London Banter - View Single Post - New Bermondsey station (Surrey Canal Road)

Robin9 · January 2nd 16, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 17:00:26 on Fri, 1 Jan
2016, " remarked:

Are any canals being used or starting to find use as commercial
waterways for the shipment of goods?

The coal traffic in East Yorkshire (eg Calder and Hebble etc) may
have ceased by now, but the Manchester Ship Canal still has
commercial traffic.

Inland, the speed and carrying capacity of a narrowboat has been
pretty much superseded by road transport (itself superseding rail),
unless the goods you refer to are holidaymakers.

Lighters on the Thames are still used for waste in London, I was a bit
surprised to find a year or two ago. They were more common when I was a
child. There is other Thames river freight traffic. the barges run into
Putney railway Bridge from time to time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

I thought the spoil from Crossrail was taken away from London
by barge.

Water transport is far cheaper than road or rail if the product
is already alongside the water. It's the transhipment (re-loading)
costs which killed river and barge freight. There are many products
where speed of delivery is not critical, and with bulk transport it is
often worthwhile producing the product early to gain the savings
on transport.