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@@blowinkk9396 So you are unable to SEE the cereal in his spoon, SEE it go into his mouth, and HEAR him crunching it? I'm sure there is some sort of medication for that, but I'm damned if I know what it is. Good luck with that. As far as the bowl being empty, you can actually see the stuff in the bowl if you make just the smallest bit of an effort. Do you think that an empty china bowl and a china bowl with cereal in it sound any different when the spoon clinks on the edge? You are amazing. Cngratulations. You win the Internet!
According to the INGREDIENT LABEL it contains NO CEREAL. So it should not be advertised as cereal. Go back to being sponsored by Squarespace. At least they do not use false advertising.
We’ve just spent more than 4 years cruising the entire navigable canal system of England (and part of Wales)… it’s an incredible (and incredibly slow) way to see the canals!! So glad Megaprojects has finally done a video on our watery home!
I write from Australia, but I've had a wonderful holiday for 7 nights on the Lancaster canal. Start at Preston, end up at Tewitville and return. Simply wonderful to round a bend and find a village with an English pub right on the canal and in Summertime when the blackberries are ripe along the towpath, to pick those plump sweet berries to have with pancakes made on board for breakfast...wonderful!
Sounds like you had a tough time! We too did a 7 day narrowboat holiday out of Stoke-on-Trent, called the 'Counties Ring'. Lovely time as you said floating along pulling into local pubs, pizza restaurants in the villages and lush green countryside. Also went through a mile long brick lined tunnel near Stoke, amazing feat of engineering considering it is over 150 years old and still operates.
@@vumba1331 Yes, much under rated holidays and the engineering of the 18th century...amazing. You could spend a life time and not cover all the canals. Great for walking along the towpaths as well if you can get another member of your 'crew' to mind the tiller.
@@mikevale3620 Indeed! What we found so incredible with this setup was that we often cruised through the middle of villages on a raised canal and the traffic would go under the canal to get from one side to the other! Not only that, as we were approaching the Harcastle tunnel before Stoke, I mentioned before, a branch of the canal turned of to the right, went through a lock and then passed over the top of our canal, a solid, fully riveted steel aquaduct, magnificent piece of enginerring when other people were still using horse and carts and running around in grass skirts.
The rebirth of the British canals has essentially resulted in long narrow parks traversing the country. The towpaths are quite popular with pedestrians and cyclists. There may be more traffic on the towpaths than in the canals. I can't think of a better use for the canal system today.
Here in the Dutchies we’re promoting haulage by boat. Every boatride means at least ten trucks not stuck in traffic, so… Apart from perishables, canals are still very much a viable economic option
Every thing could come full circle. You start using canals for haulage again. Then they start bringing back some of the railroad right of ways that were abandoned because of modern highways and truck usage, because railways are much faster than canals. But the trucks will never go away. They provide that quick door to door service. Every mode of transport has it's own niche. And realistically the railroads can do just about anything a canal can .....much faster and more efficiently. In some instances though I could see some canal boats ekeing out a living. The small size of most of the canals is a real problem though.
Chicago has an old Canal called the Illinois and Michigan canal, which was for mule and a horse pulled barges, then almost immediately went out of use when the Illinois sanitary and ship Canal, much wider and a little deeper, was built to accommodate self-propelled vehicles. The large canal is still in used to this day, And it’s purpose was to link the great lakes with the Mississippi River. They are still enormous grain barges running the waterways to this day
Great Video! In Canada a similar thing happened. Two canals were constructed to haul goods, and bypass areas close to the USA. The Trent-Severn Canal is 386km (240 miles) and the Rideau Canal is 202 km (126 miles) long. Both are now very active recreational canals. Canada does still have one set of canals that are still active for commercial use. The St. Lawrence Seaway, the Welland Canal and the Sault Ste. Marie lock allows ocean going ships to travel into the interior of the continent. The Sault Ste. Marie lock can take lakers of over 1000 ft in length. Maybe a future story, if you haven't done it already.
Of all the British topics I've wanted to see covered, this is the one I've wanted to see most of all! There's something deeply British in something made for commerce being saved by someone deciding they want some leisure.
Good to see the Bridgewater canal featured as I live in-between the Moore/Runcorn Bridgewater split. Al canals are wonderful and the wildlife and sedate nature of the boats makes it a nice relaxing walk with the dog.
This channel covers lots of very well designed things: ships, buildings, canals and railways. It'd be interesting to cover things that were not well designed at all. Like the Russian ship the Novgorod. That spun when it fired one of its guns.
I have lived on a narrowboat, firstly on the Kennet and Avon Navigation, then traversing the River Thames to the Oxford Canal, for five years now. Covid did slow my progress, but the canal also provided my jabs! They were delivered by a medical team on a narrowboat. Over the entire English Waterways system, 13,000 of us floaty types live full time on our boats. We are Britain's boat people, and we love it. Even close to cities, the canal seems to be very rural, peaceful and 'away from it all'. No more bricks and mortar for me, except for locks, bridges, aqueducts and tunnels. 😃
The Barton Aqueduct was demolished and replaced with the Barton Swing Aqueduct (another very impressive engineering fete). This was done to allow larger ships to pass bellow on the new Manchester Ship Canal which was previously the River Irwell.
I used to live near the Leeds-Liverpool canal, and loved to have walks along it (one insanely long one from Colne to Skipton, cos I took a wrong turn!!!), and the irony is, that stretch I frequented out-lived the railway between the two mentioned towns, which were cut off during the Beeching axe, so the canals did beat the rails in some ways... :)
Somehow he didn’t even cover the Bingley 5 Rise Locks. Some fantastic engineering was done getting canals built up the slopes and even through the Pennines.
@@SquirrelArmyStudios2015 There's a lot of engineering, both old and new, on the UK canals, I think the video would have needed to be a megablaze-length video to cover the majority of the well-known features... :)
But are they still using the canal for freight haulage? A canal is not something that just disappears when not used. (well I guess sometimes they do, but it tales a long time). With a railway you tear up the rails for the scrap metal and in 15 or 20 years you won't even know there was a railway there.
@@johnstudd4245 UK, they still use some river navigations for haulage, and the odd boat eg for supplying fuel to other vessels, but I think commercial narrow boats stopped. Interestingly, in WW1, canals still carried more tons than the railways, but over very much shorter distances. Unused canals became 'useful' places to dump rubbish, or the water so unhealthy that they were filled in, so not leaving anymore behind than some disused railways.
This was really cool!!!!! I learned not only a bunch of neat stuff about just how Britain got things done before rail was a thing (but after coal was a big deal)... I also learned the meaning of a word I had heard and not understood (didn't know what a "navvy" was), and I got a much better idea of just what a real, working canal system would look like and how it would function! I had read about a canal system similar to this, in a fantasy novel ("Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson if anyone wanted to know), but when I read that book I had absolutely no idea how awesome canals actually are. None! Oh, and as for "navvy" - one of my favorite Gaelic Storm songs ("Don't Go for the One") has a line saying that someone's wife has "arms like a navvy" - so now I can enjoy that a little bit more than before hahaha!
In 1968 my folks decided that we needed to go to Europe. We spent a week in London. One of the things we did was take a trip on a canal boat. I mean, anytime the folks could get us kids on a boat it seemed they did so. We also took a boat ride to Greenwich. So, this old lady in Texas has fond memories of a canal in England...
The view from the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is amazing. A friend lived nearby in Acrefair so we often went to the aqueduct and enjoy the area. And Llangollen with the horseshoe waterfall is lovely as well. Love the area.
There was an American canal boom that began in the early 1800s, probably following the British boom, and most of those canals are in complete ruin today, with the notable exception of the Erie Canal. Interestingly, though, with the advent of railroads and automobiles (the former, like in Britain, decimating canal commerce), many of the Midwestern canals became railroad or automobile highway beds.
I live somewhat close to a ruined canal outside of Savannah Georgia. It’s part of the Ogeechee river system. They have an interpretive center off the road but really not much is left of it and people dump trash in it all the time. It’s on a street with homes and of course they don’t like trash dumped basically in their front yard, so they clean it up the best they can. I see all kinds of small wildlife in there, like turtles and birds, it’s a shame that we don’t preserve the good things.
In America if you’ve got something nice someone will come along and trash it for you. Especially public stuff. Fishing holes, parks… If it’s nice bring a trash bag.
What a great topic, and so well done. One of my favorite memories of London is the canal system in Paddington where people live aboard their long boats and can walk to get every thing they need.
Sankey has been altered so much it is not possible to navigate the full length. Much of the works have now gone. Yet there are still some industrial archaeological gems to see👍
Ive sailed across France in the canals and some of the aqueducts are amazing - google them - so beautiful. Its kinda scary being in a boat 10 feet above the water and the water is in a narrow metal channel 300 feet above the river valley below - I mean you cant drive off the edge but the water is flush with the top of the metal aqueduct like an infinity pool so its just mind-bending.
I went to pontyscillyite (no I can’t spell it, it’s welsh) aqueduct the other day by car and realised its a lot more terrifying when you’re on foot than when you’re in a boat.
08:00 - I forget which ship it was, but there's great photos of the construction of an early US battleship with mules carrying stuff up and down onto the half-finished hull.
There is even new sections of canal planned as part of old canal restorations. Look up the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal restoration as an example. They have their own UA-cam channel so you can see their progress.
Nice. The Bridgewater canal goes through my hometown. The Barton Aqueduct was demolished and replaced by a turn-able bridge that now goes over the Manchester Ship Canal (formerly the River Irwell). It actually rotates 90 degrees to let ships pass through, with gates that close to keep the water in. I believe it's still the only bridge of its kind in the world, a fantastic piece of engineering for the time. I think a video on the Manchester Ship Canal, and the engineering challenges that had to be overcome would be very interesting
OMG I live 2 minutes walk from the Sankey Canal aka St Helens Navigation and extra fun fact it passes below the 1st ever railway line in the world, "int" Warrington brilliant :) ....and let's not even mention the Manchester Ship Canal! :)
The Manchester Ship canal was a white elephant lasting 80 years, and struggling many times during its use. The bottom section near Liverpool is used as a linear dock. Manchester docks no longer exist in a commercial form. Needs making narrower, using reclaimed land for a high speed railway.
@@chriswall27 But overall the Ship canal was a failure. It heavily criticised at the time of construction. Manchester wanted to bypass the rail companies who were overcharging for goods transport from Liverpool to Manchester. Manchester also companied that Liverpool was charging for goods not collected immediately at the docks. The Port of Liverpool's success was getting ships in and out fast, so cargo had to be cleared quickly from quays. If you did not collect your cargo, they charged for storage taking the cargo away from the dock quay's transit sheds to adjacent warehouses. It would have been cheaper, and more flexible if Manchester built three docks at Eastham on the Mersey estuary, then a built a goods rail line to Machester with many goods terminals off the line. The notion of taking ocean going ships to Manchester was well....
The original Barton aquaduct was destroyed by the building of the Manchester Ship Canal....however it was replaced by a "swing aquaduct" so the Bridgewater canal is still navigable.
I wasn't ready for how excited I was to see the name of my hometown pop up on the screen - Altrincham, along the Bridgewater Canal. Once described by The Guardian as the best place in the UK for a Christmas pub crawl.
yep, my family are from sale and it was so odd seeing all those familiar names, just shows how much industry there was in the north until london ruined it all
If you're interested in this subject, there's a great channel called Cruising the Cut - it's about an ex-journalist and TV presenter who decided to give it all up and go and live on a boat on the canals, and it's surprisingly good!
Indeed it is, Daniel. I've watched them all and a pleasant unexpected side-effect is the sedate ASMR atmosphere it possesses. It is quite easy to spend an evening watching several of them in sequence. For those unfamiliar with the term, the Cut is British jargon for the canal system.
@@deltavee2 Oh yes, of course, I should've mentioned that; thanks for pointing it out. I remember being a bit confused by it when I first came across the channel...
Could you do one on the royal navy. Starting at selling bonds, creation of the bank of England, the new farming practices, and how the whole country changed to build the huge war machine that it became. ¿Or am I asking too much ?
Saw some young'uns launching their kayaks from a ramp, about 10' high, into the Grand Union south of Regents Park back in 1990. Charming stretch of tranquility in the midst of a great city.
I always dreamt of having a narrowboat, so I sold my house and now I live on a seventy foot narrowboat on the Grand Union and I love the laid back life.
Wow, I suggested this months ago(I'm sure with lots of others). The subject is my number one interest and I live in Kansas and have never been on a narrowboat (lived close to a canal once back in the '70's). hehe. thanks.
Tunnels, bridges, locks etc all very good, but how many pubs? A popular stop for those on the water, and an interesting place to spend an afternoon in the beer garden watching the boats. Several in the West Midlands and Warwickshire I have frequented.
Good to see this notable gap in the Whistler catalogue is now filled. Nice pics too. A good combined Biographics, Geographics, Megaprojects, Side Projects opportunity now arises, for you to follow, surveyor William Smith on his journeys around the UKmarking out canal routes, and noticing how the rock strata he saw, followed distinct bands and zones, so that he could vn predict what fossils would be found. This led to the creation ofthe first UK geological map, which is quite remarkable for its similarity with the one we still use today.
An idea for a future video: The Building of the Rideau Canal. 202 km long, started in 1826, finished in 1832. It's also the longest skating rink in the world in the winter, at 7.8km!
As an Ottawan, I second the motion. In fact, I've mentioned it in comments here before... *SIMOOOOON* are you listening/reading??? It's got military in it and everything including the Queen literally royally pissing off the residents of the former capital of Canada, Kingston.
@@MrSixdrive Hi Six. IYou're absolutely right. I knew of it but decided to leave it out for fear of overburdening the suggestion. I live in Ottawa not a large distance from where the malaria kicked in. How they got navvies to work under those conditions is beyond me. Crap food, a pittance for pay, rotten whiskey and a local plague sure would have put me off. It was probably the only thing going on at the time, I don't know.
A very similar fate happened in Portage, WI, where I'm from. We are at the portage between the Fox River, flowing north to the Great Lakes, and the Wisconsin River, which flows south into the Mississippi. Shortly after they put the canal in the railroad came through. Now the locks are sealed and it's a glorified runoff ditch. They have been dredging it, however. If you ever made another video about canals in the US, this would be an interesting one to cover!
Could lead onto a nice side project, the Manchester ship canal. Enabling ocean going vessels to sail straight into the centre of Manchester from the Irish Sea. Costing £15 million back in1887. And still in use today.
You should look into the California Aqueduct. It's pretty impressive, but there's a plan to build a tunnel under the entire Sacramento River Delta to elongate it. Couple that with traversing the San Andreas fault and it's worthy of consideration.
No its not. I used to to live there and all that aqueduct does is steal water from Northern California. Southern California should be cut off and left to dry out. See how long holywood lasts without water.
I had no idea there were modern aqueducts, I thought it was just an ancient roman thing. And there are ones people sail across like they're rivers? That's really cool. I guess in America we just pump water underground, at least where I live, but all that sounds way cooler.
Ive sailed across France in the canals and some of the aqueducts are amazing - google them - so beautiful. Its kinda scary being in a boat 10 feet above the water and the water is in a narrow metal channel 300 feet above the river valley below - I mean you cant drive off the edge but the water is flush with the top of the metal aqueduct like an infinity pool so its just mind-bending.
@@piccalillipit9211 sure will. I'd say it sounds like a good video topic, the modern history of aquaducts, but like with most things simon got to it first lol.
@@HistoryScienceTheater - There is one where one aqueduct crosses another aqueduct over a river. Which is quite impressive. But that one is not very high.
@@cjperry2731 where i live in a particularly rural area of conneticut its just all pumped underground. water will flow up hill provided the source is of higher elevation than where its flowing to (the physics of a syphon) making it way easier to do it that way. that and only having heard of aquaducts in the context of ancient rome made me thing there werent any here.
The first steam railway was here in Wales in 1804 at Merthyr Tydfil. Trevithick's Pen-y-Darren locomotive hauled iron ore from Merthyr to Abercynon. The Stockton & Darlington was first steam locomotive hauled passenger railway.
We went on a fishing trip on stainforth n keadby canal with friends when a kid. My mate had his leg punctured by something by jumping in a lock. I got impetigo from swimming in the same hellhole. What a wonderful day!
You failed to mention that with the demolition of the Barton Aqueduct, due to the building of the much bigger Manchester Ship Canal underneath, it was replaced by the even more amazing Barton Swing Aqueduct, still in use today!
Jen blazing on the sponsor intro? Loved it. Blazing Fact Boi is the only one whose reads I don't skip. Add the memes, gold. Fact Boi should be able to charge 50% more. If I bought anything he's advertising other than Rotting Turtle, I'd totally get the stuff he blazes on.
It says something when 'the father of the railways' comes from a region that doesn't have canals. When you don't have something the much of the rest of the country does, then you have to innovate.
thank you so much for minding the eating noises and seemingly pointing through the fourth wall. I absolutely love the show, all whining aside. hope everyone is doing well.
@@johnburns4017 next to primrose hill is barrow hill reservoir built in 1825 to supply drinking water to london. barrow hill was a twin to primrose hill but it was demolished to build the reservoir.
The biggest, or one of the biggest irrigation canal systems, was built all over country Victoria,Australia. Not in use today, it was essential for 70 years and was almost exclusively gravity driven.
You forgot the Manchester ship canal. This is an enormous achievement. Another ship canal built to save ships from venturing into the raging seas north of Scotland, was so dificult to excivate, it was too small for ships of the era.
Been watching your videos for some time now, find them amusing and informative, thought this really interesting as I live and work on a narrowboat. Its great that your letting people know this 👍😁😂 Ps it's not all roses and castles 😂🤣😂
Omg Widnes has made it into a mega projects 😂 during the industrial revolution it used to stink and still does, I used to ride my bike along the Widnes-Warrington canal not realising it was the first industrial revolution canal !!!
How about doing a video on the history and facts on CALFIRE! They have the largest non-militarized fleet of aerial firefighting airplanes in the world. For state to have the power they do is worthy of a video. On just the sheer infrastructure, capital and logistics it takes to run a state firefighting force is impressive.
I live on the Huddersfield Narrow (shallow) Canal known as the Everest of canals I'm moored at lock 29 this is only 8.5 miles from the beginning, you don't want to operate more than 5 in a row without help
As an Australian I have zero knowledge of the English canal system and if I have to be honest even less interest. But that was bloody fascinating thanks guys.
Thanks to Magic Spoon for sponsoring today’s video! Build your own variety box here → magicspoon.thld.co/MEGAPROJECTS and use code MEGAPROJECTS to get $5 off today!
That sure sounds like one empty bowl of Magic Spoons lol So bad you wont eat it? Just push it on your viewers haha.
Is it available outside the USA? Nope. Advertising money done. Boom. Have them Simon
@@TheLoxxxton It says in the video "NOW AVAILABLE IN CANADA AND THE UK." I suppose you missed that bit.
@@blowinkk9396 So you are unable to SEE the cereal in his spoon, SEE it go into his mouth, and HEAR him crunching it? I'm sure there is some sort of medication for that, but I'm damned if I know what it is. Good luck with that. As far as the bowl being empty, you can actually see the stuff in the bowl if you make just the smallest bit of an effort. Do you think that an empty china bowl and a china bowl with cereal in it sound any different when the spoon clinks on the edge? You are amazing. Cngratulations. You win the Internet!
According to the INGREDIENT LABEL it contains NO CEREAL. So it should not be advertised as cereal. Go back to being sponsored by Squarespace. At least they do not use false advertising.
We’ve just spent more than 4 years cruising the entire navigable canal system of England (and part of Wales)… it’s an incredible (and incredibly slow) way to see the canals!! So glad Megaprojects has finally done a video on our watery home!
I have enjoyed your videos...everyone should watch...informative, and enchanting
I write from Australia, but I've had a wonderful holiday for 7 nights on the Lancaster canal. Start at Preston, end up at Tewitville and return. Simply wonderful to round a bend and find a village with an English pub right on the canal and in Summertime when the blackberries are ripe along the towpath, to pick those plump sweet berries to have with pancakes made on board for breakfast...wonderful!
Sounds like you had a tough time! We too did a 7 day narrowboat holiday out of Stoke-on-Trent, called the 'Counties Ring'. Lovely time as you said floating along pulling into local pubs, pizza restaurants in the villages and lush green countryside. Also went through a mile long brick lined tunnel near Stoke, amazing feat of engineering considering it is over 150 years old and still operates.
@@vumba1331 Yes, much under rated holidays and the engineering of the 18th century...amazing. You could spend a life time and not cover all the canals. Great for walking along the towpaths as well if you can get another member of your 'crew' to mind the tiller.
@@mikevale3620 Indeed! What we found so incredible with this setup was that we often cruised through the middle of villages on a raised canal and the traffic would go under the canal to get from one side to the other!
Not only that, as we were approaching the Harcastle tunnel before Stoke, I mentioned before, a branch of the canal turned of to the right, went through a lock and then passed over the top of our canal, a solid, fully riveted steel aquaduct, magnificent piece of enginerring when other people were still using horse and carts and running around in grass skirts.
The rebirth of the British canals has essentially resulted in long narrow parks traversing the country. The towpaths are quite popular with pedestrians and cyclists. There may be more traffic on the towpaths than in the canals. I can't think of a better use for the canal system today.
Now days, Canals which are still functionable mainly have canal holiday companies on them,
Here in the Dutchies we’re promoting haulage by boat. Every boatride means at least ten trucks not stuck in traffic, so… Apart from perishables, canals are still very much a viable economic option
And "Tres Hombres" is giving it a world wide puch on top of it.
Every thing could come full circle. You start using canals for haulage again. Then they start bringing back some of the railroad right of ways that were abandoned because of modern highways and truck usage, because railways are much faster than canals. But the trucks will never go away. They provide that quick door to door service. Every mode of transport has it's own niche. And realistically the railroads can do just about anything a canal can .....much faster and more efficiently. In some instances though I could see some canal boats ekeing out a living. The small size of most of the canals is a real problem though.
Chicago has an old Canal called the Illinois and Michigan canal, which was for mule and a horse pulled barges, then almost immediately went out of use when the Illinois sanitary and ship Canal, much wider and a little deeper, was built to accommodate self-propelled vehicles. The large canal is still in used to this day, And it’s purpose was to link the great lakes with the Mississippi River. They are still enormous grain barges running the waterways to this day
Great Video! In Canada a similar thing happened. Two canals were constructed to haul goods, and bypass areas close to the USA. The Trent-Severn Canal is 386km (240 miles) and the Rideau Canal is 202 km (126 miles) long. Both are now very active recreational canals.
Canada does still have one set of canals that are still active for commercial use. The St. Lawrence Seaway, the Welland Canal and the Sault Ste. Marie lock allows ocean going ships to travel into the interior of the continent. The Sault Ste. Marie lock can take lakers of over 1000 ft in length. Maybe a future story, if you haven't done it already.
I’d like to see an episode of Mega Projects about the building of the Simon Whistler UA-cam empire.
That would be a very long episode haha
He doesn't actually run any channels or write the scripts. He's basically a face for hire who people can pay to read scripts.
The logistics of smuggling such vast quantities of cocaine into Europe would make an interesting video.
4:00 - Chapter 1 - The oldest canals
5:30 - Chapter 2 - Industrial revolution
6:55 - Chapter 3 - The sankey canl
9:50 - Chapter 4 - The bridgewater canal
12:55 - Chapter 5 - Canal mania begins
15:05 - Chapter 6 - A rival emerges
16:10 - Chapter 7 - Decline
17:45 - Chapter 8 - Rebirth on the modern era
I remember visiting my uncle on his barge when I was about 8 years old... this has brought back many memories, thank you!
Of all the British topics I've wanted to see covered, this is the one I've wanted to see most of all! There's something deeply British in something made for commerce being saved by someone deciding they want some leisure.
Brilliant observation, so true!
Stop eating cereal on camera, plug the product all you want but stop eating on camera, it sounds very annoying.
@@FahqAll ...He doesn't read the comments Dummy. Especially a comment on a comment that has nothing to do with cereal
@@FahqAll also if you want a sugar free breakfast....porridge?
The Erie canal has been saved the same way.
Good to see the Bridgewater canal featured as I live in-between the Moore/Runcorn Bridgewater split. Al canals are wonderful and the wildlife and sedate nature of the boats makes it a nice relaxing walk with the dog.
This channel covers lots of very well designed things: ships, buildings, canals and railways. It'd be interesting to cover things that were not well designed at all. Like the Russian ship the Novgorod. That spun when it fired one of its guns.
Their carrier would be a good one too. That thing is a disaster.
I have lived on a narrowboat, firstly on the Kennet and Avon Navigation, then traversing the River Thames to the Oxford Canal, for five years now. Covid did slow my progress, but the canal also provided my jabs! They were delivered by a medical team on a narrowboat. Over the entire English Waterways system, 13,000 of us floaty types live full time on our boats. We are Britain's boat people, and we love it. Even close to cities, the canal seems to be very rural, peaceful and 'away from it all'. No more bricks and mortar for me, except for locks, bridges, aqueducts and tunnels. 😃
The Barton Aqueduct was demolished and replaced with the Barton Swing Aqueduct (another very impressive engineering fete).
This was done to allow larger ships to pass bellow on the new Manchester Ship Canal which was previously the River Irwell.
I used to live near the Leeds-Liverpool canal, and loved to have walks along it (one insanely long one from Colne to Skipton, cos I took a wrong turn!!!), and the irony is, that stretch I frequented out-lived the railway between the two mentioned towns, which were cut off during the Beeching axe, so the canals did beat the rails in some ways... :)
Somehow he didn’t even cover the Bingley 5 Rise Locks. Some fantastic engineering was done getting canals built up the slopes and even through the Pennines.
@@SquirrelArmyStudios2015 There's a lot of engineering, both old and new, on the UK canals, I think the video would have needed to be a megablaze-length video to cover the majority of the well-known features... :)
But are they still using the canal for freight haulage? A canal is not something that just disappears when not used. (well I guess sometimes they do, but it tales a long time). With a railway you tear up the rails for the scrap metal and in 15 or 20 years you won't even know there was a railway there.
@@johnstudd4245 UK, they still use some river navigations for haulage, and the odd boat eg for supplying fuel to other vessels, but I think commercial narrow boats stopped. Interestingly, in WW1, canals still carried more tons than the railways, but over very much shorter distances. Unused canals became 'useful' places to dump rubbish, or the water so unhealthy that they were filled in, so not leaving anymore behind than some disused railways.
This was really cool!!!!! I learned not only a bunch of neat stuff about just how Britain got things done before rail was a thing (but after coal was a big deal)... I also learned the meaning of a word I had heard and not understood (didn't know what a "navvy" was), and I got a much better idea of just what a real, working canal system would look like and how it would function! I had read about a canal system similar to this, in a fantasy novel ("Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson if anyone wanted to know), but when I read that book I had absolutely no idea how awesome canals actually are. None!
Oh, and as for "navvy" - one of my favorite Gaelic Storm songs ("Don't Go for the One") has a line saying that someone's wife has "arms like a navvy" - so now I can enjoy that a little bit more than before hahaha!
In 1968 my folks decided that we needed to go to Europe. We spent a week in London. One of the things we did was take a trip on a canal boat. I mean, anytime the folks could get us kids on a boat it seemed they did so. We also took a boat ride to Greenwich. So, this old lady in Texas has fond memories of a canal in England...
Wedgewood used canals to transport their pottery well into the 20th Century. They claimed to suffer less breakages on the calm canals.
Surprised stoke didnt get a mention
The view from the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is amazing. A friend lived nearby in Acrefair so we often went to the aqueduct and enjoy the area. And Llangollen with the horseshoe waterfall is lovely as well. Love the area.
Canals were created to help everything evolve and build faster, but now are a fun way to slow down. Rather ironic! ;)
There was an American canal boom that began in the early 1800s, probably following the British boom, and most of those canals are in complete ruin today, with the notable exception of the Erie Canal. Interestingly, though, with the advent of railroads and automobiles (the former, like in Britain, decimating canal commerce), many of the Midwestern canals became railroad or automobile highway beds.
I live somewhat close to a ruined canal outside of Savannah Georgia. It’s part of the Ogeechee river system. They have an interpretive center off the road but really not much is left of it and people dump trash in it all the time. It’s on a street with homes and of course they don’t like trash dumped basically in their front yard, so they clean it up the best they can. I see all kinds of small wildlife in there, like turtles and birds, it’s a shame that we don’t preserve the good things.
In America if you’ve got something nice someone will come along and trash it for you. Especially public stuff. Fishing holes, parks… If it’s nice bring a trash bag.
What a great topic, and so well done. One of my favorite memories of London is the canal system in Paddington where people live aboard their long boats and can walk to get every thing they need.
Sankey has been altered so much it is not possible to navigate the full length. Much of the works have now gone. Yet there are still some industrial archaeological gems to see👍
The canals are fun to travel and the process of the locks is amazing in their simplicity and effectiveness
Ive sailed across France in the canals and some of the aqueducts are amazing - google them - so beautiful.
Its kinda scary being in a boat 10 feet above the water and the water is in a narrow metal channel 300 feet above the river valley below - I mean you cant drive off the edge but the water is flush with the top of the metal aqueduct like an infinity pool so its just mind-bending.
I went to pontyscillyite (no I can’t spell it, it’s welsh) aqueduct the other day by car and realised its a lot more terrifying when you’re on foot than when you’re in a boat.
08:00 - I forget which ship it was, but there's great photos of the construction of an early US battleship with mules carrying stuff up and down onto the half-finished hull.
That was uss texas, that was built in 1911
@@pads-zr9ln Thank you.
There is even new sections of canal planned as part of old canal restorations. Look up the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal restoration as an example. They have their own UA-cam channel so you can see their progress.
Nice. The Bridgewater canal goes through my hometown. The Barton Aqueduct was demolished and replaced by a turn-able bridge that now goes over the Manchester Ship Canal (formerly the River Irwell). It actually rotates 90 degrees to let ships pass through, with gates that close to keep the water in. I believe it's still the only bridge of its kind in the world, a fantastic piece of engineering for the time. I think a video on the Manchester Ship Canal, and the engineering challenges that had to be overcome would be very interesting
OMG I live 2 minutes walk from the Sankey Canal aka St Helens Navigation and extra fun fact it passes below the 1st ever railway line in the world, "int" Warrington brilliant :)
....and let's not even mention the Manchester Ship Canal! :)
The Manchester Ship canal was a white elephant lasting 80 years, and struggling many times during its use.
The bottom section near Liverpool is used as a linear dock. Manchester docks no longer exist in a commercial form. Needs making narrower, using reclaimed land for a high speed railway.
@@johnburns4017 Still a great piece of engineering.
@@chriswall27
But overall the Ship canal was a failure.
It heavily criticised at the time of construction.
Manchester wanted to bypass the rail companies who were overcharging for goods transport from Liverpool to Manchester.
Manchester also companied that Liverpool was charging for goods not collected immediately at the docks. The Port of Liverpool's success was getting ships in and out fast, so cargo had to be cleared quickly from quays. If you did not collect your cargo, they charged for storage taking the cargo away from the dock quay's transit sheds to adjacent warehouses.
It would have been cheaper, and more flexible if Manchester built three docks at Eastham on the Mersey estuary, then a built a goods rail line to Machester with many goods terminals off the line. The notion of taking ocean going ships to Manchester was well....
Chris, do you think that pic at 7:20 was the lock at Blackbrook?
"Yall ever be just chillin in the rain..."
HAHAHAHA OMFG HE DID USE THAT CLIP
The original Barton aquaduct was destroyed by the building of the Manchester Ship Canal....however it was replaced by a "swing aquaduct" so the Bridgewater canal is still navigable.
I wasn't ready for how excited I was to see the name of my hometown pop up on the screen - Altrincham, along the Bridgewater Canal. Once described by The Guardian as the best place in the UK for a Christmas pub crawl.
yep, my family are from sale and it was so odd seeing all those familiar names, just shows how much industry there was in the north until london ruined it all
If you're interested in this subject, there's a great channel called Cruising the Cut - it's about an ex-journalist and TV presenter who decided to give it all up and go and live on a boat on the canals, and it's surprisingly good!
Indeed it is, Daniel. I've watched them all and a pleasant unexpected side-effect is the sedate ASMR atmosphere it possesses. It is quite easy to spend an evening watching several of them in sequence. For those unfamiliar with the term, the Cut is British jargon for the canal system.
@@deltavee2 Oh yes, of course, I should've mentioned that; thanks for pointing it out. I remember being a bit confused by it when I first came across the channel...
Could you do one on the royal navy. Starting at selling bonds, creation of the bank of England, the new farming practices, and how the whole country changed to build the huge war machine that it became. ¿Or am I asking too much ?
The historian Dan Snow argues that it was one of the kickstarters for the industrial revolution.
Saw some young'uns launching their kayaks from a ramp, about 10' high, into the Grand Union south of Regents Park back in 1990. Charming stretch of tranquility in the midst of a great city.
I always dreamt of having a narrowboat, so I sold my house and now I live on a seventy foot narrowboat on the Grand Union and I love the laid back life.
Wow, I suggested this months ago(I'm sure with lots of others). The subject is my number one interest and I live in Kansas and have never been on a narrowboat (lived close to a canal once back in the '70's). hehe. thanks.
Kansan in Birmingham England, unlike rivers, you need a license to canoe canals.
I subscribe to a guy who documents his life on a canal boat and I envy him every episode.
Cruising the cut?
Tunnels, bridges, locks etc all very good, but how many pubs? A popular stop for those on the water, and an interesting place to spend an afternoon in the beer garden watching the boats. Several in the West Midlands and Warwickshire I have frequented.
Good to see this notable gap in the Whistler catalogue is now filled. Nice pics too.
A good combined Biographics, Geographics, Megaprojects, Side Projects opportunity now arises, for you to follow, surveyor William Smith on his journeys around the UKmarking out canal routes, and noticing how the rock strata he saw, followed distinct bands and zones, so that he could vn predict what fossils would be found. This led to the creation ofthe first UK geological map, which is quite remarkable for its similarity with the one we still use today.
An idea for a future video: The Building of the Rideau Canal. 202 km long, started in 1826, finished in 1832. It's also the longest skating rink in the world in the winter, at 7.8km!
As an Ottawan, I second the motion. In fact, I've mentioned it in comments here before...
*SIMOOOOON* are you listening/reading??? It's got military in it and everything including the Queen literally royally pissing off the residents of the former capital of Canada, Kingston.
@@deltavee2 also in it's history is a large malaria outbreak that infected about 60% of the workers and was responsible for about 500 deaths
@@MrSixdrive Hi Six. IYou're absolutely right. I knew of it but decided to leave it out for fear of overburdening the suggestion. I live in Ottawa not a large distance from where the malaria kicked in.
How they got navvies to work under those conditions is beyond me. Crap food, a pittance for pay, rotten whiskey and a local plague sure would have put me off. It was probably the only thing going on at the time, I don't know.
Thanks Simon and Mega Projects, it was an amazing video. Canals are brilliant.
Thank you so much for doing this video, always wondered about the canal system here in the UK!
A very similar fate happened in Portage, WI, where I'm from. We are at the portage between the Fox River, flowing north to the Great Lakes, and the Wisconsin River, which flows south into the Mississippi. Shortly after they put the canal in the railroad came through. Now the locks are sealed and it's a glorified runoff ditch. They have been dredging it, however. If you ever made another video about canals in the US, this would be an interesting one to cover!
Now you have made me curious about the French and German canals. Can we expect future episodes on those too?
Could lead onto a nice side project, the Manchester ship canal. Enabling ocean going vessels to sail straight into the centre of Manchester from the Irish Sea. Costing £15 million back in1887. And still in use today.
Haha I live next to it can’t beat seeing a ship inland still exciting now at 35 years old 👍🇬🇧
You should look into the California Aqueduct. It's pretty impressive, but there's a plan to build a tunnel under the entire Sacramento River Delta to elongate it. Couple that with traversing the San Andreas fault and it's worthy of consideration.
No its not. I used to to live there and all that aqueduct does is steal water from Northern California. Southern California should be cut off and left to dry out. See how long holywood lasts without water.
@@prepperjonpnw6482 Megaprojects isn't about good projects, just massive projects.
Simon what a pity your uncle didn’t work for the BBC... You are so good even if a little fed up with it at times. Excellent documentary thank you sir.
I seem to recall the Grand Union Canal being one of the first, if not the first, cases of what we would call crowd funding today.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I requested this ages ago! So glad you got around to it. ♥
I had no idea there were modern aqueducts, I thought it was just an ancient roman thing. And there are ones people sail across like they're rivers? That's really cool. I guess in America we just pump water underground, at least where I live, but all that sounds way cooler.
Ive sailed across France in the canals and some of the aqueducts are amazing - google them - so beautiful.
Its kinda scary being in a boat 10 feet above the water and the water is in a narrow metal channel 300 feet above the river valley below - I mean you cant drive off the edge but the water is flush with the top of the metal aqueduct like an infinity pool so its just mind-bending.
@@piccalillipit9211 sure will. I'd say it sounds like a good video topic, the modern history of aquaducts, but like with most things simon got to it first lol.
Oh yeah there are lots of aqueducts..
LA uses aqueducts and so does NY.
An aqueduct is just a structure for getting water from one place to another..
@@HistoryScienceTheater - There is one where one aqueduct crosses another aqueduct over a river. Which is quite impressive. But that one is not very high.
@@cjperry2731 where i live in a particularly rural area of conneticut its just all pumped underground. water will flow up hill provided the source is of higher elevation than where its flowing to (the physics of a syphon) making it way easier to do it that way. that and only having heard of aquaducts in the context of ancient rome made me thing there werent any here.
The first steam railway was here in Wales in 1804 at Merthyr Tydfil. Trevithick's Pen-y-Darren locomotive hauled iron ore from Merthyr to Abercynon. The Stockton & Darlington was first steam locomotive hauled passenger railway.
I live on boat on a canal in the UK, looking forward to this......
The canal system in the UK is falling apart due to very bad management by the canal and river trust
4:50 got my first boat at Torksbury.
We went on a fishing trip on stainforth n keadby canal with friends when a kid. My mate had his leg punctured by something by jumping in a lock. I got impetigo from swimming in the same hellhole. What a wonderful day!
Im watching this from my Boat that i live on, on the Canals of England..
Me too! Currently at Fazeley Junction on the Cov!
@@iainbrooks6558 Lea Navigation Nr Enfield.
Watching this from the comfort of my own narrowboat. Thanks Simon
You failed to mention that with the demolition of the Barton Aqueduct, due to the building of the much bigger Manchester Ship Canal underneath, it was replaced by the even more amazing Barton Swing Aqueduct, still in use today!
We need a megaprojects video of a day in Simon Whistler's life. Including recording ect.
You could do a Side Projects on The Falkirk Wheel part of the Forth - Clyde Canal.
All this makes the Erie Canal look like, wait for it, a Side Project!
I still want to see a megaprojects video about the 1911.
Thanks for making a video about this. Fascinating stuff.
Jen blazing on the sponsor intro? Loved it. Blazing Fact Boi is the only one whose reads I don't skip. Add the memes, gold. Fact Boi should be able to charge 50% more. If I bought anything he's advertising other than Rotting Turtle, I'd totally get the stuff he blazes on.
This is directly related to what I’m studying. Thank you.🙏
what are you studying?
@@LordInter The industrial revolution and how that impacted politics of the time.
@@almighty3946 nice! the luddites, works rights, unions, the invention weekends and days off? Holidays didn't come till later ofc
the Whitewicks have been doing a series of videos on the canal system, as well as abandoned rail lines
Awesome, this is the one I had asked for.
It says something when 'the father of the railways' comes from a region that doesn't have canals. When you don't have something the much of the rest of the country does, then you have to innovate.
thank you so much for minding the eating noises and seemingly pointing through the fourth wall. I absolutely love the show, all whining aside. hope everyone is doing well.
Another great video Nomis!!!
Keep it up! 👍
Make a video on Konkan Railway, one of the most ambitious rail projects undertaken by the Indian Railways
Primrose Hill in London was made from the earth dug from the Regents canal.
no it wasn't!! Primrose hill has always been there, its a natural hill.
@@greghavers821 I have been misinformed then
@@greghavers821
The bottom of Primrose Hill is an underground reservoir.
@@johnburns4017 next to primrose hill is barrow hill reservoir built in 1825 to supply drinking water to london. barrow hill was a twin to primrose hill but it was demolished to build the reservoir.
@@greghavers821
Barrow Hill reservoir was decommissioned in 2002. It was totally rebuilt about five years ago to cope with increased water demand.
Looks like it would be perfect for kayakers or rafters that want to travel downstream and do some camping all over the UK.
Yes but if you fall in keep your mouth closed!
There is nothing better then canal fishing in the summer
Apart from the countless shopping trolleys !
Maybe the odd sock or plastic bag but not a trolley as of yet lol
Reminds me of the old Red Dwarf quote about going condom-fishing at the canal.
Awesome episode thanks guys.
When you're not making horrendous jokes or fake laughing your videos are quality
Funny you mention the British museum video… I just finished watching “count dankula’s” new video on “the stone of destiny“ stolen from Ireland.
The biggest, or one of the biggest irrigation canal systems, was built all over country Victoria,Australia. Not in use today, it was essential for 70 years and was almost exclusively gravity driven.
I really enjoyed this video, well done.
You forgot the Manchester ship canal. This is an enormous achievement. Another ship canal built to save ships from venturing into the raging seas north of Scotland, was so dificult to excivate, it was too small for ships of the era.
Been watching your videos for some time now, find them amusing and informative, thought this really interesting as I live and work on a narrowboat.
Its great that your letting people know this
👍😁😂
Ps it's not all roses and castles
😂🤣😂
Another great presentation xxx
Wehey Lincoln finally gets a shoutout! Simon you need to do Lincoln Cathedral as a mega project!!
was that the one they only finished a few years ago?
@@LordInter a few hundred years ago!
@@jmichael3584 ah, so i googled it, i was thinking of Sheffield Cathedral which took 766 years to build finally completed in 1966 :)
Omg Widnes has made it into a mega projects 😂 during the industrial revolution it used to stink and still does, I used to ride my bike along the Widnes-Warrington canal not realising it was the first industrial revolution canal !!!
I would have liked to have some explanation of how the locks work. Other than that, it was a great video Simon. Thanks!
How about doing a video on the history and facts on CALFIRE! They have the largest non-militarized fleet of aerial firefighting airplanes in the world. For state to have the power they do is worthy of a video. On just the sheer infrastructure, capital and logistics it takes to run a state firefighting force is impressive.
When I retire I would love to move to england and spend the rest of my days living on a narrowboat.
I live on the Huddersfield Narrow (shallow) Canal known as the Everest of canals I'm moored at lock 29 this is only 8.5 miles from the beginning, you don't want to operate more than 5 in a row without help
I would love to see one on the A-10 Warthog
That was just amazing.
omg I'm from St Helens! I'm pretty sure connecting my town to the river mersey started the industrial revolution.
Legend. Love mega projects
Nice my town on Megaprojects!
As soon as I saw canals, I knew St Helens would be on there 👌🏼
Idk if Jen, the editor for casual criminalist does this channel as well but the clip about standing in the rain was hilarious 😂
watching this from my narrowboat!
I loved this! I used to live in a canal boat :)
As an Australian I have zero knowledge of the English canal system and if I have to be honest even less interest. But that was bloody fascinating thanks guys.
That 5km long canal in a deep subterranean tunnel maked my skin crawl
One good thing I can say about Magic Spoon it makes other cereals look like a bargain
What a way to spend 2 weeks in the warmer weather, chugging up and down the canals of Briton