The Falkirk Wheel, the world's first "rotating boat lift," connects Scotland's cross country canals without the need for locks.
By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published June 13, 2004
[Times photo: Robert N. Jenkins]
A tour boat glides into the lower gondola of the Falkirk Wheel; electric motors quietly will raise the gondola to the top postion and the tour boat will motor down a viaduct, visible at top, and into a lake. Click for graphic and more photos
FALKIRK, Scotland - There was a time, a couple of centuries ago, when the best way to move people and freight across the land was on canals.
Scotland, surrounded by water on three sides, became the first nation in the world to dig interlocking cross country canals. They connected the North Sea, near Edinburgh on the east, with the Atlantic Ocean, a few miles to the west of Glasgow.
That was in 1790, and the trip took most of a day, including the six to 10 hours to move through 11 locks needed to raise or lower the boats of 115 feet.
Little more than a century later, the development of the steam engine greatly cut the transit time, but those engines also opened up other routes, on land and sea. The railroad further reduced the need for canals.
Finally the internal combustion engine meant trucks and cars could take people and cargo much faster than could boats.
What had been a busy canal system was largely abandoned in 1933. In the 1960s, it was closed when two major highways were constructed through the canals.
But everything old is new again, and then some.
The national government spent the equivalent of $124-million to eliminate the need for the former 11 locks by creating the world's first "rotating boat lift." It is named the Falkirk Wheel, after the middle-of-the-nation town where it was constructed.
The structure is futuristic in appearance, yet it uses an ancient law of physics to operate. Basically, a huge wheel is fixed to an axis, and on either side of the wheel are two boxes that hold water. Each box, called a gondola, is 70 feet long by 21 feet wide.
This is when Archimedes' Principle comes into use. This states that an item placed in water displaces its own weight; thus one or more boats push out of the gondola an amount of water equivalent in weight to the boat's weight.
The opposing gondola has the same weight, whether it is water only or also holds boats.
A number of electric motors uses just 1.5 kilowatts to turn a cleverly designed series of gears that rotate both the large wheel and lesser gears that keep the gondolas level while the big wheel turns.
The gondola on the bottom is filled with water from a basin, and boats glide in before a water-tight door is closed behind them. The gondola at top opens onto an aqueduct that connects through a tunnel to the original, higher canal.
When both gondolas are closed, the wheel rotates - eerily quiet, considering the size of the structure. What was below goes up and what was up comes down.
When the big wheel's half-rotation is complete, the water doors are opened and the boats glide out, to continue their canal journey in either direction. The cross country canal is about 68 miles long.
Since it opened two years ago this month, more than 1,500 pleasure craft have ridden the Falkirk Wheel. And more than 1-million visitors have come through the gates to watch it happen, with many of them booking rides on the 40-passenger tour boats kept in the basin.
The ride up or down takes about 41/2 minutes; the tour boats going up send their boats into the 330-foot-long aqueduct, which leads to a 475-foot-long tunnel beneath an ancient Roman wall. From there the tour boats enter a small lake, turn around and come back.
The round-trip voyage back to the boat basin lasts about 45 minutes.
IF YOU GO
The Falkirk Wheel was built to celebrate the new millennium. It was financed with money from the British government, European Union, seven local governments and private sources.
Construction of the massive wheel (15,000 bolts hold the metal parts together) cost about $25-million. The other nearly $100-million or so went to the construction or renovation of 62 miles of towpath (now a walkway but originally the path used by horses to pull the boats) and 42 lock gates, and construction of 25 stone bridges, the aqueduct, tunnel and boat basin.
GETTING THERE: Several trains a day from Edinburgh and Glasgow stop in Falkirk; the ride takes little more than a half-hour. Phone your departure train station for the schedule to and from Falkirk.
The Falkirk Wheel is on a bus route from Falkirk's Grahamston and High train stations. The No. 3 Red Line Bus, operated by First Bus, runs about every 15 minutes from stops near both stations to the Wheel site. Cabs can be hired at the stations for about 5 pounds (about $9.25) one way.
THE SITE: The tour boats leave every half-hour from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April through October, and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. November to March.
Prices are 8 pounds (about $14.75) for adults, 4 pounds (about $7.35) for children ages 5 to 15; children 4 and younger are free.
Admission to the visitors center, with its several explanatory displays, is free.
