefore requires only small amounts to operate.
its also done this way because the weight of the water and boats on each side is equal so it take very little energy to rotate it. Each compartment is full of water of same weight, when boats enter they displace the same amount of water as the boat weighs (Archimedes principle) so even if the boats are different weights or there is a boat on 1 side and only water on the other both sides always weigh exactly the same.
That's pretty genius!
The water is held back by a lock. 2 gates (one in front of the boat, and one behind), that close together, to keep the water in, and open to let the boats out.
Think about it, if there wasn't a "wall" then all the water would run out!
2:30 If you look, the sections are at different levels/heights, the boat goes into one of the narrow segments, it blocks off then the water level is raise or lowered to bring the boat to the level of the next section.
Yes you used to have to go up/down a big hill using a number of locks to raise/lower boats in small increments of say 6-10 feet each lock.
Norrmally, if a canal needs to climb or drop, there is a series of locks that connect two canals running at different heights, as was historically the case with these two. It is a time consuming and energy consuming process, though the latter is often human power in the modern age... So, for argument's sake, let's say we have to use 12 locks to connect us with another canal, that runs 48 feet lower than the one we're on. Your boat needs to sit in the same depth of water, maintaining the same level in each lock. This is achieved by sailing into the first lock - which has large gates holding back the water both in front of and then closed behind you, after which you need to wait until the water level in your lock is the same as in the lock four feet beneath you. When it does, the gates in front of you are opened, so that you can move forward into the second lock, and the gates behind you are closed, and water is pumped out to allow the water level to become the same as the lock beneath you. The process is then repeated for each lock, until all 12 of them (or four-foot steps, if you like) have been cleared; and you're able to continue with your boat still level and in the same depth of water, onto the second canal. Obviously, the locks you've left need to be refilled so the nextboat can use them, and they can only be used in one drection at a time. Hence, queues can build up if there are many boats wanting to go in the other direction! The locks on some canals arre however large enough to carry several boats at a time...
The Falkirk Wheel operates on the same principle, but by revolving as it does with effectively, one whole lock and its' contents - i.e. your boat, and another that might be wishing to come up at the same time, plus all the water needed to maintain you both at the same levels when the gates open both above and below, from top to bottom, and bottom to top. As each 'lock' is the same weight because it contains the same amount of water and is constantly held in cradles that are always 180 degrees apart, the movement uses very little electricity and lots of gravity! Hence the entire movement from upper to lower canals and vice-versa is achieved in the equivalent of one lock movement - and unlike manual locks, it can carry traffic in both directions, at the same time. The high viaduct you see connecting with the upper level connects with a large basin in the upper canal, which is at right angles to it - similar to those you see in the lower canal. Indeed, each revolution uses only about the same amount of electricity as the simultaneous boiling of five kettles of water. If you want to see a flight of locks in operation for comparison, check out: ua-cam.com/video/E8qEvA1xJVg/v-deo.html
Narrowboating is well cool. I have done many trips on a narrowboat. Yes you can go virtually anyhere in England,Scotland and Wales.
Practically anywhere in the centre of UK you will find a canal because they were used in the industrial revolution for moving goods and raw materials. Most were in a state of disrepair until the middle of the 20th century when people realised that they could be used for recreational purposes as also happened with disused railways
The canal in our village actually runs under the Pennines and has been restored and had a new marina attached over many decades
Some people actually live on the narrow boats but many are used for day trips or cafes etc
As many have also commented you should check out the Anderton Boat Lift which is near Nantwich Cheshire and was opened in 1875 to connect 2 waterways like the Falkirk Lift and closed in 1983 due to corrosion of the structure. It has since been renovated and reopened in 2002. Well worth investing
I am a bit bias toward this area but I think you might like to see a bit of south Wales with people from across the pond (4 surprising days on a CANAL BOAT in WALES - Ep.1)
Also, check out the "Plan Incliné" at Ronquieres in Belgium. This works on the same principle, except they have to basins attatched together on a long rail system which replaces 14 locks. I used to live on a Barge (Arthur) on the old lock system.
There is a 5 rise lock at Bingley in Yorkshire that takes 30 minutes to go down and 45 minutes to go up so an 11 lock system would be at least double that time. This is a much faster , though modern system. There is a restored elevator style system at Anderton Boat lift, Cheshire
It's an incredible structure and I have actually been on it. Amazing
There is a speed limit on British canals of 4 miles per hour so a relaxing holiday
I've been on it a few times as I live nearby. It's a bit of a tourist attraction so there is a visitors centre, cafe and gift shop etc.
It's a canal it takes Barges up to the next canal. It's an amazing experience. I have been on it the history of this is amazing. Burke and Hare met up while they worked on the barges .The barge us slow to stop and its safe to go on. Your closed in. There is a park and a wee boating lake. There are also locks along this part leading to the wheel. I gave opened and closed the locks for the barges. To get on the wheel you have to book a slot and the barge.