Sounds promising
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Decoy landing lights on canal? Hun bombers sighted!
(59 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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Sounds good. The section just east of Hailes Quarry Park is probably the darkest canal section inside the bypass.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I had heard that they were planning on extending the lights this year.
I have to admit that I really enjoy that dark section of the canal late at night.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I wasn't on the towpath yesterday, but there were 'operatives at work' signs up this morning, and when I went by at 0745 the first cores had been cut by the Kingsknowe road bridge.
So it looks pretty clear to me that lights are being installed now, rather than this being a tender exercise.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Yeah, there was a coned section of the path (effectively one way) beyond the railway bridge going out of town at about 9am today with a guy using a cutting device at one end and another couple at the other end looking out for traffic/possibly installing the actual lighting. I guess it makes sense to follow this through, but I don't look forward to having to avoid even more people out at night without lighting or reflective clothing, as has been the case closer to town since they installed the first batch.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Well I'm turning my lights off on that section next time there's a full moon. Health and safety can both go hang.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I took the canal home on Monday for a bit of a test, as I was leaving a bit later than normal.
The main difficulty I had was unlit and unreflective joggists. I wasn't in a hurry so was taking it fairly slow. Some people were in more of a hurry and passed me after the viaduct (I had walked across).
Don't recall any unlit cyclists, but some appeared "out of nowhere" as they went around a joggist they had been following.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I was on the canal - just from meggetgate to Harrison park last Friday, around 7pm. Terrifying! People all over the place (there was something on at meggetland). We got off as soon as we could and took the road home from Ashley terrace. We were moving incredibly slow because even if you could see people were coming, it was impossible to predict what they were doing, or see if there was room to pass them.
I must be losing my night vision.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"I must be losing my night vision."
More carrots.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Though as you know -
"
"Carrots Help you See in the Dark" was a popular saying at the time and people eagerly tucked in to carrots, believing this would help them to see more clearly in the blackout. This ruse not only helped reduce the surplus vegetables but also helped to mask the chief reason for the RAF's success in night time air battles - the increasing power of radar and the secret introduction of an airborne version of the system.
"
Posted 10 years ago # -
They managed to reach Slateford Aquaduct yesterday and are now working back towards Wester Hailes. The markings currently extend to the towpath access path just beyond the Calder Road bridge, but short of the Scott Russell Aquaduct, so I wonder if they will be leaving it there?
Posted 10 years ago # -
They have currently reached all the way to Cultins Road, bar a last few which were in the process of being installed this morning.
I still think it's daft that there are none under the bridges, exactly where the lights would be most useful to demarcate the edges. The principle of marking out hazards by the absence of a warning is not brilliant.
Posted 10 years ago # -
isn't it because bridges are listed?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Listed or monument status or something like that. Don't know whether it means that you can't install lights flush with the cobblesurface (though solar-charged lights would maybe need a charging surface somewhere out of the shade under the bridge) or whether no illumination of any kind is allowed, even if it was sort of clipped to the outside edge of the bank.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"isn't it because bridges are listed?"
The whole canal is listed, though no doubt it's 'harder' to get permission on the stone bits.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I doubt that the railway bridges are listed. Almost certainly they're owned by someone else. The tarmac path turns to cobbles under the railway.
Also, the lights seem to be solar powered - no cable trench was cut - so lights installed under a bridge would probably never light up....
Posted 10 years ago # -
"I doubt that the railway bridges are listed."
No, but it's about the towpath.
"lights installed under a bridge would probably never light up...."
Good point!!!
Posted 10 years ago # -
I was going to find this thread and post that I went running out the canal towpath last night and the lights go further than I ran - but kaputnik has more accurate information.
They're very pretty. There was a lovely moon in a clear sky last night, it was very nice to be out.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The lights perform well enough after a dull, Scottish winter day, so I'm sure those under all but the widest of the bridges would work. Failing that, path-edge reflectors would be useful.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@kaputnik - don't underestimate the human eye's ability to compensate for huge changes in illumination. If you look at the canalside vegetation under bridges 8 and 8a you'll see that, well, there isn't any. There's just bare earth, even though we can see quite well. The growing season in Scotland is short, and it doesn't take much to reduce it to zero. Even a healthy mature tree can cast enough of a light and rain shadow to produce bare earth underneath.
The obvious solution is just to have the bridges rebuilt using structural glass.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"The obvious solution is just to have the bridges rebuilt using structural glass."
Sounds good.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The obvious solution is just to have the bridges rebuilt using structural glass."
Far more obvious in my opinion to dispense with bridge entirely, and build canal flyovers at each obstruction. That way the towpath will never be obscured by overhead structures. Plus it introduces some variety to the otherwise (and frankly unneccessary) flatness of the path.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Structural glass canal flyovers! We could peer up at the goosanders as they hunt around for abandoned Fillet O'Fishes...
Posted 10 years ago # -
I think the bits under the bridges are, oddly, not owned by the Waterways people, but by the owners of whatever goes over the bridge be it rail, road.
So probably simply a question of permission (and therefore interminable red tape).
Anyway, glad they've done what they have!
EDIT: Just realised that @iwrats made the same point above
Posted 10 years ago # -
According to my understanding of the relevant laws, what is under the bridge is infact the domain of the trolls.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"what is under the bridge is infact the domain of the trolls"
I thought that was the comments section of the EEN
;-)
Posted 10 years ago # -
There's a bit along the Brunstane Burn path where there's a tunnel for the burn, then the path proper above that, then the railway on a bridge above that.
What's the maximum number of trolls that can be sustained by that arrangement then?
Posted 10 years ago # -
42
Posted 10 years ago #
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