This is Lock #8 of the Welland Canal. It is the southernmost, and it is just a guard or control lock. Unlike the other seven locks on the canal, it doesn't lift the boats over 40'. It accommodates the variance in water levels on Lake Erie and lifts them just 2'-11'.
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| Street View, looking downbound from Bridge 19a (Mellanby Avenue) |
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| Street View, looking upbound from Bridge 19 (Main Street) |
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| Dougie Jay posted Lock 8 on the Welland Canal at Port Colborne, the World's longest (postcard courtesy Peterborough Airways) Jeff Basnett: As of 2016 I think that title now belongs to the Kieldrecht Lock in Belgium |
Main Street or Bridge 19 is on the north side of the lock.
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| Street View |
Mellanby Avenue or Bridge 19a is on the south side of the lock.
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| Street View |
And next to the lock is a skateboard park.
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| Street View |
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| Shawn Wurm posted First time I saw a container ship on the great lakes. Lock 8 Port Colborne. The boat is the [Big Lift] Happy River. Michael Wold: Is this a rarity. Never seen a container ship on Great Lakes. Jon S. Chapin: Michael Wold carries windmill blades to Duluth. Patrick Eves: Happy River and the other Biglift ships usually bring oversize industrial products from Europe and return with containers. [I know that the Twin Ports export a lot of ag products (beet pulp, wheat, etc.). But they carry the ag exports as bulk cargo, not in containers. I wonder what America would be exporting in containers.] |
"And, unlike the other seven locks, downbound boats go up instead of down."
ReplyDeleteWait, wouldn't it depend on the level of the lake whether it was a rise or fall into this lock from Lake Erie?
I looked at the miter gates for that lock in a satellite image. That statement was wrong! It has been deleted. The lowest level of the lake is controlled by the elevation of the Niagara River. So they probably always have at least a 2' difference.
DeleteStill confused and confused even myself. Wouldn't you generally - normal weather - be locking down from the lake? Lake Erie - regardless of variance - would be designed to be the canal summit, right?
DeleteBy "that statement," I mean my statement that you quoted, not something you said. You are correct, the lake should always be higher than the canal. Downbound boats always go down.
DeleteI've seen it stated the lake at this location can change by 11 feet because of the wind, but the problem is that it's stated without the context that apparently that it can INCREASE 11 feet from its normal/average level. The way it's always stated, it makes it sound like a 5-and-a-half feet in either direction; they also make it sounds like it happens at the literal door of the canal, which I'm not sure is correct either. I don't think the doors are that high, downbound?
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