[contrarian1234]

Is it just for leisure or commercial traffic?

it's a lot smaller than I imagined. I can't picture a river barge fitting in it, but it's hard to tell the scale

[pmyteh]

British canals are smaller than you imagine, and were even when they were commercial waterways. The standard lock widths are only 7ft or 14ft (2.1m/4.3m) so the boats are narrow, proportionally long, and very small compared to a Rhine barge or something.

As with the railways, we built early, to a small gauge, and lived with the consequences of that later.

[arethuza]

And shallower - when my son did rowing for a while on the Union canal they were told that if they capsized to simply "stand up"...

[contrarian1234]

wow thats absolutely tiny. thanks for the detailed info. very interesting :))

[ErroneousBosh]

> so the boats are narrow, proportionally

Hence the name "narrowboat".

[nirse]

Leisure only, there hasn't been commercial traffic on that canal for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Canal_(Scotland)