The Falkirk Wheel
by Bob Prescott
Those of you who contribute to Constructor Quarterly “The Meccanoman’s favourite magazine” will remember Geoff Bennett’s excellent model of the Falkirk Wheel on the cover of CQ68, a picture of which is reproduced on page 24 (you will need to subscribe to the magazine for that) with the kind permission of RJ Publications. When a relation asked if there was anything special we wanted to do on a recent visit to Scotland it was easy, “The Falkirk Wheel please”, and so it was arranged.
The Falkirk Wheel is part of Britain’s largest and most ambitious canal restoration project in recent years. It involved repair or reconstruction of many of its five hundred structures, bridges, locks and aqueducts along one hundred and twelve kilometres of Scotland’s two major canals, the Union and the Forth and Clyde. Scotland’s oldest canal, the Forth and Clyde runs for fifty seven kilometres from the River Clyde on the east coast with a branch canal to Glasgow. Completed in 1790 this was one of Scotland’s first transport routes and the world’s first sea-to-sea ship canal. The Union Canal between Falkirk and Edinburgh, a one level canal with no locks, was completed in 1822 and when the canals were linked by eleven locks near Falkirk, the route between Glasgow and Edinburgh was complete. It took a full day to traverse the locks and as faster modes of transport were introduced the locks were eventually closed and filled in during 1933.
After the Falkirk locks were closed the canals continued to operate individually but in the 1960s through navigation ceased when low level roads were built across them in “money saving” construction, rather than building bridges over them and for decades the canals lay virtually abandoned.
Revitalising the canals was dubbed “The People’s
Project”. It was certainly the renewed interest by members of the public and
canal enthusiasts in restoring the canals for their leisure activities which led
British Waterways to realise that this decaying system could be turned into an
asset to encourage canal-side development and small projects were started to
remove obstructions. The public confirmed its support when the project was
threatened with cancellation and volunteers quickly collected thirty thousand
signatures petitioning the authorities to continue with the plans.
Raising the funds was a difficult task but in the early
1990s Lottery funds became available and European agencies, The Millennium
Commission, Scottish Enterprise, British Waterways and local councils all
combined to revitalise the full length of both canals. Eventually £85.5 million
was raised to ensure the success of the project.
The Falkirk Wheel is unique – the Millennium project was
the first boat lift of its type in the world. During the structure’s five year
design period the plan ranged from an overhead monorail system, or a funicular
railway, to hefty cranes raising/lowering the boats between the canals.
Eventually the concept of a turning wheel was developed.
Main components of the wheel were “assembled and bolted
together in the factory like a giant Meccano set to ensure perfect fit”.
Sections were then taken apart and transported by road to Falkirk where the
construction team had the “awesome task of mating fifteen thousand bolts with
over forty five thousand bolt holes”.
The main drive of the wheel is by ten hydraulic motors that rotate the four metre diameter central axle. The gondolas together with the boats inside them are kept horizontal throughout the operation by a row of linked cogs that interact as the wheel turns but need no power supply. The actual half revolution only takes about five minutes but with loading and unloading the gondolas, the journey takes about fifteen minutes.
Of course both gondolas always weigh the same whether they have boats in them or not. Remember the Archimedes Principle – each boat displaces its exact own weight of water as it enters the gondola. So assuming the water depth is the same (and that is computer controlled) each gondola will transport the same total weight i.e. two hundred and fifty tonnes no matter how many boats it contains. The wheel therefore is perfectly balanced and takes only 1.5kw hours of electricity or enough to boil six kettles to complete the half revolution.
A ride on the wheel costs £8. You board your boat (about a
fifty seater) and move into the gondola. The gates close (a scissor movement)
and the ride starts and you are raised twenty five metres from the Forth and
Clyde canal up to the Union canal. The gate opens and you proceed along a one
hundred and four metre aqueduct and then through Britain’s first new canal
tunnel built for over one hundred years. This tunnel which is one hundred and
sixty eight metres long was built to route the boats beneath the Roman remains
of the Antonine Wall, once the Romans’ most northerly frontier. No ground
disturbance was allowed near this earth wall which was built by Emperor
Antoninus Pius in AD142. Once out in the daylight again, the boat turned in the
basin and we proceeded back through the tunnel, across the aqueduct (and the
views from up here are impressive) into the gondola for our return to the
bottom. All in all a most interesting one hour experience and well worth a visit
if you are in Scotland.
If you plan your ride in the morning take the very pleasant fifteen minute walk along the towpath to the Union Inn, one of the original canal hostelries for lunch. I can recommend the chicken breast stuffed with haggis!
