Stroudwater
Admiral BIscuit
“I get that going across the lake is shorter than going around,” I said, “but why build a canal causeway when you could just put locks at either end?”
“Coupla reasons. It’s faster for traffic going to and from Manehattan if they don’t have to lock in and out. As long as they don’t have the bad luck to arrive right as somepony is locking in, anyway.”
“Okay, yeah.”
“It used to be that way, though, before they built the causeway. ‘Cause it was easier, even if you had to stop and wait for a boat to ferry you across.”
“Right.” I’d forgotten that the barges didn’t move unless there was a pony to pull them. “But they could have put a single wide causeway and had traffic reverse sides.”
“Which they did. Sometimes fights broke out at the ends, ‘cause somepony had to unhook to get their line around somepony else, and they built mooring platforms and that helped, but most of us don’t like stopping if we don’t have to.
“For a while, there were designated towponies, and you had to stop at either end and let them tow you across the lake. That way everypony was inconvenienced the same. But nopony liked that.
“Plus, you still had to lock into the lake sometimes. If the water was deeper than normal, it wasn’t a problem, but if it was shallow, it’d make the water in the canals too shallow as well, and since they’d already built one towpath across the lake, building a second wasn't that much more work.
“They were halfway done when the railroad came through, and for some canals that was it, that was when nopony wanted to spend much money anymore building things, but Manehattan was growing and the railroad didn’t go west yet, so there were lots of bulk cargoes that still needed to be hauled by barge for at least some of their journey, and it was obvious to everypony that finishing this project would save hours and hours of travel, which really added up when there were shortages in Manehattan and everypony was trying to lock through as many barges as fast as they could.
“Most of the construction was cheap, since they’d already figured out what the bottom was like when they built the first side—the former central causeway—and they saved money by re-using all the lock mechanisms at the central locks. They just had to build the foundations and walls, but it’s easier to put in stones and dirt than to take it out.
“Also, now that the causeway’s complete, it’s easier to maintain water levels as long as the lake’s higher than the canal—which it usually is—and so we can carry more on each barge and not worry about scraping bottom. You wouldn’t have noticed the bit of current as we went by the locks, but as long as the lake level’s high, they always leave the paddle gates partway open.”
•••
We returned to forest after leaving Lock Lake behind. I could see one boat about a mile in front of us, also going west. I hadn’t seen any going the other way since we’d left Lock Lake, and asked Flash Lock about that.
“Traffic drops off in the afternoon,” she said. “A lot of the barges don’t run at night, not unless they have to. The empty coal barges usually do; they’ve got extra crews to take them back from Manehattan to the loading docks; they’ll usually tie two or three of them together and tow them that way. They like to travel in clusters; it’s safer for everypony, and they save time ‘cause they can fit four of them at a time in most locks.
“Usually we get passed by at least one fleet of coal barges in Oakton, but I didn’t see any.”
“Neither did I,” I said. “Most of them don’t have deckhouses, so where does the other crew sleep?”
“Depends on the company. Hucknall has enough towponies that they alternate with some of their crews. They’ll tow a loaded barge in, spend that night and the next day in a company bunkhouse, and then tow empties back. Silverwood switches crews at Oakton; they get a lunch break there and then take a barge back the way they came. That’s good for ponies who have a regular house in Manehattan or Stroudwater. And Dalton Main has their own packet boat with sleeping accommodations, so the crews ride back and forth on the packet boat.
“There’s a couple small operators who do have cabins on their coal boats, and one crew actually built a little raft that gets towed behind for their extra crew to sleep in. They’re a whole family of bargees that all work and live together; I don’t think it would work with a bunch of strangers. You put too many stallions in a crowded space and fights happen.”
“You said that you grew up on a canal boat, right?”
“Yeah, I was born and raised on the water. Some of my siblings decided they wanted firm ground underhoof, but not me.”
“What about Mersey and Swanky Brook? What’s their story? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Both of ‘em came from a farm around Fens Junction, and they’re both strong and reliable which is more than I can say for some ponies I’ve hired. I was only gonna hire one, but neither of them would work without the other, and I don’t regret my choice. It was tight a couple years as we were getting new contracts and I was learning who to talk to to get a load when I needed one, but after we showed how reliable we were, we didn’t have any trouble getting work. Even now that there’s less to ship on the canal than there used to be.
“When I bought that warehouse, it was ready to fall down. Swanky Brook said he could get it fixed up cheap, as long as I was willing to wait for the winter. Sure enough, his entire family showed up and rebuilt it in a week, and all it cost me was some materials and food for everypony.”
“I’d heard of farmers back on Earth helping each other out like that, but to all show up and help an employer?”
“Families gotta stick together,” she said, “and when I hired the two of them, I became part of the family, I guess. Some things have changed as Equestria modernizes, but the important things stay the same.
•••
The canal narrowed as it got to an arched stone railroad bridge. Since the canal was straight on both sides, we didn't have to slow as we approached; it was clear that there was no oncoming traffic.
“The railroad didn’t spend any bits they didn’t have to,” Flash Lock explained. “The bridge had to be wide enough for barges to pass, and one barge fits through without much room to spare. The intent of the contract was that two barges could pass each other under the bridge, but the railroad didn’t see it that way, and there was a big fight about it and it’s pretty obvious who won.
“Traffic to Manehattan gets the right-of-way, but this time of evening we rarely have to wait. Ponies who are doing short runs from Oakton to Stroudwater get tied up here all the time, though.”
Not only was the canal narrow, but the towpaths were as well; while they technically kept the same width as outside the bridge, the curved bottom of the arched bridge only left part of the path useful. Swanky Brook had to lower his head and walk at the very edge to fit.
“Stroudwater’s ahead,” Flash Lock said. “Those are the tracks from Fens Junction; they kind of loop around to the south of town and then back again, ‘cause nopony wanted to give up any of her farmland for a train track.
Indeed, on the other side of the railroad right-of-way was farmland. Fields of flowers spread along the north bank, all in bloom. To the south, ponies were working a hayfield.
I”d seen round balers and rectangle balers at work back on Earth; the ponies weren’t using either. They had a hay wagon with all the hay piled up in a mound. An angled conveyor with crab-like legs was feeding the hay up from windrows on the ground, and a pair of ponies on top of the haypile were pitchforking it into place.
I’d seen hay bales in Equestria, so I knew that ponies could make them. Maybe they took the loose hay to the bailer, rather than taking the bailer to the fields.
It was fascinating to watch it work. They’d gotten as much of a pile on the wagon as they could by the time we passed, and had turned off the row they were working to haul the wagon back to the barn. I noticed that the ponies on top of the pile didn’t try to climb down—maybe when they got to wherever they were unloading, they’d need to be on top and it was easier to stay there.
•••
Beyond the fields was the town of Stroudwater. It had a traditional pony town feel, with stone buildings and half-timbered houses with thatched roofs, flowerboxes and gardens.
Some of the houses close to the canal had dinghies in their yards, and a few had their own slip. To keep the canal clear for passing traffic, the slips were dug through the bank. They were mostly angled, to make it easier to get the boat in and out of the canal.
The mouths of these slips were all spanned by a moveable wooden bridge along the towpath. Some of them were hinged like drawbridges, some were built atop a gate, and a few slid along on rollers.
Our destination was down a side canal, the canal equivalent of a business loop. That also had an automatic gateway, although it was towpony-operated rather than by some underwater mechanism: as Swanky Brook walked by, he pushed a lever that extended across the towpath.
As soon as it was perpendicular to the path, the gates started to open. The lever also kept moving, turning until it had returned to its original position.
Flash Lock had swung out into the center of the canal, then cut the boat back in across the canal, neatly entering the side channel. As the stern passed the control lever, she reached out of the boat and pushed it. I heard a click from the mechanism and it started winding around again; a moment later, the gates started closing behind us.
“You think that’s clever,” Flash Lock said, “you would have loved the automatic towrope.”
“Automatic towrope?”
“It ran down the opposite side of the canal on towers, a long continuous rope with lines hanging off it, and the idea was that you would attach the barge to the rope and get automatically pulled along to where you wanted to go.
“Used to be that this canal was for one-way traffic only—eastbound—and if you came up from the east, you’d just go to the other end of the canal and be towed along to get where you were going.
“But it got old and worn out and needed a lot of bits to fix it, and there wasn’t as much barge traffic any more, so first the rope got taken down and then a couple of the towers and then all the rest ‘cause they were in the way of the towpath on the other side of the canal, and it was really inconvenient to have to go around them.”
Mersey yawned and got back to her hooves. She stretched out on the deck for a minute, then went down into the rear cabin and put her harness back on.
“There’s no traffic coming our way,” Flash Lock said. “So I’ll have her pull from the other side of the river. That way, when we get to the docks, Swanky Brook doesn’t have to maneuver around a bunch of tied-up barges.”
•••
Once Mersey was in position on the bow, Swanky Brook dropped his line, and she pulled it in and hooked it to her harness. Flash Lock cut across the canal, almost bumping up against the opposite bank. Mersey jumped out and started walking down the path, pulling the slack out of the line as Flash Lock steered more towards the center of the canal.
She didn’t go all the way over to our side. As we got close to the business district, there were a number of barges tied up on the south bank, some of them being loaded or unloaded while others were tied up for the night.
There were a few smaller boats, too. I hadn’t asked, but it seemed likely that for some ponies, the canal was as good as a road and they probably used their boats like wagons. If the hay distributor was in Stroudwater, for example, the ponies I’d seen harvesting hay would probably deliver it by barge, especially since they had canal access. Or if there was a railroad transfer dock—which there probably was; I’d already seen two of them—they could ship it anywhere in Equestria with just a short trip down the canal.
•••
Flash Lock had a warehouse building in Stroudwater, too. It had a solid stone ground floor and a half-timbered second floor. A lifting beam extended over the water, although the tackle was hooked back on the side of the building.
Swanky Brook had beaten us to the dock, and he helped tie the barge in place and lowered the gangplank. Mersey unhooked her towrope and let it fall in the water; Flash Lock pulled it aboard the barge.
I’d expected that Mersey would go down the towpath to the closest bridge, but instead she looked left and right, then jumped into the canal and ponypaddled across.
She went around the corner of the building to shake herself off, then unhooked her harness and hung it up in the warehouse to dry, then helped unload the barge. Flash Lock left the two of them to unload, while she went around the barge and inspected it, making sure everything was still in good order.
After I got my rucksack out of the forward cabin, I went inside the warehouse, just to get a quick look. It really wasn’t much to see—instead of the good being in shrink-wrapped boxes on pallets, it was all crates and barrels, but other than that, it was a typical warehouse.
They were stacking the cargo they’d removed on one side, and the other side had about a barge’s worth of crates and barrels already in place. Down the center, two wagons were parked, both labeled Aire & Calder Navigation Co.
Flash Lock came in beside me, ropes from the barge draped across her back. “I hire a couple local livery ponies to do deliveries and pickups for me. I get a discount, ‘cause they can work outside regular hours, so long as the cargo’s here by the time I arrive.”
“Livery ponies?”
“Yeah, most towns have a livery where you can rent a team or wagons or harnesses or whatever you need. Stroudwater’s also does farrier work and dental work. I got their harnesses used from the livery; they’re a little out of date but really durable.”
“Huh.” I shifted my rucksack, then a thought occurred to me. “Is there an inn?”
“Yeah, just down the main street. You can’t miss it. It’s not the best place, ‘cause it mostly appeals to towponies. They have good filling food and their beds are decent and cheap.”
“I ought to head down there.”
“Alright.” Flash Lock held out a hoof, and I made a fist and bumped it. “Thanks for the ride.”
She smiled. “When you want a trip back to Manehattan, I’ll be glad to take you.”
•••
I should have said goodbye to Swanky Brook and Mersey, but I hadn’t wanted to get in the way of their work, and by the time I was a block away, it would have been weird to go back.
Stroudwater reminded me of a cross between an English village and a Dutch village—there were side-canals. I hadn’t really paid attention to them as we went through town, but there was no mistaking them as I crossed over the second bridge on my way to the inn.
The first was too narrow for a boat the size of Flash Lock’s to fit down; the second was wide enough although it would have been one-way traffic only. There wasn’t an actual towpath, but there was a street that ran parallel, and that would have worked.
Since it was only one street, the towpony would have had to move against traffic. Or maybe they had some other system in place—a towrope strung down the canal, or some kind of tugboat to push or pull. It would have been inconvenient to have to unhook the rope at every bridge that crossed the canal.
I hadn’t meant to look for the livery, but I found it just the same. It was behind the inn, and it caught my eye because right up by the road was an open lot full of wagons, and I thought it was a used wagon lot. I hadn’t seen anything like that before, but it made sense that the ponies would have such a thing—their wagons didn’t just appear out of nowhere, and while surely some of them were home-built, others would have been bought from a wagon factory. And a pony looking to upgrade or downsize her fleet might not want to deal with trying to sell it herself; Flash Lock had said that she’d bought the harnesses used and that was something I hadn’t considered there being a used market for.
And it turned out that I wasn’t entirely wrong; three of the wagons were for sale. Just like U-Haul, once a wagon had passed its prime, the livery sold it.
I stood across the street, watching as a team of ponies hooked up to a flatbed wagon in the back of the yard and trotted off down the street with it, then resumed my trek to the inn.
•••
I couldn’t get a room. The only one available slept eight, and was out of my comfortable price range. I could, however, get a bed. There were plenty of those available; in fact, the entire attic was given over to two giant rooms and while it would be part of the Equestrian experience I wasn’t ready to commit yet. True, I’d shared a room with the coal mining mares after Assay had offered it, but that felt different—I’d spent time with them and gotten to know them. Here, I’d be rooming with a bunch of strangers.
Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of other options. The only other one I could currently think of was find a secluded park bench large enough to fit a human. Maybe after I ate dinner, I could think more clearly of other possible options.
Their food service was cafeteria style. One bit to enter the dining room, and I could pick what I wanted to eat.
They didn’t go for the excess of a Golden Corral, but there was a decently good selection of food. Three different soups, plenty of fruits and vegetables and flowers, several different kinds of pasture grasses, loaves of bread, two different casseroles, fish, cakes, and pies. I took the safe options, fruits and vegetables I knew I could eat, bread, a small sliver of casserole, and a wedge of apple pie.
Instead of a soda fountain, they had beer taps.
They’d extended the cafeteria theme to the seating; long benches and communal tables. We’d gotten in late, so there weren’t all that many ponies currently eating. Those that were were all clustered into groups, most likely all the members of a barge crew.
I felt more comfortable in the bar approaching random strangers, and I still wanted to turn over my sleeping arrangements in my head, so I chose to sit at the far end of a table, away from everypony else.
I’d just started on my casserole when a familiar yellow pony set a tray down beside me. “I see you found the inn.”
“You were right, I couldn’t miss it,” I said. “Is it just you?”
She shook her head, and a moment later we were joined by Swanky Brook and Mersey, who took the spot across the table.