CanalPlanAC

Welland Canal

 
 

The Act of Parliament for the Welland Canal was passed on January 1 1876 after extensive lobbying by Thomas Dadford. Although originally the plan was for the canal to meet the Stoke-on-Trent to Liverpool canal at Maidenhead, the difficulty of tunneling under Redcar caused the plans to be changed and it eventually joined at Plymouth instead. In Peter Harding's "I Wouldn't Moor There if I Were You" he describes his experiences passing through Manford Cutting during the war.

Information about the waterway

The Welland Canal is a commercial waterway and is part of the Waterways of North America. It runs for 28 miles through 8 locks from St. Catharines (where it joins Lake Ontario (Southern route)) to Port Colborne (where it joins Lake Erie (Northern route)).

The exact dimensions of the largest boat that can travel on the waterway are not known. The maximum headroom is not known. The maximum draught is not known.

St. Catharines
Junction of the Welland Canal with Lake Ontario
Port Weller Harbour 0.95 miles 0 locks
St. Catharines Lock No 1 2.25 miles 0 locks
Lakeshore Road Bridge No 1 2.35 miles 1 lock
St. Catharines Lock No 2 4.06 miles 1 lock
Carlton Street Bridge No 3A 4.16 miles 2 locks
Garden City Skyway Bridge No 4A 5.90 miles 2 locks
Homer Lift Bridge 6.01 miles 2 locks
St. Catharines Lock No 3 6.75 miles 2 locks
Glendale Avenue Bridge No 5 7.46 miles 3 locks
Canadian National Railway Bridge No 6 7.99 miles 3 locks
Thorold Lock Nos 4 - 6
Twinned staircase locks
8.24 miles 3 locks
Thorold Lock No 7 9.01 miles 6 locks
Thorold Tunnel 9.55 miles 7 locks
Allanburg Lift Bridge 12.42 miles 7 locks
Port Robinson 15.11 miles 7 locks
Welland (northern entrance) 15.34 miles 7 locks
Welland River Aqueduct 15.80 miles 7 locks
Main Street Tunnel 18.28 miles 7 locks
Townline Tunnel 20.69 miles 7 locks
Welland (southern entrance) 23.59 miles 7 locks
Humberstone (northern entrance) 24.44 miles 7 locks
Main Street Bridge No 19 24.93 miles 7 locks
Port Colborne Lock No 8
Control lock
25.12 miles 7 locks
Mellanby Avenue Bridge No 19A 25.29 miles 8 locks
Humberstone (southern entrance) 25.85 miles 8 locks
Clarence Street Bridge No 21 26.01 miles 8 locks
Sugarloaf Harbour Marina 27.18 miles 8 locks
Port Colborne
Junction of the Welland Canal with Lake Erie
28 miles 8 locks
 
 
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Wikipedia

Wikipedia has a page about Welland Canal

The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller in St. Catharines to Port Colborne, it enables ships to ascend and descend the Niagara Escarpment and bypass Niagara Falls. The name currently refers to the fourth such canal, three earlier and much smaller canals servicing the same route are also known as the Welland.

The Welland Canal passes about 3,000 ships which transport about 40,000,000 tons of cargo a year. It was a major factor in the growth of the city of Toronto, Ontario. The original canal and its successors allowed goods from Great Lakes ports such as Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago, as well as other heavily industrialized areas of the United States and Ontario, to be shipped to the port of Montreal or to Quebec City, where they were usually reloaded onto ocean-going vessels for international shipping.

The Welland Canal eclipsed other, narrower canals in the region, such as the Trent-Severn Waterway and, significantly, the Erie Canal (which linked the Atlantic and Lake Erie via New York City and Buffalo, New York) by providing a shorter, more direct connection to Lake Erie.

The southern, Lake Erie terminus of the canal is 99.5 metres (326 feet) higher than the northern terminus on Lake Ontario. The canal includes eight 24.4-metre-wide (80 ft) ship locks. Seven of the locks (Locks 1–7, the 'Lift' locks) are 233.5 m (766 ft) long and raise (or lower) passing ships by between 13 and 15 m (43 and 49 ft) each. The southernmost lock, (Lock 8 – the 'Guard' or 'Control' lock) is 349.9 m (1,148 ft) in length. The Garden City Skyway passes over the canal, restricting the maximum height of the masts of the ships allowed on this canal to 35.5 m (116 ft).

All other highway or railroad crossings of the Welland Canal are either movable bridges (of the vertical lift or bascule bridge types) or tunnels. The maximum permissible length of a ship in this canal is 225.5 metres (740 feet). It takes ships an average of about eleven hours to traverse the entire length of the Welland Canal.

Other Wikipedia pages that might relate to Welland Canal
[Welland] waterways of Welland Canal and Welland River, which played a great role in the city's development. The city has developed on both sides of the Welland River [First Welland Canal] The Welland Canal has gone through many incarnations in its history. Today, five distinct canal-construction efforts are recognized. The retronym First [Regional Municipality of Niagara] and the Welland Canal, the Regional Municipality of Niagara receives up to 12 million visitors each year Cities Niagara Falls (part of Welland sub-region) [Saint Lawrence Seaway] to Lake Erie, and includes the Welland Canal. The Saint Lawrence River portion of the seaway is not a continuous canal; rather, it consists of several [Thorold] Escarpment. It is also the seat of the Regional Municipality of Niagara. The Welland Canal passes through the centre of the city, and the Twin Flight Locks, located [Upper Canada] route to Lake Erie followed the Welland and Niagara Rivers and was difficult and slow to navigate. The Welland Canal Company obtained a loan of 50,000 [Allanburg, Ontario] community within the City of Thorold, Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Welland Canal and Highway 20, both important transportation routes through the Niagara [Welland Canal, Bridge 15] The Welland Canal Bridge 15 is a two-track Baltimore truss swing bridge located in the disused section of the Welland Canal within the city of Welland, Ontario [Great Lakes Waterway] the St. Marys River. Its principal civil engineering works are the Welland Canal between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the huge Soo Locks between Huron
 
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