A weigh lock is a specialized canal lock designed to determine the weight of barges in order to assess toll payments based upon the weight and value of the cargo carried. This requires that the unladen weight of the barge be known.
A barge to be weighed was brought into a supporting cradle connected by levers to a weighing mechanism. The water was then drained downstream and the scale balance adjusted to determine the barge gross weight. Subtracting the tare weight (the weight of the barge when empty) would give the cargo weight. Originally, weighlocks measured the weight of the barge by measuring the displacement of water in the lock after the barge had entered. This method also requires that the unladen weight of the barge be known.
An example of a weigh lock (now dry), once part of the Erie Canal, may be found in downtown Syracuse, New York, along with a canal barge and interpretive displays at the Erie Canal Museum.
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Famous quotes containing the words weigh and/or lock:
“Naggers always know what they are doing. They weigh up the risks, then they go on and on and on until they get what they want or until they get punched.”
—Jools Holland (b. 1958)
“Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible, and divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood, or oil, or meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains; and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,—these eat up the hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)