Sunday, November 05, 2006

Falkirk Wheel

Going up...

And up...

And up...

And up.


Emerging from the tunnel at the top, it's back to the wheel for the trip down.

This aqueduct feels like you're sailing off the edge of the world.

It just stops!

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3 comments:

Brendan said...

Ah... so that is the Falkirk wheel.

er... why is it?

cfg said...

It's a rotating boat lift!

It connects two canals (the Union Canal & The Forth and Clyde) which differ in height by 24m and would otherwise need to be connected by a long series of locks (maybe about 15).

So the wheel allows boats to move between the canals, in a quick and efficient manner.

One of the most amazing things about the Wheel was that because it is almost perfectly balanced it only requires about 20KW to operate the motors and less than 2 units of energy to run a cycle (almost nothing!)

Check out the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

cfg said...

Try again...

Wikipedia Falkirk Wheel