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• Trolley canal boats and canal railways (LowTechMag)
• Cycling tunnels under the Tyne dug by hand (Guardian)
• Barcelona reversing car dominance with Superblocks (Vox)
• Maps of lost subway, streetcar & cablecar lines (UntappedCities)
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It seems that DiamondGeezer has become bored of a certain perennial Friday Reads topic! 😀
A propos cable hauled barges, just for the sake of completeness. it is worth noting that there was a very long-lived cable operation on the Main, between (I recall) Frankfurt and Koeln, with the boats using a steam winch to wind themselves along. The towing vessels had on-board blacksmiths (!) to repair the frequent breaks in the chain. Locals recall the vessels as being very noisy, not unlike the braying of a donkey. The service lasted until after WW1, and the last vessel wasn’t scrapped until after WW2.
There was also a cable hauled system on some lengths of the Panama canal but I don’t know what powered it. One or two Swiss systems (to bypass weirs) were manpowered (as was the very short roller-based portage system on the Cam which may not count therefore)
The blacksmiths on chain-operated canal boats, which worked rather like a chain ferry, were there to break the vessel free from the chain when it needed to dock, and to connect it when setting out. This would also have been necessary in event of one vessel needing to overtake another. There is a preserved chain-operated tug, ‘Gustav Zeuner’, at Magdeburg, there having been a chain system on the Elbe between Hamburg and Mělník (about 35 km north of Prague), with a branch up the River Saale to Halle.
@LiS – You might like to look at http://www.wikiwand.com/de/Kettenschifffahrt_auf_dem_Main
which gives a slightly more nuanced story. In English “Small Boat through Germany” (if you can find a secondhand copy) has a whole chapter devoted to the Maakuh as it was known.
[This link works for me. LBM]
Although the reference appears truncated, it can nonetheless be clicked on successfully.
At least, that is the case with my particular browser/platform combination; it may be different on others. We are partly in WordPress’s hands here, though. Further information as to how and whether it works for you could be emailed, if you wish, to [email protected].