Not the best day for a photo (it was raining at the time) but I spotted this dredger at work when I was on my way home one evening. This is how they go about spring cleaning the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, to make it ready for another busy season of holidaymakers and the small amount of commercial traffic that the canal still supports. It gets silted up with mud and all sorts of other rubbish (I wonder if anyone missed the road sign you can just see in the skip.) I wonder what they did before they had these wonderful little crane gadgets? The canal isn't really very deep so they must have had to clear it out periodically, even in Victorian times. Men in waders, with shovels, do you think?
here, we even clean the beaches and the sea!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't look like a pleasant job, but I guess it is much easier these days. I can't imagine doing this with a shovel!
ReplyDeleteWhen things got really bad they used to drain sections off - I have seen a similar method to this with the JCB used in Scarborough harbour.
ReplyDeleteWell yaaaa... even if you try and do it with shovel, the small quantity you would have taken onto your shovel will be washed away, I imagine... or it was simply so much cleaner in Victorian times??
ReplyDeleteNear my place, they are doing the same but at the lake shore. The smell...!!!!
I love this photo of dredging out the canal! It's beautiful.
ReplyDeleteA very worthy, interesting subject. I wish we could see someone cleaning the River Foss in York. There is a boat dedicated to that purpose, but it never moves and the bottles and cans are an eyesore.
ReplyDeleteSpring Cleaning is everywhere. We had our apartment completely done, and the hedges cut and all the dead leaves put in a lorry and taken away yesterday, just in time for St P. They need to remove that dead tree in the yard on the photo too!
ReplyDeleteGreat shot of people at work! Spring is here.
ReplyDeleteNow where do they take all the muck and junk to recycle it? Or do they recycle?
ReplyDeleteAnd here we have still one more job that I don't think I want. But I am glad that someone is going it . . .
ReplyDeleteThat's actually very interesting, that job doesn't exist around here (in the desert)! Neat to see!
ReplyDeleteMy brother in law used to do this kind of maintenance work on the Regents Canal in London.
ReplyDeleteLove your pics, as a boater with a narrowboat at Shipley Wharf I'm glad to see them dredging, apparently they got a skip out of the canal down Dockfield Road. Its about 10 years since they last did it I'm told. BW's contractor has been working down from Skipton.
ReplyDeleteIts good to keep the bottom away from the top,