Levels
The BCN is built on three main levels, each with its own reservoirs.
- 453 feet (138 m) O.D., the Birmingham Level;
- 473 feet (144 m) O.D., the Wolverhampton Level;
- 408 feet (124 m) O.D., the Walsall Level
These levels are linked by locks at various places on the network.
There are also stretches on their own levels.
- The Titford Canal and its branches were built at 511 feet (156 m) O.D., linked to the Titford Reservoir (Titford Pool). A feeder supplies water to the Edgbaston Reservoir.
- A short section of the BCN Old Main Line, at Smethwick Summit, was built at 491 feet (150 m) O.D.. Pumps at either end were built to pump water used by the locks back to the summit - one at Spon Lane locks, and one at Smethwick locks: the Smethwick Engine. When the summit became too busy John Smeaton designed a scheme where it was lowered by 18 feet (5.5 m) to the Wolverhampton level, eliminating six locks and providing a parallel set of locks at Smethwick which improved traffic throughput. It also linked to the general Wolverhampton Level supply of water.
Read more about this topic: Birmingham Canal Navigations
Famous quotes containing the word levels:
“The country is fed up with children and their problems. For the first time in history, the differences in outlook between people raising children and those who are not are beginning to assume some political significance. This difference is already a part of the conflicts in local school politics. It may spread to other levels of government. Society has less time for the concerns of those who raise the young or try to teach them.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities. Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich.”
—Eva Perón (1919–1952)