Firstly as far as I am aware, several years back there was an official ruling that all museums were supposed to FREE to access across the whole of the UK. Another school of thought might wonder if he really wanted to see the place in the first place? I would it guess it would depend on just how much they were asking for the entrance fee.
Considering the amount of chaos it created at the time, I think most people would have been happy to have waited another 25 years. (When it settled in, it did help but geez, the excavation and disruption was massive). 'Fun' fact There was a speed camera for either direction at that point of the underpass to catch people who hadn't slowed down enough when coming off the motorway.
Any canals enthusiast would wish to see the magnificent wheel acknowledged. I think it does actually have a purpose, because it has become a major tourist attraction to the area, pulling in a LOT of very welcome revenue. Engineering, and canal, geeks from across the world come to see it. When I was there just a few weeks back THREE huge coachloads of wealthy Swiss tourists rolled in, and the money was flowing into the tills like melted Swiss chocolate in a chocolate fountain...
The Falkirk Wheel is actually a very simple solution. The gondolas each have the same amount of water, so when you put a boat in one it's displaced so the gondolas remain the same (thanks, Archemedes!). Because they're balanced, it takes relatively little power to make a half turn in the wheel-22.5 kW, same power as to get eight electric kettles to boil. Watching the thing at work, how the gears turn in sync, is just amazing
@@arthuralford Indeed, as an engineer with over 30 years working experience, and more recently having also worked as a science teacher myself, I love teaching people about systems like these. Another really clever part of this particular setup is how water efficient it is. Older lifts, like the Anderton, also used counterbalanced cisterns, and so were similarly power efficient, but the water seals were, to say the least, a bit rubbish! So the lift was a constant source of water loss from the Trent & Mersey into the river Weaver below. At Falkirk the seals are almost perfect - so there is pretty well zero water loss when the wheel is operated - and as water loss was always the big problem for Canal engineers this represents a major achievement.
As an angry Falkirkian, pronounced “Bairn”, I felt I had to write in defence of the pronunciation of Grangemouth. Grange, as you pronounced it, and “mouth” as in that hole in the front of your head, usually used for mispronouncing things. And the Falkirk Wheel is a fantastic invention. The engineering tour is well worth a visit, although it only runs when the Wheel is closed for its annual maintenance. Fabulous content as ever Jon. I learn so much about what I live right next to, including the fact that I have been mispronouncing local town names for years. 😉
I found this channel months and months ago just browsing around youtube, now i actually can't wait for Sunday for a mid day lesson. I hope the other 99k of your subs are the exact same John. Not long now until 100k!
Oh yes, very much the same for me. Stumbled on the channel while looking for information about something to do with a motorway - don't remember which one, and went on to binge watch a whole bunch of videos. Now this is my Sunday chill out channel, it's the one I get excited to sit down with a good cup of coffee and just enjoy learning about motorways. Goodness knows how motorways are so captivating, but here we all are!
That weird spur to the B800 (former A8000) used to be main route to the Forth Road Bridge from the south west and M8. The traffic jams there were legendary. However, a good way to wind people up was to use the right hand lane on the spur right to the roundabout, then go right around the roundabout and take priority onto the A8000. This would incur the wrath of people angry they didn’t think of it.
Love your videos John. As a Cameraman in the world of TV I can appreciate your despair when you set a camera up only to be surrounded by people who materialise from nowhere. It's the Kelpies by the way...as in Kel Peas.
The Falkirk Wheel is not over-engineered at all. It doesn't just look cool, it's actually an innovative solution. The normal approach to elevation changes in canals would be to construct a long series of locks, but the falkirk wheel achieves the same result with a single piece of infrastructure.
One of the big reasons the wheel was built, other than just to be absolutely awesome, is that it allowed the canals to be fully opened again without needing to faff around all day with the 44 locks that were needed originally. Now you've got an impressive bit of kit that allows boats to move between the two in under an hour.
How this channel doesn’t have more subs is beyond me. Every video is an absolute laugh and packed with info. Loving your cover of the Scottish motorways. So much I didn’t know about the roads I drive every day.
I was there last week - it costs £4 to park up and see the kelpies. 4 bloody quid. You did the best thing by standing in the undergrowth half a mile away TK see them.
There's a smaller carpark on the left hand side of the entrance road, just before you turn towards the main car park. That one's free and there are usually spaces there.
Thumbnail:The Celts revenge. No way could I have ever seen the Kelpies that way! Erupting through Mickey Mouse's eyeballs. And he's smiling. I love it. Wonderful! M8 extension at Newbridge: There was a charity cycle on it when it was due to open and the Minister of Transport opened it- the Duke of Hamilton's brother- Lord Douglas James or James Douglas Hamilton. We went there with our bikes, cos lets face it- cycling legally on motorway! I had my recumbent with me. Recumbents can do silly speeds. I could run nice high gears on mine (52 to 11 on 180mm cranks with a 700c wheel for those that speak the lingo) and after a few laps I swapped with a pal who did the whole lycra bit on a normal bike but that's OK too. I then put his bike to one side to have a shot of a Penny Farthing which is not for the faint hearted. I remember grabbing onto a flagpole for dear life wondering how I get my legs to work when I got snapped by a highly amused policeman with a camera. Meanwhile my pal seemed to have got nabbed by a Daily Mail photographer who put Lord thingy on my recumbent but he couldn't balance so I'm off camera holding it while he poses with my pal kneeling. Afterwards I got to push his Lordship till he got the hang of the pedals and off he zoomed at a rapid rate of knots with a ruddy great smile on his face and all these silly flunkies in long coats running after him shouting sycophantic things like Well done Minister etc. It made my day. 4:01 That wee old bridge on the river that takes the road round the refinery is an aqueduct. There was a canal- The Bo'ness and Grangemouth?- which got funding, built the aqueduct and then folded. That's all there is. The canal was never completed. The Falkirk wheel replaces 12 locks which took the Union down to Lock 16 on the Forth and Clyde. The Union is a contour canal at 242 feet but has to drop down 110 feet or so to the F & C. They took absolutely ages to navigate and were such a pain that they built another basin at the top and transferred everything to the F&C by hand. Now, two new locks drop about 10 feet each, goes under the Edinburgh & Glasgow mainline and bursts out on the upper approach to the wheel through a new tunnel. The wheel drops to a lower basin with a lock that drops another few feet to the F&C. Just prior to opening by the Queen, the Union lock sluices failed somehow and deluged out through the tunnel and down the embankment at the wheel removing all the new grass, leaving brown mud. I was there with a friend just after and there were vehicles spraying the mud green. I asked if it was for the Queen, but no, it was so they'd know where they'd already sewn new grass seed. My friend was as a civil engineer and canal campaigner. She isn't very tall so she was nabbed and asked to stand in for the Queen who was not much over 5 feet, to test the headroom and steps on the official boat so her maj wouldn't do herself a nasty and get wet after banging her head. The wheel is finely balanced and only needs a tiny motor to power it. I was at Opening Day on the top trough approach and got to see the top of the Queen's head and a jolly good view of the Carron Valley and the rain that was about to hit us. If she said anything, we couldn't hear. We must have looked miserable. I remember looking down just as she looked away from us. She could see us looking miserable. But the free food etc after made up for it. Per finely balancing, if the water level in the two troughs is out by some silly amount like 1 or 200mm, the wheel can't work. This happened on opening day when the lower basin drained slightly due to more traffic one way than the other and exiting into the F&C. This made the troughs unequal so they had to pump water back up into the lower basin.
The metal horses are the Kelpies ("kell-peez", not "kell-pize") and they are a great attraction for photos and a walk around, especially with children. The Falkirk Wheel is an amazing piece of engineering which lifts huge weights using a relatively small amount of energy.
That Mel Gibson statue is pretty hiddeous, but I'm pretty sure the most hated statue in Scotland was the Jimmy Saville statue that used to be inside the building of a swimming pool for kids.
Having visited the Falkirk wheel it is ingenious. Very simple and very effective. And makes those canals work again. Far simpler and cheaper to maintain than all the previous locks. I spent a good hour there watching it work. As for those bloody horses?? Why? I stopped for the wheel,, never the horses.
The amount of detail packed into 10 1/2 minutes was incredible. The Falkirk wheel was built at Butterley Engineering in Derbyshire (which no longer exists) and connects a couple of canals (I’d look them up but can’t be arsed) avoiding going through multiple locks (? How many ? Again can’t be arsed)
Ahh, the Newbridge roundabout *sighs*. The sole cause of so many arguments between my parents, although if Im entirely honest, every road around Edinburgh is an utter ball ache! I grew up a few miles from the Newbridge roundabout, and with family in Falkirk, travelled this route many times...... if my mum was driving, lets just say we got home quicker lol! The Kelpies are mythical water horses and the Falkirk wheel is a great piece of engineering. It was deliberately designed to be dramatic and a showpiece which attracts visitors, and is well worth the trip to see :)
I think you may have been slightly unfair on the Falkirk Wheel; the alternative (such as it was) was to dig and create an entire new flight of traditional locks, which would have been almost immediately ignored by the majority of people, whereas the Wheel (along with the Millenium Bridge in Newcastle/Gateshead) is an amazing example of innovation in mechanical engineering which, as you did state, has become a significant tourist attraction in its own right (and has rightly put Falkirk onto the tourist day trip map) - anything that can move 1000 tonnes of water and boat with the electrical power of 6 kettles has to be applauded.
No angry Fallkirkian, but a nice boater here :) The lift isn't 'over engineered' in any way, but a brilliant solution to an old problem only possible due modern technology. Being the only of it's kind is simply that in other parts of the world not only technology has improved, but also ships have grown to a size which can not be handled that way ... we may have to wait another 200 years. Equally if not more important, it does serve an important purpose: Allowing us to cruise all the way between Edinburgh and Glasgow without the need to manually carry down a 20 ton narrow boat. Quite handy, isn't it? But yeah, given, going 70 mph along the motorway isn't the same fun as doing 3 mph in a boat.
That piece of modern engineering existed elsewhere and popped up RUclips twice this steam driven running 24 hours a day and two boats a or fire up the boiler and wait several hours so the concept isn't new
Thanks John, another motorway I've driven more times than I care to remember, The Kelpie is a water spirit which takes the shape of a horse. Your first pronunciation is how I say it
Grew up overlooking Grangemouth refinery, at night it's like staring into the Bladerunner set. The Kelpies are Duke (head Dukes down into the water) and Baron (head tilts BAck). Great content, keep it up!! 👍
@@ispowart Ian right? Small world! Yep my dad taught at Gmouth High. My friend Sandy (and David?) were your colleagues when you sold me a Mission Dac5, 30 years ago (I finally sold it 3 weeks ago). How's life?
Great video, M9 is possibly my favourite motorway. I love the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel, both worth a visit. Grangemouth is also the starting point for a pipeline that goes all the way down to Ellesmere Port
The informative sides of rhese videos in one thing...but couple that with Johns witty deliveries and you have one of the greatest youtube channels around and this week looks like he could hit the 100k subs mark. Delightful stuff.
Another excellent video! The wonderfully subtle sarcasm that appear in your commentary is frankly wicked sweet awesome. “They saw the problem and got right on it and 20 years later….”
Another fine video fella - you're in sniffing distance of 100k :) liking the mockery of "temporary" and "rushing" it 20 odd years :) Sunday is complete. I thank you
I am going to take issue with the "overengineered" comment about the Falkirk Wheel. It is an incredibly elegant and efficient solution to the problem of boat lifting. From memory, it uses the same power as 17 kettles to operate.
@6thdayblue59 a "dram" is a measure, so you can say "a wee dram" implying "a wee dram of whisky", but "a wee drop of dram" doesn't make sense. Generous gift well deserved though - I love this channel. Keep up the great work John! So glad you finally made it to Scotland.
Grange MOUTH as in Mowth I always got crticised for not saying Gt Yarmouth properly, interestingly the M9 Motorway went right through my Grandads field at Sauchenford splitting Sauchenford in two, that's just east of the Bannockburn Interchange
I drive the motorway between Stirling and Falkirk most days so I appreciate the history lesson. Always wondered why the turnoff to Grangemouth was so shit and now I know!
with all the off-facts and off-script rambling, this is my favourite episode so far:D not to mention, that Falkirk is a wicked place to visit with all its art and lottery funded wheel, that looks awesome in action and takes a year to rotate
Unfortunately it's located in camelon which is a bit of a shithole but did used to have a massive wrangler factory where the new tesco is my mother in law and wife used to work there
@@martincarr1284 Camelon, as we all know, is where King Arthur and his court sleep in a drunken stupor below the Union Inn. Owing to many hard of hearing translators, all sorts of other people are under the misapprehension that he's some place else, but that is just a load of old bollox put about by the people of Essex, and Yorkshire, and Colchester, and North Wales and pretty much any similar sounding place with a Tesco Extra.
Another fantastic video Jon, I am familiar with the M9 till just after the Kellies, so was great to find out more about the rest of the M9 from the Kelpies onwards.
The Falkirk Wheel replaces a dozen locks, to link the Union- and Forth and Clyde canals. A transition that would take the best part of a day, now takes less than an hour, all for less power than it would take to boil a kettle.
Been waiting on this one as my dad worked on the m9 back in the late 60s. The Kelpies are a great place to visit it also sits on the Forth and Clyde canal so you can walk along the canal tow path to the Falkirk wheel there the wheel joins it to the union canal. As a point of interest, the union canal had a couple of well known navies, Burke and Hare.
The M9 roughly follows the path of the A9. The A9 used to start on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Until they built the new runway at the airport right across it...
John this was like watching you sneak about in my garden,without you stopping in for a tea. Have a silly short on my channel of a car that was trying very hard to crash off where you are standing at the ratho basin. Cheers
Honestly, you could be on the loneliness road or trail in the world and soon as you take your camera out, it's like the M62 traffic with people. Great video by the way
Interesting fact about the Kelpies: the original plans were for them to move and whinnie whenever the adjacent canal lock was used but that particular aspect was cost engineered out of the final plans. Source: an old school pal of mine.
Great to see the Wallace Monument and the Hills of home (Ochils). Great video, know this road so well and still learn something new!! Great humour too!
I have family links to this area. When my Grandmother married in 1921 she moved from a farm at Falkirk to Bearcrofts , Grangemouth where her in laws had farmed for many years - they moved on to a farm at Dalkeith . leaving Bearcrofts to the newlyweds to operate. Granny said it was a lovely farm on the flat carse land next to the sea. However when the refinery opened next door in 1924 the oil works used to dump crude oil waste at high tide and the shoreline was altered to a stinking mess. My mother was born at Bearcrofts in 1925 but as the oil works continually expanded the family had to leave in 1944. There is one driveway within the works called ( erroneously ) Bearcroft Road ( without the s) and that is all that remains today as the works sprawled all over the farm.
I understand why that the M9 motorway was completed in different stages and ends at Stirling. Very interesting to see how the M9 motorway went from being separated to how it is now. Bit like the M90 motorway.
I recall the word "CRAP" being sprayed on the shield of the Gibson/Wallace statue some years ago, then attempts to smash off the head. It was moved/gotten rid of not long afterwards......
During a very snowy night in early 1990 I worked as a chauffeur (well a posh taxi driver) and managed to land (at speed) the company "funeral" Mercedes, containing me and two bonkers Italians, on the centre of the Dunblane roundabout. Undeterred the two mad Italians got out and pushed me and the merc back onto the road and brimming with enthusiasm (and probably a load of coke) still demanded that I take them to their overnight drinking destination in Edinburgh. Amazingly no damage to the car and I wasn't fired.
Kelpies = Kell Peas. Emphasis on the first syllable. They are shape-shifting water-spirits (which is why they are built alongside the canal), although these, being galvanised steel, always take the shape of horses' heads. If you are still in Scotland, John, shoot me a message and we can arrange to take you up for a flight to view the Kelpies, the Falkirk Wheel, the M90/M9 and Hermiston Gait (where the M8 meets the A720 Edinburgh Bypass).
"Wasn't prepared to pay the entrance fee." = honorary Scot. We salute you.
Firstly as far as I am aware, several years back there was an official ruling that all museums were supposed to FREE to access across the whole of the UK.
Another school of thought might wonder if he really wanted to see the place in the first place?
I would it guess it would depend on just how much they were asking for the entrance fee.
@@neilburns8869probably £7.50 and £3 to park, They never seem to understand drop the price to £3.50 and £1.50 to park a nice round £5
“Rushing to fix the problem 25 years later” 😂 Priceless 👏👏
Incredible Hihg Speed for roadworks in Scotland....
if there was no rush it would,ve taken 50yr so yeah it was a rush if it eas done in a mere 25 years later
That rapid. Govt usually do not work near that quick!
Considering the amount of chaos it created at the time, I think most people would have been happy to have waited another 25 years. (When it settled in, it did help but geez, the excavation and disruption was massive). 'Fun' fact There was a speed camera for either direction at that point of the underpass to catch people who hadn't slowed down enough when coming off the motorway.
1:00 “rushing to solve the problem (of the roundabout) 25 years later” 😂
Brilliant Jon
Love the sarcasm.
Absolutely superb. As a Scot I can confirm your words @8:36 - for a while the statue was in a cage to protect it from us natives.
The ultimate freedom :D
The only time I saw it, not long after it was first unveiled, it stank of piss. We may not be subtle but we're succinct art critics.
A kelpy comes from Scottish Folklore, it's a water spirit in the form of a horse that really likes to drown people that it tempts into the waters.
Yes, particularly children. We have a monument to child killers.
Looks impressive though.
The Loch Ness Monster is...probably a kelpy.
You beat me to it 😁
Do we really need something else to discourage us from taking a dip in the frigid waters?
@@astronomenov99 Unfortunately we do going by the fatalities that come from folk jumping into lochs and drowning when the cold hits their body
Any canals enthusiast would wish to see the magnificent wheel acknowledged. I think it does actually have a purpose, because it has become a major tourist attraction to the area, pulling in a LOT of very welcome revenue. Engineering, and canal, geeks from across the world come to see it. When I was there just a few weeks back THREE huge coachloads of wealthy Swiss tourists rolled in, and the money was flowing into the tills like melted Swiss chocolate in a chocolate fountain...
The Falkirk Wheel is actually a very simple solution. The gondolas each have the same amount of water, so when you put a boat in one it's displaced so the gondolas remain the same (thanks, Archemedes!). Because they're balanced, it takes relatively little power to make a half turn in the wheel-22.5 kW, same power as to get eight electric kettles to boil. Watching the thing at work, how the gears turn in sync, is just amazing
@@arthuralford Indeed, as an engineer with over 30 years working experience, and more recently having also worked as a science teacher myself, I love teaching people about systems like these.
Another really clever part of this particular setup is how water efficient it is. Older lifts, like the Anderton, also used counterbalanced cisterns, and so were similarly power efficient, but the water seals were, to say the least, a bit rubbish! So the lift was a constant source of water loss from the Trent & Mersey into the river Weaver below.
At Falkirk the seals are almost perfect - so there is pretty well zero water loss when the wheel is operated - and as water loss was always the big problem for Canal engineers this represents a major achievement.
Anderton boat lift is better 🤪😉
It is magnificent to watch.
@@dave_h_8742 Pfft. That's just a soggy lift 😝
The amount of dedication that you put into every video is amazing you need 100k!
yeah he does ive been subbed since 30k i think
The first video I watched was his all the moterway services
If your reading this jon can I collab with you when you do the bit of the m6 before the Preston by pass and I can show you round my hometown
@@kevinsingsbest I've been here since around 4K. Production values have sky rocketed. Jokes are still s**t 🤣🤣🤣
@@WagnerGimenes haha
As an angry Falkirkian, pronounced “Bairn”, I felt I had to write in defence of the pronunciation of Grangemouth. Grange, as you pronounced it, and “mouth” as in that hole in the front of your head, usually used for mispronouncing things.
And the Falkirk Wheel is a fantastic invention. The engineering tour is well worth a visit, although it only runs when the Wheel is closed for its annual maintenance.
Fabulous content as ever Jon. I learn so much about what I live right next to, including the fact that I have been mispronouncing local town names for years. 😉
Ugh! As soon as I'm trying to enjoy my walk, a random youtuber appears and sets his camera up... 😂😝 Awesome video Jon! Take care on these roads... 💪
This series makes me really appreciate the Interstate system.
I found this channel months and months ago just browsing around youtube, now i actually can't wait for Sunday for a mid day lesson. I hope the other 99k of your subs are the exact same John. Not long now until 100k!
Oh, we do. We do. :) Although the videos appear closer to midnight where I am. :)
@@emdB67 where are you from?
@@jlcgaming8178must be New Zealand
@@DavidOfWhitehills close. I'm on the next big island to the west of the North Island. :)
Oh yes, very much the same for me. Stumbled on the channel while looking for information about something to do with a motorway - don't remember which one, and went on to binge watch a whole bunch of videos. Now this is my Sunday chill out channel, it's the one I get excited to sit down with a good cup of coffee and just enjoy learning about motorways. Goodness knows how motorways are so captivating, but here we all are!
That weird spur to the B800 (former A8000) used to be main route to the Forth Road Bridge from the south west and M8. The traffic jams there were legendary. However, a good way to wind people up was to use the right hand lane on the spur right to the roundabout, then go right around the roundabout and take priority onto the A8000. This would incur the wrath of people angry they didn’t think of it.
Love your videos John. As a Cameraman in the world of TV I can appreciate your despair when you set a camera up only to be surrounded by people who materialise from nowhere. It's the Kelpies by the way...as in Kel Peas.
"...Rushing to solve the problem, 25 years later..." 😆😆😆
Your comic timing and understatement are perfect, sir! 👌👌👌
Quintessential british humour 🇬🇧
The Falkirk Wheel is not over-engineered at all. It doesn't just look cool, it's actually an innovative solution. The normal approach to elevation changes in canals would be to construct a long series of locks, but the falkirk wheel achieves the same result with a single piece of infrastructure.
One of the big reasons the wheel was built, other than just to be absolutely awesome, is that it allowed the canals to be fully opened again without needing to faff around all day with the 44 locks that were needed originally. Now you've got an impressive bit of kit that allows boats to move between the two in under an hour.
How this channel doesn’t have more subs is beyond me. Every video is an absolute laugh and packed with info. Loving your cover of the Scottish motorways. So much I didn’t know about the roads I drive every day.
Cheers mate, thanks for watching!
I was there last week - it costs £4 to park up and see the kelpies. 4 bloody quid. You did the best thing by standing in the undergrowth half a mile away TK see them.
If I didn't need to film, I think there's a few spots you could go to see them for a "Lower cost" ;)
There's a smaller carpark on the left hand side of the entrance road, just before you turn towards the main car park. That one's free and there are usually spaces there.
Thumbnail:The Celts revenge. No way could I have ever seen the Kelpies that way! Erupting through Mickey Mouse's eyeballs. And he's smiling. I love it. Wonderful!
M8 extension at Newbridge: There was a charity cycle on it when it was due to open and the Minister of Transport opened it- the Duke of Hamilton's brother- Lord Douglas James or James Douglas Hamilton. We went there with our bikes, cos lets face it- cycling legally on motorway!
I had my recumbent with me. Recumbents can do silly speeds. I could run nice high gears on mine (52 to 11 on 180mm cranks with a 700c wheel for those that speak the lingo) and after a few laps I swapped with a pal who did the whole lycra bit on a normal bike but that's OK too. I then put his bike to one side to have a shot of a Penny Farthing which is not for the faint hearted. I remember grabbing onto a flagpole for dear life wondering how I get my legs to work when I got snapped by a highly amused policeman with a camera.
Meanwhile my pal seemed to have got nabbed by a Daily Mail photographer who put Lord thingy on my recumbent but he couldn't balance so I'm off camera holding it while he poses with my pal kneeling. Afterwards I got to push his Lordship till he got the hang of the pedals and off he zoomed at a rapid rate of knots with a ruddy great smile on his face and all these silly flunkies in long coats running after him shouting sycophantic things like Well done Minister etc. It made my day.
4:01 That wee old bridge on the river that takes the road round the refinery is an aqueduct. There was a canal- The Bo'ness and Grangemouth?- which got funding, built the aqueduct and then folded. That's all there is. The canal was never completed.
The Falkirk wheel replaces 12 locks which took the Union down to Lock 16 on the Forth and Clyde. The Union is a contour canal at 242 feet but has to drop down 110 feet or so to the F & C. They took absolutely ages to navigate and were such a pain that they built another basin at the top and transferred everything to the F&C by hand.
Now, two new locks drop about 10 feet each, goes under the Edinburgh & Glasgow mainline and bursts out on the upper approach to the wheel through a new tunnel. The wheel drops to a lower basin with a lock that drops another few feet to the F&C.
Just prior to opening by the Queen, the Union lock sluices failed somehow and deluged out through the tunnel and down the embankment at the wheel removing all the new grass, leaving brown mud.
I was there with a friend just after and there were vehicles spraying the mud green. I asked if it was for the Queen, but no, it was so they'd know where they'd already sewn new grass seed.
My friend was as a civil engineer and canal campaigner. She isn't very tall so she was nabbed and asked to stand in for the Queen who was not much over 5 feet, to test the headroom and steps on the official boat so her maj wouldn't do herself a nasty and get wet after banging her head.
The wheel is finely balanced and only needs a tiny motor to power it.
I was at Opening Day on the top trough approach and got to see the top of the Queen's head and a jolly good view of the Carron Valley and the rain that was about to hit us. If she said anything, we couldn't hear. We must have looked miserable. I remember looking down just as she looked away from us. She could see us looking miserable. But the free food etc after made up for it.
Per finely balancing, if the water level in the two troughs is out by some silly amount like 1 or 200mm, the wheel can't work. This happened on opening day when the lower basin drained slightly due to more traffic one way than the other and exiting into the F&C. This made the troughs unequal so they had to pump water back up into the lower basin.
The metal horses are the Kelpies ("kell-peez", not "kell-pize") and they are a great attraction for photos and a walk around, especially with children. The Falkirk Wheel is an amazing piece of engineering which lifts huge weights using a relatively small amount of energy.
That Mel Gibson statue is pretty hiddeous, but I'm pretty sure the most hated statue in Scotland was the Jimmy Saville statue that used to be inside the building of a swimming pool for kids.
Having visited the Falkirk wheel it is ingenious. Very simple and very effective. And makes those canals work again. Far simpler and cheaper to maintain than all the previous locks. I spent a good hour there watching it work.
As for those bloody horses?? Why? I stopped for the wheel,, never the horses.
The amount of detail packed into 10 1/2 minutes was incredible.
The Falkirk wheel was built at Butterley Engineering in Derbyshire (which no longer exists) and connects a couple of canals (I’d look them up but can’t be arsed) avoiding going through multiple locks (? How many ? Again can’t be arsed)
Ahh, the Newbridge roundabout *sighs*. The sole cause of so many arguments between my parents, although if Im entirely honest, every road around Edinburgh is an utter ball ache! I grew up a few miles from the Newbridge roundabout, and with family in Falkirk, travelled this route many times...... if my mum was driving, lets just say we got home quicker lol! The Kelpies are mythical water horses and the Falkirk wheel is a great piece of engineering. It was deliberately designed to be dramatic and a showpiece which attracts visitors, and is well worth the trip to see :)
The Falkirk Wheel is simply amazing, if you haven't been on it, do it NOW. It's far from useless though, it replaced a flight of 11 locks.
When Secrets of the Motorway meets Cruising the Cut.
@@nitehawk86 Yeah, a collaboration is in order 🤣
I think you may have been slightly unfair on the Falkirk Wheel; the alternative (such as it was) was to dig and create an entire new flight of traditional locks, which would have been almost immediately ignored by the majority of people, whereas the Wheel (along with the Millenium Bridge in Newcastle/Gateshead) is an amazing example of innovation in mechanical engineering which, as you did state, has become a significant tourist attraction in its own right (and has rightly put Falkirk onto the tourist day trip map) - anything that can move 1000 tonnes of water and boat with the electrical power of 6 kettles has to be applauded.
Just can’t get enough of your witty delivery John. Love it 😂. Wallace monument but no mention of Gromit - pure class 😆
Keep up the great work 👍🏼😁
"Rushing to solve the problem, 25 years later" 😂😂😂 class👌🏻
No angry Fallkirkian, but a nice boater here :)
The lift isn't 'over engineered' in any way, but a brilliant solution to an old problem only possible due modern technology. Being the only of it's kind is simply that in other parts of the world not only technology has improved, but also ships have grown to a size which can not be handled that way ... we may have to wait another 200 years.
Equally if not more important, it does serve an important purpose: Allowing us to cruise all the way between Edinburgh and Glasgow without the need to manually carry down a 20 ton narrow boat. Quite handy, isn't it?
But yeah, given, going 70 mph along the motorway isn't the same fun as doing 3 mph in a boat.
That piece of modern engineering existed elsewhere and popped up RUclips twice this steam driven running 24 hours a day and two boats a or fire up the boiler and wait several hours so the concept isn't new
I love those Kelpies - and the boat wheel - must go and see them....
It's a good day out to be fair.
Kelpies (pronounced 'Kelpees') were water spirits that took the shape of horses
Get to Falkirk! Pronounced.... Falkirk. ;-)
Important to point out that they are water spirits *that drown people*, especially children.
Thanks John, another motorway I've driven more times than I care to remember, The Kelpie is a water spirit which takes the shape of a horse. Your first pronunciation is how I say it
Love the Braveheart music at the end. Nice touch
🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧
100K! 100K! 100K!
Subscribers ahead!!
Grew up overlooking Grangemouth refinery, at night it's like staring into the Bladerunner set. The Kelpies are Duke (head Dukes down into the water) and Baron (head tilts BAck).
Great content, keep it up!! 👍
It does indeed: i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/03/de/2b03de6133bfa450f403a0dfb1b2fc96.jpg
This is why I watch this channel and read the comments. Cheers for the Pub quiz tip.
Stuart, was your dad a teacher? If so, then I know you! lol
@@ispowart Ian right? Small world! Yep my dad taught at Gmouth High. My friend Sandy (and David?) were your colleagues when you sold me a Mission Dac5, 30 years ago (I finally sold it 3 weeks ago). How's life?
Two horses heads and a white elephant! Pleasant to visit though right enough!
Another classic :D Yes, can confirm the thing about the braveheart statue. Most people (if they know about it) hate the friggin thing.
Another excellent video, thank you. Was playing "place bingo" :)
I love Wallace and Grommit. "Wicked sweet toast, Grommit."
Great video, M9 is possibly my favourite motorway. I love the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel, both worth a visit.
Grangemouth is also the starting point for a pipeline that goes all the way down to Ellesmere Port
The informative sides of rhese videos in one thing...but couple that with Johns witty deliveries and you have one of the greatest youtube channels around and this week looks like he could hit the 100k subs mark. Delightful stuff.
They love to set up a speed camera van on the bridge at J5 Falkirk. Love the series, especially these Scottish episodes.
We should start a sister channel: Speed-camera Vans Of The Motorways. 😉
You tight git! 🤣 Wallace monument is definitely worth the entrance fee.
Let’s get you to 100k. You deserve the plaque
Another excellent video! The wonderfully subtle sarcasm that appear in your commentary is frankly wicked sweet awesome. “They saw the problem and got right on it and 20 years later….”
"They realised they had made a stupid mistake and rushed to fix it 25 years later"🤣🤣🤣 Ohhh I just love the irony of it all!
"No mention of Gromit" 🤣 Good work there, Jon.
Another fine video fella - you're in sniffing distance of 100k :) liking the mockery of "temporary" and "rushing" it 20 odd years :) Sunday is complete. I thank you
Many thanks mate, much appreciated. 100K very soon!!
Did you miss the other thing opposite the old prudential building it's called Stirling Castle
I am going to take issue with the "overengineered" comment about the Falkirk Wheel. It is an incredibly elegant and efficient solution to the problem of boat lifting. From memory, it uses the same power as 17 kettles to operate.
I'm still chuckling at the Gromit reference 😄
Not for a coffee....... but for a 'wee drop of dram' (I believe that is correct) Brilliant, entertaining and informative (and fun) as always
You get offered that at every service station in Scotland. (sadly not true) Thanks a lot mate!
@6thdayblue59 a "dram" is a measure, so you can say "a wee dram" implying "a wee dram of whisky", but "a wee drop of dram" doesn't make sense.
Generous gift well deserved though - I love this channel. Keep up the great work John! So glad you finally made it to Scotland.
Hope there’s more videos on roads around Scotland to come 👍
Great Video
keep them coming!
Wicked SweeT Awesome!
Coincidentally in Australia a Kelpie is a breed of cattle or farm dog (a dog that rounds up cattle). Not a horse.
I love the humour in these videos, you always make me smile 😊
Ha ha as soon as the camera comes out they all congregate any sign of those striped stingy things you love so much 😀
He's right about the camera thing, I've been watching these videos for some time and I've only ever seen Jon in front of a camera.
'They rushed to rectify the problem twenty five years later' ....brilliant
Playing the Braveheart theme on the outro is nice touch.
Re. Falkirk Wheel - the energy necessary for the wheel to complete a circuit is the same as that required to boil a kettle.
Grange MOUTH as in Mowth I always got crticised for not saying Gt Yarmouth properly, interestingly the M9 Motorway went right through my Grandads field at Sauchenford splitting Sauchenford in two, that's just east of the Bannockburn Interchange
Great video cheers, the drone footage of the Motorway in the rain are lovely.
I drive the motorway between Stirling and Falkirk most days so I appreciate the history lesson. Always wondered why the turnoff to Grangemouth was so shit and now I know!
Another great post Jon,
I click the like button right at the beginning of the video because I know you won't disappoint!
with all the off-facts and off-script rambling, this is my favourite episode so far:D
not to mention, that Falkirk is a wicked place to visit with all its art and lottery funded wheel, that looks awesome in action and takes a year to rotate
Unfortunately it's located in camelon which is a bit of a shithole but did used to have a massive wrangler factory where the new tesco is my mother in law and wife used to work there
@@martincarr1284 Camelon, as we all know, is where King Arthur and his court sleep in a drunken stupor below the Union Inn. Owing to many hard of hearing translators, all sorts of other people are under the misapprehension that he's some place else, but that is just a load of old bollox put about by the people of Essex, and Yorkshire, and Colchester, and North Wales and pretty much any similar sounding place with a Tesco Extra.
@@AndyHullMcPenguin that explains the smell in the union Inn
@@martincarr1284😂😂😂
@@martincarr1284compared to the smell in the rest of Camelon? 😂
I am mithed by your pronunciation of Grangemouth!
Another fantastic video Jon, I am familiar with the M9 till just after the Kellies, so was great to find out more about the rest of the M9 from the Kelpies onwards.
Pleased to be on holiday and still able to watch these! Plus I've only just woken up
The Falkirk Wheel replaces a dozen locks, to link the Union- and Forth and Clyde canals. A transition that would take the best part of a day, now takes less than an hour, all for less power than it would take to boil a kettle.
You were on the old Stirling bridge! Tell me you popped into the Bayne’s there.
It was a "flying" visit I'm afraid.. I spent too long being spoken at by drunk locals :D
@@AutoShenanigans you’d probably get the same thing in the Bayne’s mate to be honest.
Been waiting on this one as my dad worked on the m9 back in the late 60s. The Kelpies are a great place to visit it also sits on the Forth and Clyde canal so you can walk along the canal tow path to the Falkirk wheel there the wheel joins it to the union canal. As a point of interest, the union canal had a couple of well known navies, Burke and Hare.
The falkirk wheel is brilliant - i have been on it, well worth a visit.
The M9 roughly follows the path of the A9. The A9 used to start on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Until they built the new runway at the airport right across it...
John this was like watching you sneak about in my garden,without you stopping in for a tea. Have a silly short on my channel of a car that was trying very hard to crash off where you are standing at the ratho basin. Cheers
Nice garden mate!
That car crash video :D How did they manage it!?
@@AutoShenaniganshe drove down in the dark and got to the gate at the bottom, the only way out is to reverse all the way back up😅
Honestly, you could be on the loneliness road or trail in the world and soon as you take your camera out, it's like the M62 traffic with people. Great video by the way
Interesting fact about the Kelpies: the original plans were for them to move and whinnie whenever the adjacent canal lock was used but that particular aspect was cost engineered out of the final plans. Source: an old school pal of mine.
The cinematography at the end is just 👌
Thanks mate, bloody pylons ruined this one a bit but what can you do :D
Tom Scott did a good piece on the Falkirk boat lift
There's also the old battlefield site of Bannockburn along the M9 just south of Stirling. One of the most major battles in Scottish history.
Yeah, I forget what they called it.
most major battles in Scotland are outside glasgee pubs every saturday night 🙂
@@godzillas6301 or on Union Street in Aberdeen. George Street is a perpetual battle ground though.
some impressive features on this motorway john l love the kelpies and falkirk boatlift another good episode john.
Thanks mate as always! Certainly worth a visit if you're ever in that part of the world.
Thanks
Great to see the Wallace Monument and the Hills of home (Ochils). Great video, know this road so well and still learn something new!! Great humour too!
J9 has Bannockburn house, a house that Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed in after Culloden. The lands used to go over the M9 and roundabout
That final drone shot is amazing, what a view!
Very interesting video - I liked the Falkirk Lock.
It's about time for a 'Secrets of the canals' series.
I love the videos that you are putting out, very informative and engaging with a hint of comedy.
HINT!!!
give him some credit, he's trying his damnest to be funny😅😅😅😅
Your faff is FAF John😉
I have family links to this area. When my Grandmother married in 1921 she moved from a farm at Falkirk to Bearcrofts , Grangemouth where her in laws had farmed for many years - they moved on to a farm at Dalkeith . leaving Bearcrofts to the newlyweds to operate.
Granny said it was a lovely farm on the flat carse land next to the sea. However when the refinery opened next door in 1924 the oil works used to dump crude oil waste at high tide and the shoreline was altered to a stinking mess. My mother was born at Bearcrofts in 1925 but as the oil works continually expanded the family had to leave in 1944. There is one driveway within the works called ( erroneously ) Bearcroft Road ( without the s) and that is all that remains today as the works sprawled all over the farm.
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
I understand why that the M9 motorway was completed in different stages and ends at Stirling. Very interesting to see how the M9 motorway went from being separated to how it is now. Bit like the M90 motorway.
"Stirling Castle? No ballroom!" As said when adjusting one's trouserings...
8:20 the Scottish hero bit tickles me for some reason
The M9 could be extended further along the existing A9 dual-carriageway. But the roundabout becomes a flyover.
I recall the word "CRAP" being sprayed on the shield of the Gibson/Wallace statue some years ago, then attempts to smash off the head. It was moved/gotten rid of not long afterwards......
Almost there my guy you’ll be there within a week :)
During a very snowy night in early 1990 I worked as a chauffeur (well a posh taxi driver) and managed to land (at speed) the company "funeral" Mercedes, containing me and two bonkers Italians, on the centre of the Dunblane roundabout. Undeterred the two mad Italians got out and pushed me and the merc back onto the road and brimming with enthusiasm (and probably a load of coke) still demanded that I take them to their overnight drinking destination in Edinburgh. Amazingly no damage to the car and I wasn't fired.
There’s something you don’t hear very often, ‘a wash’ and Falkirk in the same sentence!
Kelpies = Kell Peas. Emphasis on the first syllable. They are shape-shifting water-spirits (which is why they are built alongside the canal), although these, being galvanised steel, always take the shape of horses' heads.
If you are still in Scotland, John, shoot me a message and we can arrange to take you up for a flight to view the Kelpies, the Falkirk Wheel, the M90/M9 and Hermiston Gait (where the M8 meets the A720 Edinburgh Bypass).