Railway Stations near Canals

Canals and rivers wend their way erratically across the country, not always reaching places that are convenient to access. Here is a solution - a map and a list of Railway Stations near canals.
We have found ourselves wanting to moor up in a pleasant spot but having no easy way of getting home or even of visiting a nearby town (though Ely, see pic, is an exception).

I used Google Earth to trace the canals we planned to visit, noting railway stations up to a mile or so away from where we might moor up. We could then take the train home for a few days or visit nearby towns for a change of scene. There are 2552 stations on the Network Rail network and I've identified 290 near canals and rivers in England and Wales.
I think Google Earth is magic. There are umpteen "layers" that sit on top of the satellite images and I was thrilled to find there is a layer showing canals and rivers. So I decided to create my own layer of "railways near canals." I'll explain here how to use it, and I hope you find it useful. It's certainly a work in progress, as for many areas I have no knowledge of the ground, so I rely on you to update me and correct my data for the benefit of all.
How to set up.
Open Google Earth, or download it from here.
Now download the file  "UK_Canals_Route_Only.kmz". Click on the three vertical dots on the right in the red header and select "Download kml".  

Now import the file into your Google Earth sidebar:
(Menu: Open > and find where you saved your download)


















Make sure it appears in your Layers sidebar and that it is ticked. Ticked layers are visible on the map, unticked layers are not. Untick anything you don't want to give more clarity leaving those you do want to see.
Now download the file "Stations_near_canals.kmz" in the same as you did for UK Canals Route, above.
Check that this appears in your Layers sidebar and tick it if necessary. Clicking on the little triangle to the left alternately opens the list up or closes it.

 For clarity you may decide to switch off certain features such as 3D buildings, weather etc.
The selection for rail and waterways, already built in to Google Earth, is hidden in the "More" section (Layers > Primary Database > More) so open the lists by clicking on the triangle and ensure that both Rail and Waterway are ticked.
This clip shows the town of Rugby with a red dot, the railway-station-near-a-canal with a chunky blue train, a primary waterway in blue, a secondary waterway in bright green and the surrounding countryside in dark green. If you search for Rugby or click on the Rugby label in your Google Earth Places list you should see this and more!

 

Get Started. Now you have all the information you need to find railway stations near canals. Just browse the map using the tools at top right to zoom in and out and use your mouse to drag a route across the map.

Click on the chunky train icon to find out which canal is just a mile or so away and to get directions to and from that station.

Click on the red railway sign

to find out more about the line the railway is on and its destinations.

One other thing. The "Stations_near_canals.kmz" file can also be shown in a spreadsheet - stations_near_canals-data.xls . This shows just the unique name of the station and the nearby canal and you can search or arrange according to your needs. So you can now have a list of the nearby stations (usually within walking distance of a mile or so) for your chosen canal. Search for, or click on, the station name in Google Earth and you fly directly to it on the map, where more information can be found. 

Caution: I can't guarantee the 100% accuracy of this data. Some of it is simple rule of thumb. What seems on the map to be just a hop and a skip away could mean a lengthy detour on the ground - and is that where you really want to moor up? 

I'd encourage anyone who knows an area well to correct and amend to me, please, or in the comments box below. That way I can add to the list and we'll all find great mooring spots with railway stations nearby!

Postscript:  There is  now a Google Map site for canals and rivers. Open Canal Map doesn't specifically identify stations near canals but does show canals and rivers more clearly than the basic Google map. Try it at https://opencanalmap.uk/

Welford to Yelvertoft

A short overnight excursion to Yelvertoft, which is a village just 3 hours away from Welford and so easily manageable for a quick trip.
It also has a useful pub, The Knightley Arms, which does good food and beer at fair prices. We've been there a few times recently and find good service and well cooked food. The lads in the snooker room can be a bit noisy for quiet diners like ourselves, but it's great to see so many people enjoying a village pub.
As a measure of its merits we felt able to take our wives there for an evening meal, and they were not disappointed. Picture of wives suitably wrapped up against a chill breeze at the extensive moorings nearby.

The next suitable mooring-with-pub is Crick, which tends to get quite busy, but has more facilities. Between our moorings at Yelvertoft and those at Crick you pass the newish Yelvertoft marina.

Here we are approaching Yelvertoft Marina to use their winding hole. It's quite a new development, with all mod cons including wi-fi for residents and they also seem to be adding a slipway.

A successful weekend just boating up and down and pleasant non-strenuous walks along and across the towpath.

How to Choose a Mooring IV

We've decided our important preferences (see this blog entry), compiled our spreadsheet (see this blog entry), and now have collected as much information as we need (see this blog entry) to make a decision on where to go next.

At last we were in a position to make a decision. We had gathered application forms and left contact details but not signed anything. We had general advice about whether there was likely to be space for us in the time frame we wanted and we could weigh the information and reach a decision. We also had a collection of photographs to remind us which marina was which, as it's so easy to confuse them later.

In our case there were at least two marinas that matched our needs and it was difficult to decide between them. It came down to small preferences but it was very useful to return to our original ranked list. It can be tempting to make a decision on the spur of the moment, persuaded by a sunny day, a friendly neighbour or a trivial incident, when these are unimportant in the longer term.

Where did we choose and why?

Why not help us to decide?

Our short list was:

Welford

Canal Wharf, Welford, Northamptonshire, NN66JQ Tel:01858575995

No website

64 miles, 1hr 20 mins from base by car

£1,480.00 pa

Leicester arm - 17 miles and 8 locks from Norton junction, and Crick tunnel (1528 yds); better value, good scope for day and short trips and would take a day to get to Grand Union.

Gayton Marina

Near jnc. of Grand Union & Northampton arm and north of Blisworth tunnel (3076 yds). Telephone: 01604 858 685

http://www.gaytonmarina.com/

64 miles, 1hr 22 mins from base by car

£1,925.00 pa

No showers but most other facilities incl chandlery, pump out, crane, polytunnel covers; established environment, hire fleet (so staff on duty) mooring available for 45ft, elec available for casual use;

Weltonfield Narrowboats
Near Norton Jcn. (Leicester Arm and mainline) 01327 842282

http://www.weltonfield.co.uk

71 miles, 1hr 32 mins from base by car

£2,005.00

Off A5, very pleasant, workshop, no chandlery except a few oddments in the office; grassy mooring available for extra charge, or pontoon pumpout and fuel. Quiet. Even quieter second marina 5 minutes up river - no facilities there; £2137 for premium grassy) berth. A bit hemmed in by lock flights for day trips

Crick Marina

West Haddon Road, Crick, Northamptonshire NN67SQ Tel:01788824034

crickmarina.com

69miles, 1hr 32 mins from base by car

£1,782.00

Leicester section - 5 miles & 7 locks from Norton junction, and Crick tunnel (1528 yds) good scope for day and short trips and close to Grand Union.

Where did we choose and why? What do YOU think we should have chosen?

Why not look at all the photos we took on our research trip?

Later, we'll tell you where we opted for, and our reasons for choosing our new moorings.

... more later. We'll tell you how we get on. Indeed we'll tell you how we get there. It's a long haul from Oundle on The Nene to our new home on - or near - The Grand Union

How To Choose a Mooring III

So now we've chosen our important features and put them in order of preference (see this blog)
We've also created a spreadsheet with useful headings (see this blog)
We first checked through their websites for more details and for a flavour of the kind of site they were describing. A word of caution here, because the flashiest sites aren’t necessarily what you are looking for and the most basic sites may not reflect the site as you see it on the ground. Some moorings simply don’t think a website is necessary and they may be all the better for it!

Now we set out to try and visit each one. Having ordered them geographically (south to north in our case) we entered their post codes on a sat nav, took a road map as backup and also marked the position in detail on an OS map. We did need all three to find marinas whose entrances had been moved or which were often invisible from country roads. Of course you can bypass all of that by simply taking your boat up and down the canal of your choice and stopping at likely places, but being in paid up moorings on the Nene with umpteen locks between us and the Grand Union we wanted to make a recce by car well in advance and plan the date of our move.

We hoped to make our visits in a single day and we wanted to record our first impressions, talking to moorers and on site staff, reading notices and brochures, checking out car parking, the quality of facilities that were of most use to us (are the loos clean? Is there convenient electricity, water, showers, laundry, pump out, gas, diesel). Can we leave the car safely while we’re afloat? Will the boat be exposed to thieves or is it secure - locked, attended? Can we stay onboard overnight from time to time even if the site doesn’t encourage liveaboards), so we made notes and took photographs to add to our spreadsheet and to bolster our memories. It’s surprisingly easy to confuse similar marinas when you’ve visited half a dozen in a day.

We made a further check of the position on the canal, asking people where to go for a convenient day trip, how readily we could access other canals, whether there were any nearby rings for longer circular journeys. Was this a long-established marina inheriting a love of boats, or a new venture intended mainly as a business? How congested does it get in busy periods?

We also noted whether travel to the mooring was conveniently close or just that bit too far when dropping in to check the battery in midwinter or polish and clean in spring. We awarded each one marks out of ten as judged by our own criteria and then talked it over at length.

Finally of course, are there any vacancies for your length of boat and will you be able to move in when you want to, for example when your present agreement expires?

How to Choose a Mooring II

In the previous blog we listed the most important fetures to be considered when choosing a new mooring.
Having put these in order you can start choosing the general area and identify sites within it. Waterways World provides an annual list of moorings and marinas which includes most places, though there will be smaller canal side moorings that can only be found by exploring the area in more detail.

The case study here may help explain how we went about the search.
We have explored the Ouse and the Nene and wanted to be on the main canal network but near to home. Looking at the countrywide map we found the Lee and Stort to be nearest to our homes in Cambridge but restrictive in that we would have to go a long way round London to reach the rest of the country. Near Milton Keynes would be convenient if the Bedford to Milton Keynes link had been built, but we will have to wait a few years for that, and mooring charges are noticeably higher as you near London. So we decided we wanted to be on the Grand Union, probably somewhere between Stoke Bruerne in the south and Braunston in the north.

We then created a spreadsheet of the main information using the following headings:
•    marina name,
•    contact details (including phone and post code),
•    website address,
•    car miles and travel time from home (using the AA journey planner and the marina post code),
•    cost per foot and for the length of our boat (found usually from the marina website and checked later in person)
•    any service charges,
•    notes including unique or interesting features, distance from any nearby train station, whether near locks etc.

With this information we identified each one, first on a canal map (I used Inland Waterways of Great Britain by Jane Cumberlidge) then gave each marina a number so we could order them in south to north order.
Now we could start discussing priorities and how far these moorings fitted the bill. Anything obviously unsuitable can be moved off the list at this stage. The remaining sites – we had nine – are worth exploring further.

We first checked through their websites for more details and for a flavour of the kind of site they were describing. A word of caution here, because the flashiest sites aren’t necessarily what you are looking for and the most basic sites may not reflect the site as you see it on the ground. Some moorings simply don’t think a website is necessary - and they may be all the better for it!

Patience On The Move - How to choose a mooring

Patience is heading away from the peaceful River Nene with her lovely mooring at Oundle Marina towards the Big World of Real Canals and The Grand Union.

How did you decide on your current moorings? Was it nearest to home, in a delightful setting, where there is access to your favourite places, or just where the boat was when you bought it?

Next to your choice of boat - and your boating partner - your long term mooring is probably the most important boating choice you will make. However the decision to move to a new mooring can usually be made logically and in your own time. With luck you'll be able to make a seamless transition from where you are to where you want to be without either being homeless or paying for two moorings at once.

First decide what kind of boater you. Are you keen to travel extensively, to take mainly short trips or to pootle around the marina? How long are you going to spend in the marina? How often will you travel to it?

From that decision you can say the marina is just a convenient staging post you return to from time to time, the centre of your day trips or your main home.

When you’ve decided that, you can look at your other preferences, ranking them in order of importance:

• Distance / travel time from home (including whether accessible by train or bus or car)
• Canalside, basin or marina
• Convenient facilities (pump out, diesel, shower block, pleasant loos, chandlery, workshop)
• Environment - picnic space and established trees, pubs and shops nearby, historic places of interest
• Choice of waterway
• Friendly caretaker and neighbours, boat club and clubhouse
• Cost (usually calculated per foot per annum but can vary in weeks, months and metres)

       Make your mind up about these important options and come back to read the next post.

More on Fish and Duck

My first visit to the Fish and Duck since the recent renovations -and, despite the fact there's no pub yet, I was impressed.
I like the website graphics, I liked John who is marina manager and who showed me round (after checking me out that I was not snooping with intent!) and I liked the way they have cleared the site, invested in electricity and water, improved the marina and provided floating pontoons ... Yes, I could see myself happily moored up at the Fish and Duck. They have high standards and are being firm about maintaining them. Quite a change from the laissez faire regime of liveaboards with gardens and sheds and dogs and junk. There's a place for them, but sometimes free spirits get their anchors  too firmly dug in and take advantage of benign hosts.
This is a marina in progress, but it looks like a good time to get in. The access road is undergoing more improvement since the surface recently became rutted, so that should be better soon. There are plans for a taverna style eatery - which appeals to me, and I'm delighted it is not to be a gastro pub. They have access to a mobile crane and can arrange dry docking with Stretham Marina (more good folks with ambitions for excellent marinas). Parking seems well organised, mooring payment is one month in advance and "time of payment is of the essence", but there is no lengthy period of being tied to 6 months or a year as many marinas do.
So for £47 per foot per year on average, with additional charges for electricity if you choose, which is a high end charge compared to what we pay, you get a perfectly placed marina at the confluence of three great rivers: the Old West, The Great Ouse and The Cam.
A trip of a few hours could take you to the Lazy Otter, Cambridge (The Five Miles), or Ely (The Cutter). On a sunny day, what more could you wish?
I must add that I have no involvement in the Fish and Duck apart from a keen desire to see a good marina and a drinking hole on this excellent spot. I wish the owners and the manager well - it's a very good start!
Photos on an overcast day I'm afraid, but quite a contrast with this time last year. I expect to see the place full of keen boaters by the end of this year.

Fish and Duck Marina Reopens

Following a great deal of commotion in clearing liveaboards from the Fish and Duck at Popes Corner on the Ouse (our old stomping ground with Patience) as described in a previous post, we now hear that the Fish and Duck has reopened.
According to Waterways World there have been major refurbishments with additional moorings, "smart" electricity meters and water points. The access road has been repaired and planted with flowers along its edges and the whole place brought up to scratch.
THe owners are now turning their attention to rebuilding the pub, which was a popular watering hole for over 100 years and was demolished a few years ago.
Congratulations for all their hard work to Davina and James at www.fishandduck.co.uk If it's as good as they say we might be tempted to bring Patience back to the Ouse before long!

Making The Most of Moorings, Again

Last month, in Making The Most of Moorings,  I railed against the waste of riverside frontage where perfectly good visitor moorings could be provided for minimum effort and maximum gain by both local businesses (pubs and shops) and boaters.
Today, I feel just as strongly, having come back from a pleasant trip upstream on the Nene from Oundle to Irthlingborough.
Along the way we've spotted several places near Titchmarsh, Stanwick, Denford and especially Woodford, where moorings could easily be provided but nothing, it seems, has been done.
I'm not asking for a mooring at every pretty little place, (though maybe .... )

Naturally I appreciate that not everyone is positive to boaters and not everyone who owns a river frontage wants other folks' boats moored up on their patch. However,  I'm convinced there is a need and there is space for more visitor moorings on the Nene, where currently you can motor on for a couple of hours without finding anywhere to stop, and where there are pubs and shops within easy walking distance if only there was a mooring and a simple path. I'm not asking for water or pump outs!
Take Denford for example. A mooring near the lock is marked on my 2007 map but is there no longer. This could provide a really convenient stopping place to visit The Cock and have a meal. But I could find nowhere legitimate to stop, so we passed it by, £20 or so burning in my pocket.
At Woodford there is a huge length of river side, much of it once good moorings, but half of it proclaims Private (though no boats are moored there currently) and the other half is rough edged and with horses in the field. With grass rising up to the local church it has so much in common with Fotheringhay ...

... but instead of advertising it as £4 per night, or patrons only, or engaging the Environment Agency in some deal to make it a great mooring, we boaters have to pass by, a loss to The White Horse, The Duke's arms and the local supermarket.

I'm flummoxed! I know that at Isleham a rogue liveaboard made life difficult by over staying in a 48 hour GOBA mooring. I know that there could be maintenance issues, insurance questions, negotiations with private landowners and all sorts of potential obstacles. But really, is it so hard to have a local man with a spade or a farmer with a digger spending a day digging out a bed of reeds, smoothing the edges and banging in a few short posts, then creating a track from the river to the village?
At Elton, boaters flock to The Crown even though the riverside mooring is rough and we have to fight through the nettles to put down a gang plank. At Reach and Burwell much the same. In each case the attraction of the nearest pub wins out very time, with a crew of 2 or 4 or more likely to spend £20 per head per night.
It surely can't be for a lack of boaters. And there must be local rules, and therefore enforcement, about staying more than 48 hours. So why don't landowners and Parish Councils invest in a bit of riverside clearing - and why don't pubs pitch in with advertising? What am I missing? Surely it's win win?

Oundle to Wadenhoe

At last! A day that is warm and sunny, both John and I are free, and Patience is safely berthed at Oundle Marina. So, after all that strong stream advice, lousy weather and all, we set out for a jaunt a little way upstream to the pretty village of Wadenhoe, accompanied by wife Sarah and friend Angus.
The trip takes us out of the tight entrance to the marina (especially tight approaching from upstream) and quickly on to Upper Barnwell Lock where the Oundle Mill, now a restaurant, looks very fine though gives the impression of being rather exclusive. It describes itself as "a chic retreat", which isn't quite our thing, though Patience is happy to act as moving wallpaper for the chic retreaters.

Then there is a relaxing and very attractive stretch of river with varied views of fields, woodland, distant churches ... all very English on this wonderful sunny day.
Next to Lilford Lock, close to the Nene Way and popular with canoeists who hire from further upstream and wisely move their craft by portage rather than the lock, tempting as it may be. We don't want to crush a flimsy canoe with a 14 ton narrow boat as the water surges through.

Then through Wadenhoe lock and to the moorings immediately nearby at the bottom of the gardens of The King's Head.

So popular is it today, being the best weekend day for months, that the world and his wife are out enjoying the day. With kind and helpful advice from nb Dorcas Lane we manage to moor up alongside and are later joined by a hire boat, making it a triple sandwich.
Lunch is from the Paddock menu, served in the garden followed by a short walk uphill to the attractive church.

then we extricate ourselves from the triple sandwich and, thanking nb Dorcas Lane, we decide we will certainly return to the Kings Head. There's ample turning space outside the Kings Head and the lock is just yards away so you can choose your time to enter.

Return journey much the same (in fact many of the pics above were taken on the return), again attractive, warm, pleasant and the best of easy boating.All three locks at Upper Barnwell, Lilford and Wadenhoe are electrically operated guillotines plus the normal wound vee gates, so this is a bit easier than, say, Perio or Warmington where there is a fly wheel needing manual turning to raise the guillotine.
Incidentally more useful detail about locks on the Nene is provided at Sue's Blog.
Boating on The Nene is fun. At last!

Making the Most of Moorings

I'm thinking of starting a MMM campaign for landowners and Parish Councils to Make The Most of your Mooring places.  Why? Because I've recently noticed in the Middle Levels and The Nene that moorings are too few, and in several places they exist but are not signposted. This seems odd to me.
Naturally, as a boater, I'm keen to see more moorings, but I don't understand why, where there is a clear stretch of waterfront, the owner doesn't either bang in a few stakes and invite a contribution or offer the stretch to a boater for a longer term in exchange for a fee and a commitment to keep the grass down and not leave a mess.
There are several possible reasons for this, I imagine. For a longer term arrangement there's the risk that, once the boat is in place, it's impossible to get it to move on. This seems to have happened at Isleham where a liveaboard took over a GOBA mooring and simply refused to leave. In the end GOBA withdrew and the incident soured relationships and lost everyone a mooring.
On the other hand, between the signs saying Private, No Mooring, there are several lengths of bank where a simple sign says ...

This one is at Fotheringhay on the Nene, where I assume the beautiful view of the church entices boats into overnight mooring and they feel it is worth the small fee. Fine if there are also free moorings not too far away.
In these cases there is a cost, of keeping the grass down, and a risk I suppose that someone could damage their boat or themselves then blame the land owner. But I'd hope that more boaters mooring would translate into more business for nearby pubs and that the small print on the sign could absolve them of any responsibility. At Reach there is a fierce sign by the Parish Council, who could have left space for several more boats and worked in cooperation with the excellent local pub.

At Thorpe Meadow there is a fantastic mooring but no sign to it, even though the mooring is directly opposite the popular pub, The Boathouse.
So, all praise to The Great Ouse Boating Association (GOBA) who have worked tirelessly to track down and maintain suitable moorings on the Ouse. For a tiny annual subscription you too can enjoy these 48 hour moorings. So, who will do the same for the River Nene? I can't fathom what The Association of Nene River Clubs actually does in the way of moorings. Perhaps readers can help me?