I really must visit the Anderton Lift one of these days. They call it "The Cathedral Of The Waterways", and it's an incredible structure.
It's actually been converted back to hydraulic operation now, but with the wheels of the cable hoists left in place for effect. Basically what happened is when first opened, it was steam-powered hydraulics using river water as the hydraulic fluid, over time the cylinders rusted, and the price of coal went up, and so in the 1920s it was decided it would be cheaper to rebuild it with electric power and dispense with the steam and hydraulics, so the extra upper platform and winch wheels and cables were added.
A few years ago it was totally restored as part of the big lottery-funded waterways revival, and converted back to the original hydraulic operation, though I tink it now uses proper hydraulic oil so the cylinders shouldn't rust this time.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2009-03-05 12:43 pm (UTC)It's actually been converted back to hydraulic operation now, but with the wheels of the cable hoists left in place for effect. Basically what happened is when first opened, it was steam-powered hydraulics using river water as the hydraulic fluid, over time the cylinders rusted, and the price of coal went up, and so in the 1920s it was decided it would be cheaper to rebuild it with electric power and dispense with the steam and hydraulics, so the extra upper platform and winch wheels and cables were added.
A few years ago it was totally restored as part of the big lottery-funded waterways revival, and converted back to the original hydraulic operation, though I tink it now uses proper hydraulic oil so the cylinders shouldn't rust this time.