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Canal du Centre (France)

Canal in central France

Summary

Canal in central France

Field	Value
name	Canal du Centre
image	[[Image:Canal du centre à Paray-le-Monial.JPG	300px]]
image_caption	Canal du Centre in Paray-le-Monial.
mapframe	yes
mapframe-zoom	8
canal_length	112.1 km
original_num_locks	80
current_num_locks	61
former_names	Canal du Charollais
engineer	Émiland Gauthey
date_approved	1783
date_began	1784
date_use	1792
date_completed	1792
start_point	Digoin
end_point	Chalon-sur-Saône
begin_coord	at aqueduct crossing Loire in Digoin
end_coord
branch_of	Bourbonnais route
connects_to	Canal latéral à la Loire at Digoin, Saône at Chalon-sur-Saône

| mapframe-zoom = 8

The Canal du Centre (), originally known as the Canal du Charollais (), is a French canal running from Digoin, where it now joins the Canal latéral à la Loire, to the Saône at Chalon-sur-Saône. It was opened in 1792 and was the first watershed canal allowing boats to pass from the north of France to the south. It is 112.1 km long and has 61 locks. Most of its traffic was generated by now abandoned coal mines at Montceau-les-Mines.

History

The canal was first suggested during the 16th century, under King Francis I and a detailed plan was prepared by Adam de Craponne in the time of Henry II. But nothing more happened until the Chief Engineer of Burgundy, Émiland Gauthey obtained building powers in 1783. He selected a route which joined the valleys of the Loire and Saône and provided adequate water supplies at the summit. The first stone was laid in 1784 by Prince de Condé and despite the intervention of exceptional floods on the Loire in 1790, which totally wrecked a new port in Digoin, and the Revolution, the works were completed in 1792.

The canal brought new life to the Charollais and within 20 years of opening, many villages had sprung up along its banks. But the amount of traffic that could be carried towards Paris was limited by the fickle nature of the Loire, and it was estimated that the opening of the Canal latéral à la Loire would triple the toll income of the canal. This happened in 1838, five years after the establishment of coal mines at Montceau-les-Mines, and this increased the traffic until in 1936 some 1,622,000 tonnes of coal was carried on the canal. The coal traffic declined during the 1980s, and the mines were closed in 2000.

Layout

Originally the canal climbed 77.64 m from the Loire to the summit and dropped 130.90 m to the Saône, through a total of 80 locks. These were enlarged in 1880–1900 when they were all rebuilt to the Freycinet gauge and the number of locks was reduced. During the 1950s about 5 km of canal in the centre of Chalon was replaced by a new cut upstream of the town with a single 10.76 m deep lock replacing 3 locks.

Route

Kilometre distances according to

PK 112 Digoin
PK 99 Paray-le-Monial
PK 80 Génelard
PK 62 Montceau-les-Mines
PK 59 Blanzy
PK 50 Montchanin
PK 42 Saint-Julien-sur-Dheune
PK 31 Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune
PK 22.5 Santenay
PK 17 Chagny
PK 14.5 Rully
PK 6 Fragnes
PK 0 Chalon-sur-Saône

Canal du Centre location — Location of the Canal du Centre in relation to the other waterways of central France (from European Waterways Map and Directory, 5th ed., 2014, by David Edwards-May, publ. Transmanche)

References

Edwards-May, David. (2010). "Inland Waterways of France". Imray.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

canals-in-france canals-opened-in-1792

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