CANALS COMING BACK

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 25 May 1932, Page 7

CANALS COMING BACK

REAWAKENING IN ENGLAND. ! LGATING HOMES DECREASE, The reawakening of the canals is one cue least expected romances oi modern transport. But a lew years, ,;_,o they seemed to have fallen asleep 1 x;r ever, delightful drowsy rents of a distant past, summer delight of smali, naked boys, with an occasional slow procession of scarlet and yci.ow barges . raw n by a conscientious and methodical horse, says an English paper. Now, up front London river, t-nro.igli town and village, over, under, an, alongside road and railway to the factories of the Midlands there is a new stirring of life. Motor barges attain almost incredible speeds, and ahnosi daily the canals are coming more and more back on to the map. One of the biggest changes which this revvial will see will be the gradual elimination of the floating homes w inch were once such an integral part of tin inland waterways of Britain. Here and there, of course, they w ill still be found, and in some few cases file new boats will bo built with living quarters, hut in the main the new speeds will tend to obviate the necessity of the barge men living their lives cn the water. Another big change, and this one ol the main factors in restoring the popularity of the canals with the consigners of goods, will be the construction of wider barges capable of navigating die Thames. In the past the narrow canal craft have been incapable of this feat, while the Thames barges have been too large to enter the canals. "With the widening oi the canids a new tvpe el craft is beinjj; e\o]\ed which can do the through journey from port to Birmingham to Leicester with out the waste of time and additional cost involved by the co-operation oi a liver barge and tug.