| On my voyages
of discovery in 2003 along the Canal de la Somme and the
Canal de Saint-Quentin I find myself in the neighborhood of the Canal du Nord.
I decide to take a look over there. The Canal du Nord isn't very old. It
is opened in 1965. The master plans of the canal though, are much older. Both world wars have
delayed the construction. The Canal du Nord
runs from the Canal de la Sensée near the village Arleux in the north
to Pont-l'Evêque along the river Oise in the south. The canal is 93 kilometers
long and has 19 locks and 2
tunnels. From the north to the south the canal climbs just until a long
tunnel, the souterrain de Ruyaulcourt . From there it falls until the
river Somme. The Canal du Nord coincides some miles with the Canal de la Somme.
Then the Canal du Nord climbs again till a shorter tunnel and falls
from there to the Oise. |
 |
The canal itself is kind
of boring:
the canal is wide, there isn't much variety of landscape en the banks
are made of sloping walls of stone. The rush of boats on the canal
though is fascinating. There is very much professional navigation. This
is the mainway from the north to Paris. The locks are long and narrow:
about 91 meters long and 5,70 meters wide with at the lower side a
vertical sliding-door. There is much navigation by two coupled barges.
Mostly the cockpit of the front barge is demolished: the so called 'pousseurs'. |
| I
take a look at the southern entry of the tunnel of Ruyaulcourt.
The navigation traffic is regulated by traffic lights. A tanker is
waiting in front of the red light when a 'pousseur' comes out of the
tunnel. Then the lights turn green rapidly and the tanker navigates into
the dark tunnel. This is a long tunnel, it's
4354 meters long. Halfway must be a place where the barges can pass by each other.
If necessary, the barges must wait over there for an oncoming ship. |
Canal
du Nord