The friends of the "Canal Latéral à la Loire" wish you a pleasant ride on or along the "Canal Latéral"Association Loi 1901 déclarée le 26/02/2001  
J.O du 24/03/2001 sous le N° 1377

 
 
                                A short history
 


The first plans for a canal

The river Loire has always posed a problem for navigation because of constant silting up and substantial variations in depth.

• The first plan for a canal as we understand the term dates from 1604 when Henri IV of France signed the document establishing the Canal de Briare or “canal de Loyre en Seyne”. By 1642 this canal, fed by the Loing and the Trézée, linked the Loire to the Seine and was the start of the great canal network of France. By the end of the following year, over a thousand boats had made the journey from Briare to Paris.

• In 1784 construction began of the Canal du Centre to link the rivers Loire and the Saone from Chalon sur Saone to Digoin.. As soon as the canal was opened in 1793, the need became evident for a canal link between Digoin and Briare to meet the needs of the French industrial revolution, then in full swing. In 1806 Napoleon I decided to build a canal parallel to the Loire between these two towns.
 
The Canal Latéral à la Loire

 The expansion of the French canal system owes much to an under-rated figure, Louis Becquey, Minister of Public Works. By his laws passed in 1821 and 1822 thousands of kilometers of new waterways were created, converted or modernized. He set down a standard for shipping well before the “Freycinet” standard of today set by a later Minister of Transport. The “Bécquey” standard was 30.40 m long, 5.20 m wide, draft 1.30 m and height under bridges of 3 m - to which standards the canal latéral was built.

The plan to build the canal had been mooted several times before the final decision in 1806. But it was only in 1822 that the order to build was finally given to the “Compagnie des Quatre Canaux” (the other canals were the Nivernais, the Berry and the Britanny canals) at a cost of 12 million francs. In 1827 another company, “Franco-Suisse”, offered to prolong the canal to Roanne, now the Digoin-Roanne canal, thus creating 250 km of continuous canal.

Actually building the canal proved a considerable head-ache : the towns of Nevers, la Charité and Cosne left no room on the right bank of the Loire to dig a canal. Furthermore, these towns refused to be separated from the river which still ensured their livelihood. It was therefore necessary to dig the canal on the left bank for most of its length. Work started in 1827 and finished in 1838.

Crossing the Loire and the Allier

Originally, the canal was grafted onto the Canal du Centre 4 km above Digoin at a hamlet called “le Paradis”, where the remains of lock n° 27 – the “Mediterranean” - are still visible. At first the two canals ran in parallel for about 2 km until they separated – one in the direction of the Guétin aqueduct and the other to the Loire. When the two canals joined, the 4 km between Paradis and the port of Campionnet became part of the Canal du Centre but the PK marking of the Canal Latéral still starts at Paradis.
 
Joining this canal to the canals of Briare and Centre meant crossing the Loire at Briare and at Digoin and its major tributary the Allier at Guétin. Two massive stone aqueducts were built at Digoin and at Guétin, since the old system of a “level crossing” on the river proved too difficult. The Digoin aqueduct is 243 m long and is followed by a lock with 3.90 m fall, while the Guétin aqueduct is 470 m long with a fall of 9.20 m by means of a triple lock. At Châtillon-Briare the construction of a similar aqueduct was put off and the older system of a straight Loire crossing put into effect.
 
The crossing at Châtillon-Briare

Here a stone aqueduct was not feasible as it would have acted as a dam for the Loire in flood. Only the development of mild steel in the 1870s could provide a solution at once sufficiently strong and sufficiently light. Up till then this is how boats had to make the difficult rossing : they entered the Loire at the Mantelot lock on the left bank, then went down river for just over 1 km following a dyked channel between two stakes in the river, before rejoining the canal on the right bank of the river at the Combles lock. From there the canal ran parallel to the Loire for 5 km (where it can still be seen) until it joined the canal de Briare. Both upstream and downstream, the crossing was long, difficult and dangerous. Boats often had to wait their turn for several days in the boat parks of Mantelot and Rabuteloires. This bottleneck contributed to the success of the canal de Bourgogne as an alternative link between the Saone and the Seine, in spite of its 189 locks. In 1880 the crossing was improved when a steam-tug was brought into service. This towed boats across using a cable fixed to the downstream head of the Mantelot lock coiled onto a drum fixed on the tug.
 
Freycinet

In 1860 the government bought the canal which was struggling to compete with the new railways. The law passed by Minister Freycinet in 1879 aimed to restore fair competition between the two transport systems by modernizing the waterways. This law established the present standards of 38.50m long, 5.20m wide for locks and 2.20m depth, 3.50m headroom and 18m width for canals. These new standards made the Loire crossing even more intolerable and the need for an aqueduct imperative.

The aqueduct at Briare

•The steel aqueduct was built between 1890 and 1897. Today famous the world over with its picturesque lamps and graceful lines, it was locally unpopular at the time. Ironically it was only in 1996, 100 years later, that it was officially inaugurated by François Bordry, President of VNF (French waterways authority). Measuring 662.69 m long, it was the work of a team of engineers, among them Gustav Eiffel who designed the 14 support pillars and the elegant entrances shaped like the prow of a boat.

Some common misunderstandings concerning the aqueduct :

1. “The aqueduct takes the canal de Briare across the Loire”. No, it’s the       Canal Latéral which crosses the Loire.

2. “Gustav Eiffel built the aqueduct”. No, the main builder was an engineer       called Mazoyer, although Eiffel did advise on the use of the steel.

3. “The aqueduct is the longest in Europe”. This was true until 2002 when       the aqueduct at Magdeburg – 900 m long! - carried the Mittellandkanal       over the Elbe.

4. “The aqueduct is unique of its type”. It was not the first metal bridge in       France or in Europe, but was unique by its length until 2002.

Branch canals

The main stretch of the canal lateral à la Loire, 196 km long with 37 locks, runs for virtually its whole length along the left bank of the Loire, so a number of branch canals were needed to connect it to local industry on the right bank. Not all of them were to Freycinet standard: