Friday, March 1, 2024

I&M Canal: Lock: #8, Aux Sable Aqueduct and Locktender House

Lock: (HAERSatellite)
Aqueduct: (Satellite)
House: (Satellite)

Joe Balynas Flickr photo taken with a camera on a stick.
The lift is about 6.5' (2m). [JoeBalynas]

"The lift lock is one of the fifteen original deep-cut locks designed by William Gooding for the I&M Canal. The locktender's house was built in 1848 when the canal began operations." [HAER_data]

South elevation of the aqueduct. The arches are holding up the tow path.
Street View, Dec 2021

North elevation. The canal is in a metal trough. (If that metal is original, it would be iron. If it is a replica, it would be steel.)
Street View, Dec 2021

From left to right, lockhouse, lock and bypass channel.
Peter Ciro Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks (CC BY-NC-ND)
Aux Sable Lock #8 along the historic Illinois & Michigan Canal

Illinois and Michigan Canal Photo Tour posted two photos with the comment: "Lock 8 and bypass channel at Aux Sable, near Morris."
1

2

20140710 0051

The lockhouse is on the right and the bypass channel is behind the lock. Looking East or upstream.

Looking West or downstream.

The bypass channel had a weak current when I was there.

The lock has become a hodgepodge of repairs. This location is another demonstration that fish like turbulent water.

I need to make another trip to see if they fixed this sign since 2014.

This is a canal side view of the aqueduct.

The Dellos Road Bridge is not your usual UCEB (Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridge). This was taken from the towpath on the aqueduct.

On the east end of the aqueduct towpath looking upstream.

On the west end of the aqueduct, looking downstream.

Taken from the bridge over the lock that we see in the above photo.

The concrete dam shows how the miter gates would look when they were closed. Unfortunately, that little flow is not enough to keep the "green stuff" off the canal, especially upstream of the aqueduct.

A photo dump of some photos of the aqueduct and arch bridge. I include a street view of the bridge to record how low the "handrails" are. I had recently taken photos from the Warrenville Bridge over the Tri-State and was scared by the low height of the handrails and the skinny sidewalk. But this bridge with no handrails and no sidewalk didn't bother me. Probably because the fall height was not too bad, and I didn't see a single car on the road while I was there.
Dennis DeBruler









1 comment:

  1. Makes you wonder if people canoe through there.

    ReplyDelete