Lift History

Posted by MGB 2009

A unique solution - widen the waterway & save water - aka - The Thomas Lift, The Foxton Barge Lift, The Foxton Inclined Plane, Lift Lock, or The New Locks

The Lock flight at Foxton was built in 1810, and the top summit route opened four years later. A trip through the ten locks takes about 45 minutes to negotiate the 75 ft hill and uses 25 thousand gallons of water. Boat width is restricted to seven feet in the locks. Boats using the locks can carry a maximum load of 25 tons. With only the horse for competition, the 45 minute journey (for each boat) through the locks was unimportant, even when queues extended this to several hours.

With the coming of the railways, competition was starting to bite. Fellows Morton And Clayton (FMC) wanted to use bigger boats to take coal from the north to the London factories. They promoted a take-over of the Leicester line of the canal by the Grand Junction Canal Company (see Local Waterways). The takeover was successful and FMC promised to put more narrowboats on the canal until the locks at Watford (Gap) and Foxton could be widened.

GJCCo engineer Gordon Cale Thomas was put in charge of the project. Wide locks were dismissed as using too much water from the canal's summit pound. His solution was to build a boat lift to his patented design.

The lift was built by W H Gwynne of Hammersmith, London it consisted of two tanks or caissons linked by wire rope. A steam driven winch at the top wound the rope on to one side of its drum and simultaneously let it off the other, raising and lowering the tanks. Each tank was full of water and weighed 230 tons with or without a boat. Two boats or one barge would fit in to each tank. The gradient was 1 in 4 and the total rise of 75'2". Using the lift in operation, you took your boat(s) into the tank at your level. The operator would close a guillotine gate behind you and signal the engine room with a ship's telegraph. The 25 horsepower steam engine is turned on and you ascend the hill. The other tank descends either loaded with boats or just full of water. The descending tank simply sinks into the water at the bottom where the guillotine gate is opened by the operator. However,the immersion of the descending tank effectively makes it lighter in weight, upsetting the the balance between the two tanks. To compensate for this, when the tank nears the top of the Incline, an ingenious change is made to the angle of ascent. The top of the slope curves off, effectively making it easier for the tank to ascend. On the leading edge of the tank, extra wheels come into contact with extra rails either side of the normal track. At the same time the rear wheels descend into a pit. This arrangement keeps the tanks upright. The tank has scraped the wooden seals fixed on the end of each top dock. Once at the top, hydraulic rams push the tank on to the wooden seal, and the guillotine gates on the end of the tank and on the dock are opened. The horse is re-attached and off you go. The entire operation has taken 12 minutes, and could move 2 boats up and 2 down. A big saving against the time taken to use the locks.

The lift also saved a tremendous amount of water, because the only water lost was that trapped between the gates at the top.

100 years ago the locks were rebuilt for night use

Night Use - The lift didn't normally work in the dark. Horse boats tended to stop because the horse needed its rest. By 1909 FMC steam boats were working 'fly' which meant non-stop boating 24 hours a day, with a four man crew in shifts. To accommodate these fly boats, the locks were restored for night use. The lift had worked well but the locks at Watford Gap were never widened, and the traffic didn't increase. This made the lift uneconomic. There were problems with track bolts pulling out of the sleepers, but nothing that could not have been overcome. The lift was capable of moving a massive amount of traffic compared with the actual usage. FMC's promise of increased traffic hadn't been fulfilled.

Closure - In 1911 the lift was mothballed to save money, the traffic returning to the locks which have been in use ever since. The decision was probably due to the need for substantial maintenance repairs on the 10 year old structure, and the cost of keeping the lift in steam with a minimum of three operators. The fact that a fully working set of locks was available alongside the lift would not have helped. The lift was maintained for a few years, but sank into a slow decline. In 1928 the machinery was sold for scrap.

Since 1980 the Trust has been working towards full restoration of the lift .. Read More...