450,000 TONNES OF GRAVEL TRAFFIC ON THE GRAND UNION CANAL, WEST LONDON

The first of 450,000 tonnes of aggregate began moving by barge in 2003 as part of a new initiative to move sand and gravel (so avoiding using already congested roads) from a gravel pit to a canalside concrete making plant owned by Hanson, the international construction materials group at Stockley Park, near West Drayton, West London.

Now up to 60,000 tonnes a year is moved by a fleet of four craft. The boats move the cargo about 5 miles and sometimes do two journeys a day, avoiding up to 6,000 lorry movements each year.

Two new barges were built, especially for this trade, to the maximum dimensions of local locks to maximize the freight carrying capacity. About 70 tonnes - over three lorry loads – are taken in each barge.  Extensive dredging has been carried out so that the barges can load to over 4ft 3" draft.  The barge holds are fitted with an inner "skin" with sloping sides, allowing the grab to unload more effectively the last few tonnes. 

Loading a barge at Denham takes about only 10 minutes, the material being loaded at approximately a tonne every 10 seconds.  Communication with the pit staff is via mobile phone. The barge captain starts the conveyor and sees the tonnage being loaded on the wharf electronic display panel while he controls the loading of his barge.  Weighing is achieved dynamically at the start of the conveyor at the pit end. The total is displayed at both pit and wharf, registered by the wharf control unit and automatically printed when the process is complete.  The barge captain then takes the printed ticket with him to Hanson, leaving a copy for Harleyford Aggregates, the pit owners.

At the destination wharf, the barge captain operates a crawler mounted grab to unload the stone or sand into nearby storage bins.  The stone is later picked up from the wharf bin by a four wheeled loader whose bucket takes about 6 tonnes at a time and feeds into the concrete plant hopper next to the wharf.  The sand is taken from the wharf bin by the loader to the B320 "Black Top" plant to make road surfacing material.  The plant is in operation 24/7 so the wharf bins can be low when the first barge arrives in the morning. 

Two types of aggregate are carried, 5-20mm quartz stone and sharp sand.  The as dug material is washed, graded and if necessary crushed after extraction, with the smaller grades of stone being used elsewhere. 

 The capital investment included the construction of two purpose built barges, a conveyor belt to move the aggregate 1400ft from Harleyford's Lea Pit near Denham to the canal side, loading and unloading wharves and a long reach grab to unload the barges at Hanson's depot. Help with some of the capital funding came from a Freight Facilities Grant from the Government and British Waterways secured other funding to help with the unloading facilities at Stockley Park.

Harleyford Aggregates are planning to extend the excavation area to a further 60,000 tonnes of aggregate, extending the life of the canal carrying facility. Once excavated, the area may be backfilled using inert materials and this may be moved by barge too.

 Sometimes additional vessels are used to increase the tonnage delivered; tugs and pans, other barge types and narrowboats.

Hanson also supplies a variety of other aggregates from the Stockley Park depot.  They regularly receive hundreds of tonnes of other aggregate by rail into their own sidings, off the Great Western line.  Other possibilities have been discussed for canal transport ventures to or from their depot in the future.

The advantages of using water transport include:

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Coal deliveries and diesel by narrowboat

There are some 2000 miles of canals in England and Wales, and there are a lot of people living and working on and around them. Many canal side properties are still reliant upon solid fuel for heating, and in some cases, cooking too. There are also increasing numbers of people living aboard their boats, and many of these also use solid fuels and need diesel deliveries.

Various narrowboat operators have tapped into this market, having developed a regular trade delivering both wholesale and retail solid fuels, diesel and other products. One has a loading wharf in the West Midlands and travels to places as far afield as Northwich, Gloucester and Oxford.  Others operate in Cheshire, Northamptonshire, the Thames Valley and the London and South East. The trade is cost effective as around 19 tonnes of pre-ordered fuel is carried per boat per trip.

Many canal side properties have limited, and in some cases, no road access, which makes this service invaluable. Deliveries of large or awkward domestic items can also be accommodated, including such items as a new Rayburn cooker.

Information about how to contact CBOA members who supply domestic fuel is given below

Narrow boats are also used as part of a fleet of boats that moves washed and sorted sand and gravel on the lower Grand Union Canal from gravel pits at Denham (Bucks) to Hanson’s concrete making plant at West Drayton in west London; further information is given in one of the case studies.

Narrowboats are sometimes seen on other duties, for example, carrying stone for tow-path works, and carrying building materials to properties where road access is a problem.

The average narrowboat is capable of carrying around 20 tonnes on a draught of about three feet. Leisure boat users benefit from the movement of loaded narrow boats as they help to keep the channel clear. They also provide a colourful example of Britain’s canal heritage.

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ABNORMAL LOADS

From time to time abnormal or unusual loads are transported on the smaller canals. This is usually because the normal road access is not big enough for a particular load or because a specific site has no longer got road access due to building developments.

Recently an 18m by 4m by 2m food processing cabinet was moved for the New Covent Garden Food Company into their premises in Willesden by barge. The food processing equipment was delivered by road from Germany to Powerday’s wharf in Willesden. From there the equipment was loaded onto a motor barge fitted with rails and wheels so the equipment could be unloaded directly into the NCGF Co premises from the canal side.

When the motor barge was moored up alongside the New Covent Garden Food Companies premises rails were run ashore so the equipment could be moved off the barge and down the rails into the NCGF Companies food processing plant. The various parts of the equipment were then assembled on site to rebuild the full 18m long piece of equipment.

In another example a hydraulically operated lift bridge that had been installed in Paddington before the recent developments took place needed to be removed for servicing. The only access to this bridge was from the canal. Using a plant pontoon, a lifting turntable allowed the bridge to be lifted up off its fixings and to be rotated round 90 degrees and lowered into the pontoon. It was then moved along the canal to an access point for onward transport by road.

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CONSTRUCTION – EXCAVATED MATERIAL

The construction industry has been making increasing use of the inland waterways networks to support the various activities involved in developing waterside sites.

Recently tugs and barges removed around 500 tonnes of excavated material per day from a development site in east London next to the Regent’s Canal. By using a combination of road and water transport, the developer was able to reduce the number of lorries visiting the site each day by half with a corresponding reduction in road congestion and vehicle noise around a heavily residential area. Over a period of 3 months approx. 30,000 tonnes was moved from the site.

In west London about 5,000 tonnes of excavated material from the initial piling process was recently removed from a waterside development site directly to Powerday’s reprocessing facility at Old Oak Wharf in Willesden. In this case the developer avoided any lorry movements in and out of his site onto the busy Harrow Road during the piling phase.

Barging Benefits
Improved workflow: A constant flow of barges makes better use of on-site excavators than the stop/start process of servicing an intermittent flow of lorries caught up in traffic.
Space saving: Better use of limited space by reducing the number of lorries entering and leaving the site. Each barge can move a minimum of 3 to 4 lorry loads at a time making water transport an efficient option.

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