Canal Boat: Oakton and Lock Lake
Oakton and Lock Lake
Admiral Biscuit
After passing through more forests and fields and two more locks—one up and one down—we arrived in Oakton.
For most of our journey, we hadn’t had to contend with barges waiting at the edge of the canal, interfering with the towpath. Oakton was a minor trading hub, and barges were tied up to both shores, loading and unloading cargoes.
Flash Lock was standing bipedal to get a clear view over the cabins, making minor tiller adjustments with her hind hoof. It was only a matter of time before our line risked snagging on another boat.
I watched as the line got closer and closer to a small packet boat, wondering if there was some way it might slide up and over the cabin, even though logic said it wouldn’t.
“Hoy, Mersey, drop the line.”
Mersey stopped in her tracks and turned back, tugging at a fastener on her harness; a moment later, the rope dropped off the singletree. She stood where she was until the line snaked into the water, then started walking again, sans barge.
Flash Lock used the momentum we had for as long as she could, but it wasn’t enough to get us to our destination.
“So what now?” I was sure that Flash Lock had a plan, but I was curious what it was.
“We get towed in. Mersey’s probably already at the company docks.” Flash Lock pointed a hoof over the water, where a little puffing tugboat was pushing a barge along. “That’s one way, and if you’re close enough to your destination, you can use a rope and capstan.”
“I see.” I wasn’t sure which the second was. “Which are we using?”
“Rope and capstan. Don’t like the tugboat, it’s like a locomotive that floats. We gotta use it to get back out, though, unless you want to pole.”
“I can,” I said. “Just push off the bottom, right?”
“Trust me, it’s not as fun as it sounds. You don’t know what you’re doing, you wind up falling off and landing in the canal.
“With Mersey and Swanky working together, we could rope out, but that’s a lot of work for both of them, and it takes a while.” She took her hoof off the tiller—the boat wasn’t going anywhere—and headed for the bow. “Gotta coil the rope before the rope pony gets here. You keep an eye on the stern, shout at me if any barge is coming to run us over.”
“Can do.” I thought of taking position right by the tiller, but that didn’t feel right—that was Flash Lock’s place—so I instead leaned against the cabin wall and watched.
On the other side of the canal, a pair of towponies who didn’t believe in shelling out a few bits for a tugboat were getting their barge down the canal by leapfrogging from boat to boat. If the barges were tied up close enough, they jumped from one to the next; if not, the one closest to the shore unhooked his rope and draped it over his partner’s back, then went ashore and got on the next boat down the line.
When the single towpony reached the end of his barge, he’d unhook both ropes and let them trail in the water, and the tillermare let the boat drift until it was close enough for the other pony to fetch the ropes out of the water and hook them to himself.
It looked like an overly complicated way to make progress, and I could see how it would wear out the towing crew and might upset ponies who had their barges tied to the dock.
A second tugboat came puffing out of a dock, and headed in the direction of Manehattan. It had made fast to the barge which had been trailing us, and I was so distracted watching it, I didn’t notice right away that we were moving again.
When I turned my attention forward, I saw that we had a new rope tied to the bow, leading to a bollard alongside a vacant dock. Off to the side of our barge, a filly pedalled a small paddleboat back to the dock; I assumed she was the one who’d brought that rope out.
After it bent around the bollard, it went further inland, where it was attached to a pony-powered capstan.
Rather than being designed to attach to a harness, the swing-arm had a sort of padded plate on the front, and the mare operating the captain was just pushing into it.
Swanky Brook came out of the cabin again, and made his way to the cleat on the stern of the boat. When we were close enough, a pony ashore tossed him a rope, and he looped it around the cleat and used it to both brake the boat, and then pull it against the dock.
Flash Lock hopped off the bow once the barge was secure, and left Swanky Brook in charge of the barge.
He quickly organized the unloading crew, letting them know what to take and what to leave behind.
They’d made a rather large dent in the cargo before a second gangway got lowered down, and ponies started carrying in new cargo, eventually filling in much of the empty space left by the offload.
“Flash Lock’s always good at getting extra loads and backhauls,” Swanky Brook explained. “Lots of extra bits and not a lot of extra work.”
I wasn’t sure Mersey would agree with him; she’d spent over half the day tugging the barge behind her with very few opportunities to rest while he’d spent that time asleep in the cabin.
And as soon as the gangplanks were drawn away, he went back to the cabin, leaving me alone to guard the barge.
What did most ponies who bought a trip on the barge do? Stay confined in the bow cabin? Watch the scenery go by from safely inside? Or did they only use it for sleeping and relaxing? Were there poets and authors who traveled the canals, getting inspiration from the passing scenery, or ponies who were more interested in the destination than the journey, and just booked passage on a barge because it was cheaper than a train and faster than going on hoof?
It was probably a mix, and I wondered if Flash Lock had counted on becoming an impromptu tour guide for passengers who were interested. Maybe she would have preferred if I’d stayed in my cabin and let her navigate the canal in peace.
Swanky Brook interrupted my musings when he came back out of the cabin, this time dressed in a harness identical to his sister’s. Apparently his job did involve more than just napping in the cabin.
•••
Flash Lock didn’t return until just before the tugboat arrived. She hopped aboard the bow and handled the lines from the tugboat. Swanky Brook untied the stern and then went ashore; Mersey was nowhere to be seen.
Once the tug started pulling, Flash Lock untied the bow from the dock, then made her way back to the tiller. There was no need to push off; the tug handled the weight of the barge easily, and towed us to the middle of the channel.
We made our way past the rest of the barges and the dockyard, past a small fleeting area, a loading dock for the railroad—complete with three box cars and a flat car—and then we were at the end of Oakton.
Mersey and Swanky Brook were both waiting for our arrival. The tug slowed down until we bumped into their stern, and then one of the deckhands untied their boat and helpfully tossed our towrope ashore. Mersey retrieved it and attached it to Swanky Brook, keeping herself on the shoreside.
With a bellow of smoke and a froth of water at the stern, the towboat sped ahead and as soon as it was clear, turned to head back to town for the next job. Flash Lock gave them more clearance, angling towards the bank.
Mersey jumped aboard as we passed. I hadn’t noticed when she was on shore, but her harness was mostly unfastened, and it only took her a moment in the cabin to strip it off.
I’d expected her to stay there, but she had other ideas; she came back out of the cabin with a rough wool blanket across her back which she spread out on the canal-side gunnel.
She stretched out on her belly, dipped a forehoof into the water, and watched the water splash off it for a while, then settled her head down on her makeshift bed and promptly fell asleep.
•••
Most of the time, I was constantly on the watch for things that made Equestria pony. Buildings, businesses, factories, mines, ponies—all of those things had their own unique spin in Equestria, but there was also something to be learned from what they did in their leisure time. True, Flash Lock was running a business and presumably making a profit, but when I unfocused to just the boat plodding along the lock and Mersey snoozing in the sunshine with one hoof still trailing in the water; when I watched the trees and forest slowly move past, I could have been on a pleasure cruise.
On Earth, people generally fell into the categories of boating for pleasure, fishing from a boat, and boating because it was their job. Why shouldn’t they be in more than one category, though? Sure, this was a way to earn a living, but it was also something that they enjoyed. There were other jobs in the city they could have had, and those jobs might have been more financially lucrative, but here we were in the middle of a beautiful forest, with only the unnaturally straight walls of the canal breaking the immersion of nature. Swanky Brook’s hoofsteps and Mersey’s snores were the only unnatural sounds; even the gentle splash of the bow wave could have just been the sound of water passing a rock.
As soon as I looked back down the canal, the illusion was broken; another canal boat was following behind.
I thought about asking Flash Lock about that, but based on her far-away look, I thought she already knew.
There was nothing more to learn on this part of the journey, so I leaned back and watched the forest go by.
•••
Flash Lock had mentioned Lock Lake, which I’d been expecting would be a lake with locks at the ends so barges could go through it, or a lake that was next to a set of locks.
I hadn’t really worked out in my head where the towpath would go—even after the better part of a day so far on the canal, I kept thinking from a human design perspective. Locks so that a variable lake depth wouldn’t be a problem, and then just motor across the lake.
The ponies had thought about how barges were going to get across the lake, and they’d built causeways straight across, effectively making us a canal through a lake. Since the lake level was high, we were currently below the level of water in Lock Lake—as weird as looking over the side of the barge on the bridge had been, it was even weirder to be running through a canal with a higher lake on either side of us.
Surely when Moses parted the Red Sea, this would have been what he saw as he looked to the side, that he was crossing in a trench, the water on either side above him. And while there was no need for a miraculous explanation for our passage, it didn’t feel any less strange to be standing on the deck and looking over the levee at water several feet above the deck of the boat.
As engineering challenges went, it was likely simpler than a canal bridge, but to see it, it didn’t feel simpler. It had the same audacious feeling as the Lucien cutoff, as if a surveyor had stood upon the shore of the lake and thought he could go around, but across would be shorter.
The surrounding terrain didn’t really preclude it; there weren’t any hills or other obstacles I could see that would make a bypass a major project, but this was shorter and I suppose in the days before the railroad, that made the project worth doing.
“We’ll be stopping in the basin to unload some more cargo,” Flash Lock said. “Then straight through to Stroudwater. In case you want to step off the boat.”
“You won’t leave without me?”
“As long as I don’t have to wait too long—I got a schedule to keep.”
“I wasn’t suggesting I’d get myself lost.”
“Some ponies do.” She snorted. “Isn’t much to see in the basin anyway; a few small food stands on the bank, the locks into the lake, and a couple of small warehouses. Maybe a packet boat if you’re lucky, although this late in the day, they’re usually long gone. Fishing boats, might be back already, if their catch was good.”
•••
I did decide to step off the barge. We tied up parallel to the canal, next to what looked from the back like a fairly normal general store. They had a wooden ramp that ran down the canal wall and a short dock, barely one pony wide—there wasn’t enough room for anything else.
Swanky Brook unhooked as soon as we tied up, and came down the ramp to oversee unloading. As soon as he’d passed, I headed up to the canal wall just to take in the sights.
The general store was actually a boat, and it was clearly intended to be moved. Some places in the US had floating casinos, because state law allowed casinos on boats—but those weren’t meant to go anywhere.
Further beyond it, there were a few other businesses on docks and boats, including a fish market.
There were also plenty of smaller houseboats and recreational boats tied to piers or anchored off the canal. It was an entire small village built in the middle of the lake which sounded absurd, but then the Southern Pacific had put a train station in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.
Over on the other side, there was a small floating restaurant, and I watched as a pair of towpony slowed long enough to give a food order, which was made, bagged, and delivered by the time the coal barge passed the restaurant. A pegasus soared into the canal with two sacks in her mouth, traded one for some bits, and then flew up to the towpony and offered them the second bag.
The one furthest from the canal unhooked the rope from his harness and looped it over his partner’s, then sat down and ate his meal.
They hadn’t made it all that far before he was finished, and he trotted down the path to give the other pony a chance to eat.
•••
I hadn’t recognized that the structures I’d seen further along the canal were locks—I’d seen my fair share of them so far, but never built in a lake. In hindsight, they made sense; obviously, the canal and the lake weren’t always at the same water level, and it would make sense to be able to transfer a boat from the lake to the canal or vice versa.
Swanky Brook started climbing the ramp leading up to the walkway over the lock doors, and stopped partway up. “Boat coming out,” he shouted back, then promptly turned around, stepped across the towline, and made his way back down the grade.
“Darn it,” Flash Lock muttered. “I was hoping we’d get by before they locked through. Oh well.”
“How’s he going to get out?” The gates were perpendicular to the canal. “It’s too narrow for a boat your size. Or even half your size.”
“Half our size fits with ponies pulling on the towpaths,” she said. “Barely. They can pivot it around the piling and bend it into the canal. That’s why we gotta be back a little ways, to give them room to maneuver. Swanky’s gonna pull us back and in against the bank, just back to that set of bollards we passed.”
Swanky looped the towrope over the bow cleat, leaving some slack between it and its normal fastening point on the cabin roof.
He brought it down the length of the boat—there were no handrails to interfere—and hooked it around a stern cleat as well, looking back as he walked so he could brace himself as the line tightened.
It still pulled him back a few inches.
Once the barge had stopped, he backed off the tension and kicked dirt back in the ruts he’d made, then started pulling us backwards down the canal. Flash Lock took the minute he was fixing the towpath to remove the rudder and carry it to the other end of the boat.
It hadn’t occurred to me until just then that the symmetry of the boat obviously meant it could be towed from either end, but that having a second rudder in the bow would be in the way and drag in the water. Just having one and affixing it to whichever end was the effective stern was the obvious solution.
Once we were abeam of the bollards, Flash Lock and Swanky Brook looped the towline around them to hold us in place, and then there was nothing to do but watch the barge make the turn out of the lock.
They’d opened the gates while we were backing, and started to nose the barge out into the canal. A pony in harness was standing on the bow, and I couldn’t tell how it was moving. She obviously wasn’t pulling it.
The water in the canal barely flowed, although there was a minimal outrush as they opened the gates. Not enough to move a barge, I would have thought.
It wasn’t until another pony came into view that I figured out how they were doing it. She had a short rope attached to the stern, in a similar manner to how Swanky Brook had braked our boat.
The tillermare drove the boat straight across the canal, until the bow bumped into the bank, and the mare in front hopped off onto the towpath.
I’d expected her to start pulling, but instead she made her way to the stern of the boat and stood in position until her companion had repositioned her rope, which had been attached to the forward cabin all along, but cleated down.
The two of them worked together, slowly turning the boat in our direction. The mare at the stern didn’t have much room to work—she needed to pull the boat directly towards her, and the towpath wasn’t all that wide. She’d cross the path, then carefully back up and wait until the tillermare shortened the towrope, then she’d get another few feet of pull and repeat the process.
If they’d had to turn it a full ninety degrees in that manner, it would have taken forever; luckily, they didn’t. Once they had it at an angle, they started using the piling as a pivot point, the mare on our side walking against the normal flow of traffic.
The one on the other bank didn’t have to pull straight anymore; she kept tension on her line to keep the boat from rubbing too hard against the piling, moving back as the line came around.
The momentum of the boat carried the stern all the way to the far bank, giving her an opportunity to hop back aboard. As the barge straightened, she unhooked her rope from the aft end and carried it forward to the bow.
When she had her line established and had gotten back on the towpath, the mare on our bank disconnected her towrope from her harness.
She trotted back down the path to close the gate, then came back our way. Flash Lock and Swanky Brook had already unmoored our barge and had just gotten it moving.
“Can I cross?”
Flash Lock nodded, and the mare hopped aboard midships and crossed over to the canalside gunnel, close to the still-snoozing Mersey. There wasn’t more than a foot of space between our barge and hers as we passed, an easy distance to cross for a pony who had surely done it countless times before.
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Forested areas are more common now, or at least wooded, as old mill sites are demolished but too remote relative to nearby towns to have industrial sheds built on them, though some have been repurposed for expensive housing, them forgetting that being next to a canal is one thing, being next to the river on the other side is anothe, especially when they remove the mill site walls to make it look better, and that 4 to 6 foot of wall has been holding back the flood waters.
Not sure of lake and causeway in the region, but multiple canals connect to Tidal rivers and estuaries, and the Flood gates on those can be immense, extending many feet higher than usual as theres no normal capability to add sandbags safely to the top to bring it up to the hight of emergancy bagged defenses either side. Because the customs house at Keadby Wharf stood over the top of the defenses, dividing the tidal Trent size docks from the flood plain canal, it could be one of the last ground floor structures still left dry for an awful lot of miles, apart from the small railway shelter, if the enviroment conditions lead to the sea breeching the defenses.
Ah, that was it, Keadby canal. right by the power station just after the tidal lock, is crossed by the dual line railway, which is so close to canal level that it uses a pivoting bridge.. just checking.
I know looking at it from the train it was peculiar, but I didnt realise it was Unique. A Sliding Drawbridge. Sliding Railbridge
Better head off with it being too late to remain coherent.
As much as this is fun to read, given that my knowledge of canals and locks is effectively limited to what I've read in this chapter, I can't visualize any of this.
Still quite interesting though.
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Fear not, when the blog post comes along (Soon!TM) you’ll learn all about it!
In the meantime, this’ll get you started:
Ah, the level of detail in these stories is truly incredible. It really makes the world feel alive.
I would love to see how you'd flesh out a Pony movie script with all the little background details of a vibrant and functional world. I would expect something akin to Miazaki's masterpieces.
Discord pops in, "Ooooo! I can do that!" *SNAP!!* Suddenly there are towering walls of water around the boats and the ponies run about screaming in panic while Discord sighs in contentment.
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Thanks!
If I was in charge of the whole thing, it’d be boring to most audiences, let’s be honest. But if I was the guy doing the scene setting, you’re darn right I’d fill it with tiny worldbuilding details.
Mersey just rolls her eyes.
How is that possible when they've been moving upstream the whole time? If the water level between the two locks is higher, doesn't it drain out?
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Canals have cisterns, up/down canal is destination based not flow. Canals are generally still water.
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Heh, I didn't even think of mentioning that in the story since I live on the Great Lakes and we also use upbound/downbound based on which direction the ship is going. While upbound ships are travelling against the natural flow of the water, you can't really see that any of the lakes are flowing.
I don't know if all canals went away from oceans/rivers with access to the ocean, but I would imagine the traditional 'up' on a canal was 'away from the large body of water' or 'up in altitude'.
This is such a precious story.
And your working details and perspectives in descriptions put the cherry on top.
Barges and canals work very well in this worldbuilding of Equestria - quadruped ponies hauling barges seems as second nature as human bicycle couriers.
This industry could have existed in canon.
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Thank you!
A little bigger than that, I'd say--we don't really have a human equivalent except people pulling barges, I guess. Maybe a bicycle towing a trailer? Either way, it does seem like a perfectly natural fit.
I think it would. Ponies know about boats and surely have figured out that they can haul cargo on them--that they can haul lots of cargo on them. They also seem more willing to do large-scale weather management, which makes some of the drawbacks of the canals more easily solved. Given their tech level, the only way it would make sense for them to not have canals would be if they can ship things on clouds more efficiently (or with airships, since we know they have those). However, I think if they had cloud-tech or good airship tech, they might not invent railroads. I could be wrong, but I think that the original idea of railroads was to haul bulk cargos, not passengers.