Kings Norton Stop Lock |
Yesterday when we came up from Lyon's Boatyard on the North Stratford Canal into the centre of Birmingham we passed through two stop locks. The first, at Kings Norton, formed the border between the Stratford and the Worcester & Birmingham canals: the second, at Gas Street Basin and generally called the Worcester Bar, formed the border of the W&B and the Birmingham Main Line.
Neither of these actually function today, the water levels being identical. Whilst the Worcester Bar was traditional hinged lock gates, at Kings Norton Jct the gates are in the form of a guillotine.
British Waterways have now introduced a new variation on the guillotine lock - this is designed to decapitate any boater taller than 5ft 2ins.
For pictures and more details follow this link to the Narrowboat World report.
Regular readers will also remember my recent post regarding this plan by BW to fit hand rails to the lock tail bridges on the Staffs & Worcs canal because a lad died whilst trying to cycle across a lock in Stourport.
It seems the safety of fools is more important than that of legitimate users.
Originally the Worcester Bar was just that. A solid bar of land that goods had to be carried over from one boat to another. The gate was added later
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