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The entrance to the Falkirk Tunnel for the Union Canal at the village of Glen. It is 630 m long, very dark and damp.
This is a 5 shot HDR in Photomatix, tweaked a bit in Topaz .
Fractalius version here: www.flickr.com/photos/42343095@N08/14688043770/
Mono version: www.flickr.com/photos/42343095@N08/14697555617/in/photost...
Falkirk, Scotland
Our main holiday is many months away but we both felt we needed a week off (Mrs R more than I on account of her very busy job). We don't like wasting our hols sat at home and have already done a lot of DIY this year so a few days away was swiftly organised. We've never been to Edinburgh or Scotland for that matter, but the price of a city centre hotel looked a little expensive but my ever resourceful wife found a great deal at the Premier Inn at South Queensferry which delighted me immensely on account of a certain bridge in the area... but more of that in later postings.
I always like to familiarise myself with a route beforehand than simply "wing it" by sat-nav - getting lost is a speciality in our household. We would pass by Falkirk en-route and the opportunity to call in on this engineering marvel was too good to miss. Even more luck... The Kelpies are only 5 miles away as well, so our trip on this bank holiday Monday was bated full of photographic excitement and promise, if only for me! The only thing we over looked was... the bank holiday, the weather, travelling north, Scotland.
So, this is my first posting from our little trip and I make no apology for uploading an obvious image of the wheel but the place was full of visitors (as you would expect on a bank holiday) and I simply grabbed shots inbetween showers when everybody else ran for cover. Having said that, this is more about the engineering than photography for me. Mrs R has already told me it's a boring shot!
A little about the wheel...
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The lift is named after the nearby town of Falkirk (obviously). It opened in 2002, reconnecting the two canals for the first time since the 1930s as part of the Millennium Link project.
The plan to regenerate central Scotland's canals and reconnect Glasgow with Edinburgh was led by British Waterways with support and funding from seven local authorities, the Scottish Enterprise Network, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Millennium Commission. Planners decided early on to create a dramatic 21st-century landmark structure to reconnect the canals, instead of simply recreating the historic lock flight.
The wheel raises boats by 24 metres (79 ft), but the Union Canal is still 11 metres (36 ft) higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel. Boats must also pass through a pair of locks between the top of the wheel and the Union Canal. The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world, and one of two working boat lifts in the United Kingdom, the other being the Anderton boat lift.
How it works...
The wheel has an overall diameter of 35 m (115 ft) and consists of two opposing arms extending 15 m (49 ft) beyond the central axle and taking the shape of a Celtic-inspired, double-headed axe. Two sets of these axe-shaped arms are connected to a 3.8 m (12 ft) diameter central axle of length 28 m (92 ft). Two diametrically opposed water-filled caissons, each with a capacity of 250,000 litres (55,000 imp gal), are fitted between the ends of the arms.
The caissons or gondolas always carry a combined weight of 500 tonnes (490 long tons; 550 short tons) of water and boats, with the gondolas themselves each weighing 50 tonnes (49 long tons; 55 short tons). Care is taken to maintain the water levels on each side, thus balancing the weight on each arm. According to Archimedes' principle, floating objects displace their own weight in water, so when the boat enters, the amount of water leaving the caisson weighs exactly the same as the boat. This is achieved by maintaining the water levels on each side to within a difference of 37 mm (1.5 in) using a site-wide computer control system comprising water level sensors, automated sluices and pumps. It takes 22.5 kilowatts (30.2 hp) to power ten hydraulic motors, which consume 1.5 kilowatt-hours (5,100 BTU) per half-turn, roughly the same as boiling eight kettles of water.
Each of the two caissons is 6.5 metres (21 ft) wide, and can hold up to four 20-metre-long (66 ft) canal boats. Watertight doors at each end match doors located on the upper structure and lower dock pit. Due to space concerns, where a normal hinged door would dramatically reduce the useful length of the caisson, vertically rising doors were chosen. The doors are raised from a recess in the base of the caisson and powered by a hydraulic lance when docked.
What's so special about the Falkirk Wheel I hear you ask...
This is what the Scots did with their grant from the Millennium Commission, whereas we built a bloody big tent in London with nothing to put in it!
Falkirk Wheel = £78M
Millennium Dome = £789M
This series of photographs is of the Falkirk wheel or more accurately, a rotating boat lift in Tamfourhill, Falkirk, in central Scotland, connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. I managed to take these in between some prolonged rain showers. The thing that struck me is the lift does clunk and bang a bit as it rotates with a canal boat in each water trough, I guess the noises are magnified by the extensive steel plating used in construction. Conversely, the Anderton Boat lift in Cheshire, England lifts vertically and is relatively quiet. Nevertheless, it is an impressive piece of engineering and first ran in 2002.
Out with dad yesterday, we stopped at the Falkirk Tunnel on the Union Canal. Completed in 1822, it runs some 630 metres through the rock of Prospect Hill.Among the Navigators - or "navvies" - who built it (with a mix of hand-tools and explosives) were two Irishmen, William Burke and William Hare. Later they would move to Edinburgh, where the canal terminates, and become two of the most infamous residents of our ancient city.
Burke and Hare were "resurrection men", the grave robbers who stole corpses to sell to the medical school covertly. Except they couldn't be bothered doing the dirty work of digging the bodies up and just murdered people, then sold the bodies to an unquestioning Doctor Knox for his anatomy school (the city is still a leader in medical research today).
At their trial Hare turned King's Evidence, explaning all their crimes in return for a pardon, while his partner Burke swung from the leafless tree of the gallows. In a deliberate irony his body was than given to the medical school to be publicly dissected by anatomists, just as his victims had been.
The doctor made leather notebook covers from Burke's skin, still in the possession of Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh, while Burke's skeleton is still on display in the anatomy museum of Edinburgh University (yes, I have seen it, but you're not allowed to take photos there).
Innovative engineering history and dark, criminal history combined in one, long, rock-cut tunnel..... I didn't know we were going here today, if I did I would have brought the tripod or my LED Light Panel. Maybe next time!
this is a magnificent example of technological wonder. This is The Falkirk Wheel that connects Forth and Clyde and Union canals in Scotland. It rotates and lifts the boats from the lower lever of the canal to the upper side - you can sit outside the building, drink coffee and watch the spectacle. I felt there like back in time, when the first machines were introduced to people and they all stood in awe saying just: wow.. So i felt exactly this way seeing it for the first time. Definitely worth it!
'Standing at 100ft tall and weighing more than 300 tonnes each, the magical Kelpies are a man-made wonder and a feat of engineering. The works of art, created by artist Andy Scott, have become iconic on the landscape after being modelled on real-life icons of times gone by — Clydesdale horses Duke and Baron. The Kelpies represent the lineage of the heavy horse of Scottish industry and economy, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges and coalships that shaped the geographical layout of Falkirk.'
The Falkirk Wheel, named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The difference in the levels of the two canals at the wheel is 24 metres (79 ft), roughly equivalent to the height of an eight storey building.
This series of photographs is of the Falkirk wheel or more accurately, a rotating boat lift in Tamfourhill, Falkirk, in central Scotland, connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. I managed to take these in between some prolonged rain showers. The thing that struck me is the lift does clunk and bang a bit as it rotates with a canal boat in each water trough, I guess the noises are magnified by the extensive steel plating used in construction. Conversely, the Anderton Boat lift in Cheshire, England lifts vertically and is relatively quiet. Nevertheless, it is an impressive piece of engineering and first ran in 2002.
The Kelpies are 30-metre-high horse-head sculptures, standing next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and near River Carron, in The Helix, a new parkland project built to connect 16 communities in the Falkirk Council Area, Scotland. The sculptures were designed by sculptor Andy Scott and were completed in October 2013. The sculptures form a gateway at the eastern entrance to the Forth and Clyde canal, and the new canal extension built as part of The Helix land transformation project. The Kelpies are a monument to horse powered heritage across Scotland.
The sculptures opened to the public in April 2014. As part of the project, they will have their own visitor centre, and sit beside a newly developed canal turning pool and extension. This canal extension reconnects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the River Forth, and improves navigation between the East and West of Scotland.
A rework of a shot I took quite a while back
I loved the atmosphere caused by the fast moving rainy weather and sunny spells but the constant change of light meant I had to work fast in order to get the many frames that make up this stitched panorama and I had many failed attempts before I got the hang of it.
As always with these large scenes it is best viewed via the Original size version
The Falkirk Wheel lies at the end of a reinforced concrete aqueduct that connects, via the Roughcastle tunnel and a double staircase lock, to the Union Canal. Boats entering the Wheel's upper gondola are lowered, along with the water that they float in, to the basin below. At the same time, an equal weight rises up, lifted in the other gondola.
This works on the Archimedes principle of displacement. That is, the mass of the boat sailing into the gondola will displace an exactly proportional volume of water so that the final combination of 'boat plus water' balances the original total mass.
Each gondola runs on small wheels that fit into a single curved rail fixed on the inner edge of the opening on each arm. In theory, this should be sufficient to ensure that they always remain horizontal, but any friction or sudden movement could cause the gondola to stick or tilt. To ensure that this could never happen and that the water and boats always remain perfectly level throughout the whole cycle, a series of linked cogs acts as a back up.
Hidden at each end, behind the arm nearest the aqueduct, are two 8m diameter cogs to which one end of each gondola is attached. A third, exactly equivalent sized cog is in the centre, attached to the main fixed upright. Two smaller cogs are fitted in the spaces between, with each cog having teeth that fit into the adjacent cog and push against each other, turning around the one fixed central one. The two gondolas, being attached to the outer cogs, will therefore turn at precisely the same speed, but in the opposite direction to the Wheel.
Given the precise balancing of the gondolas and this simple but clever system of cogs, a very small amount of energy is actually then required to turn the Wheel. In fact, it is a group of ten hydraulic motors located within the central spine that provide the small amount, just 1.5kw, of electricity to turn it.
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Tamfourhill, Falkirk, in central Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It reconnects the two canals for the first time since the 1930s. It opened in 2002 as part of the Millennium Link project.
The Kelpies are 30-metre-high horse-head sculptures depicting kelpies (shape-shifting water spirits), standing next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and near River Carron, in The Helix, a new parkland project built to connect 16 communities in the Falkirk Council Area, Scotland.
We left the Union Canal at Falkirk to join the Forth and Clyde canal continuing toward Glasgow. Looking on the map and seeing something called the "Falkirk Wheel," I imagined we'd find some kind of 18th century lock perhaps along the lines of a freeway cloverleaf interchange. Instead we were surprised to find this, which called to mind the futuristic Ellie Arroway Machine from the movie Contact (1996). In fact, the Falkirk Wheel is a product of the 1990s (it was completed in 2002), a conspicuously incongruent statement piece for the canal restoration project.
It is a striking feat of engineering. From the Union Canal to the Forth and Clyde, barges travel from the left to right of the image in the aqueduct in the sky, into one of the two gondolas (top and bottom of structure at right), then are rotated around a twelve foot axle (center right of image) to lower the boats 79 feet into the basin below. Each rotation of the wheel moves more than a million pounds of water and boats, since as one gondola is lowered for boats to pass into the Forth and Clyde the obverse gondola is raised for boats to join the Union Canal. The Falkirk Wheel, Falkirk Scotland.
I can scarce believe it is 35 years ago that I photographed this Albion Viking VK43 at Falkirk. This example, with its high backed seats and predominantly cream livery, would have us believe that it is a coach. The chimney protruding from the roof belongs to a fast-food shop behind, and does not represent the efforts of Scottish Bus Group engineers to install steam propulsion in the vehicle, though I'd have put nothing past them!