Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lzwmTfnOnk
In January the Canal and River Trust wrote about low carbon transport – moving freight on our larger canals and rivers – “a green alternative, which could remove hundreds of articulated lorry journeys from the roads”.
As fuel costs have risen and awareness of the environmental benefits of freight by water has increased, interest in the potential for freight traffic is growing. Wherever it is cost effective, the Trust enables freight on larger waterways to transport aggregates, container loads, waste and recycling.
In earlier posts there have been references to moving large or wide loads (eg transformers) which always require an escort on motorways and cause tailbacks for many miles, and hazardous loads which can cause fires or expensive chemical removal if shed on motorways.
Three examples
In 2020 Heavy Lift News reported that Wynn’s Terra Marique had transported the historic Rescue Motor Launch (RML) 497 from Southampton to the National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool Robert Wynn & Sons’ Terra Marique (above). Read more here.
On the 18th October 2021 a load of steel structures for Hinkley Point C built on the Clyde was seen coming down the River Cart. The units (opposite) – large offshore steel structures – were built for Balfour Beatty at Malin’s facility at Westway business park at Clydebank to support the construction of three tunnels under the seabed to supply two reactors at Hinkley Point C with cooling water and then discharge it back into the Bristol Channel. With only one metre clearance on each side, they were too large for the road bridge (Inland Waterway Freight).
In Sept 2023 a video showed the first of two giant steel girders being delivered to the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station site in Somerset. The beam travelled from Avonmouth to nearby Combwich by barge before making the final part of its journey by road (Construction Management)
A useful role for smaller waterways with access to a port, town or city
When goods arrive at a freight station or port, they must be transported to their final destination. Small loads are sometimes carried by electric cargo bikes and in areas where it is logistically possible, larger and heavier consignments could be carried on narrow canals, just as solid fuel and other supplies are regularly delivered to boaters all over the country (below).
See CBOA website
Well situated smaller canals and rivers could solve the “last mile problem”, the last leg of the supply chain, which can account for 53% of a shipment’s total cost.
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Inland Waterway Freight 