barge mass production

[SE18]

weather too cold to mortar more bricks to aqueduct wall so yesterday I finished 8 barges that will be towed by trains (similar to Panama canal "donkeys") throughout my canal and aqueduct system. I have to mount some tow hooks on them, of course and wait for the ice to thaw

cheers, Dave

 

[sissy]

see your back from your trip and have lots of ideas '

 

[addy1]

Neat barges! Great job there

 

[Mmathis]

You need an ice breaker! Great work, there!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Very good idea Dave! So what will the barges be carrying? Are they going to flow threw the tunnels I see? Looks pretty cool so far, guess we will have to wait till spring to see it in action.

 

[j.w]

Very cool as usual SE and guess you'll need to make little factories for all the industry going on in your canal zones and start collecting taxes from the good little people in the township there to keep those trains a rolling

 

[SE18]

Hi, they'll carry things like sand, gravel and some plastic little fish and lobsters and I need to build a crane to tranship them from barge to rail. Some might carry dog food. It would be fun watching the hounds chasing the barge as they're always in the mood for food.

 

[addy1]

How neat! You have one fantastic set up there.

 

[SE18]

Hi all, I painted 2 of the 8 barges just to see how they'd look; in photo one is unpainted

 

[j.w]

Really adds some color and your pooch is an acrobat :razz:

 

[fishguysky]

Can wait to see the finished product! so cool!

 

[SE18]

Hi, thanks, I finished painting the barges and will try and go out into the cold today to take some photos.

In the meantime, here are memories of warmer days, photos taken Sept 2012 when I did my first test run on a different style barge I built.

I think I already posted these on this forum a while back so bear with me.

During the trial run, The barge kept hitting the side and getting stuck when pulled by the locomotive so I may run a pole out from the locomotive to keep it centered in mid-channel. A friend had a bright idea to attach piano wire under the waterline like cat's whisker on each side so it cannot be seen but would keep the barge mid-channel.

 

[SE18]

I probably showed these too, but here's some earlier construction photos, my other hound is in one of the photos

I don't recommend anyone building a waterway with concrete like I did unless you like to carry hundreds of bags of 80 lb concrete around. It's pretty backbreaking but worthwhile to me and good exercise

 

[SE18]

And, I'd like to share prototype photos that inspired me to do this. Believe it or not, from about the late 19th century to around 1920, there were thousands and thousands of miles of railways next to canals and even aqueducts that pulled barges. Many were in Europe but some in the US

 

[SE18]

Here are more prototype photos I worked from for inspiration. Hope this doesn't take too much forum bandwidth. I included a photo of an old aqueduct in Mexico City to show some archaeology that also inspired.

The beauty of an aqueduct in your garden is you can always detect where a leak is since the waterway is raised.

I thought by now I'd get a leak or 2 but the aqueduct has survived several severe winters and the largest earthquake in memory in Virginia so I have to give thumbs up for concrete. Instead of ferrous rebar I used nonferrous to prevent rust expansion