Göta Kanal – Locks at Borenshult

I have blogged about Göta Kanal and its locks before - for example two years ago, from Trollhättan.

“Göta Canal was constructed in the early 19th century to connect lakes and rivers from Göteborg (Gothenburg) on the west coast all the way to Söderköping on the east coast. The construction of the Göta Canal, finished in 1832, was by far the greatest civil engineering project ever undertaken in Sweden up to that time; requiring 22 years of effort by more than 58,000 workers.”

East of Motala, at Borenshult, Lake Vättern is connected to Lake Boren, with a steep “staircase” of five interconnected locks with a total height difference of more than 15 meters; built between 1823 to 1825.

We went to see these locks in the morning of the third day of our trip (29 July; after having stayed the night at a hotel in Motala).

Motala seemed a little reluctant to let us go…
Drawbridge over the canal opening up for boats to pass.

This bridge still manually manouvered from a cabin by the bridge.

On our way to the locks, we also made a quick stop at Charlottenborg, a manor house from the mid 17th century situated by Motala River; now housing Motala Museum. We were there too early in the morning for the museum to be open yet, so just went for a whort walk around the house and looked at the views.

By the time we arrived at the locks, it had stopped raining. And as there were boats on their way up the locks, we stayed around a while to follow the process.

Lock filled with water. You can see the masts of boats waiting in the one below to go up.

Water level being lowered in the upper lock.

Looking in the direction the boats will be going.

Water level now even with the next lock, gates opening.

A lot of manouvering required to get the boats in place.

Then the water level can be raised again, to lift the boats to the next level.

I crossed over to the other side of the canal for a look while the bridge was still in place.

There is a type of drawbridge here that we had never seen before. It neither goes up, nor swings sideways, but just slides back on top of the road.

Waiting on the other side of the bridge, for their turn to go down the locks.

 

Here we go – the bridge has magically opened.

And when the boats going up have passed through,
then come those who have been waiting to go down.

Bridge closing again, after the last boat going through.
(Meanwhile, cars queueing on both sides of the canal.)

I tried to film the sliding bridge as well – but had trouble getting the video to show on the computer. Now I have found it, and will try to put it into a separate blog post. Hope you’ll be able to see it as well.

Back to July (Vänersborg / Brinkebergskulle)

As there is not a lot happening in my winter world at the moment, this might be a good opportunity to skip back in time to last summer… I blogged about the first part of my holiday trip with my brother in July and August (you’ll find the posts in my blog archive in the sidebar); but then other things happened in September and onwards that took priority.

So I’ve been saving a bit of summer to look back upon… 

After a very watery July 21st in Trollhättan – with heavy rain pouring down from above all day while we were visiting the canal and locks and waterfalls! – we had better luck with the weather the next day when we set out to continue our trip ‘down Memory Lane’, following (more or less) the south coast of lake Vänern: with a first stop at Vänersborg, and from there on to Lidköping and the peninusula/island Kållandsö.

 

At Vänersborg, we visited the last lock connecting the Göta Canal to Lake Vänern: Brinkebergskulle. There we were in luck and got to see a whole bunch of leisure boats going down through the lock; to be met by a single very small one waiting to go up.

Linking to Skywatch Friday

Canal & Locks – Trollhättan (3)

Trollhätte Canal is part of the longer Göta Canal, constructed in the early 19th century to connect lakes and rivers from Göteborg (Gothenburg) on the west coast all the way to Söderköping on the east coast. The construction of the Göta Canal, finished in 1832, was by far the greatest civil engineering project ever undertaken in Sweden up to that time; requiring 22 years of effort by more than 58,000 workers.

The first series of locks at Trollhättan (above) was built between 1795-1800. By the time the whole canal was finished, though, the locks at Trollhättan were already too small, and new ones were built between 1838-1844.

This is the upper of the second set of locks.

The locks from 1844 were used until 1916, when the they were replaced by a third set still in use today, which can take cargo vessels up to 4000 tons.

To be brought up or down an impressive 32 metres at Trollhättan, the boats here now go through a series of four locks.

The maximum dimensions for a boat to traverse the canal are:

• Length: 88 m
• Width: 13.2 m
• Mast height: 27 m
• Depth: 5.40 m

These pictures are from the upper lock.

There weren’t any big ships waiting to go down the locks just when we happened to visit. Much of the summer traffic on the canal consists of smaller private boats.

I have left all the photos in this post unedited… The day really was just as grey and rainy as it appears!

It’s possible to go on a tourist tour through the locks on board this old canal boat from 1875 – M/S Elfkungen. (The name might be interpreted as either King of the River or King of the Elves/Fairies.) You have to set aside at least three hours for that adventure though.

Instead, we took the car down to the bottom end of the flight of locks, where we got to watch a couple of smaller boats go through the last one.

In the following pictures – note the water level sinking.

Finally the last gates were opened and the boats were let out.

By this time it was raining really heavily again!

Linking to Good Fences