Welland Canal: Locks 4-5-6
N 43° 08.312 W 079° 11.576
17T E 646961 N 4777783
Three twinned flight locks allow simultaneous locking of two ships at the same time.
Waymark Code: WM66EV
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 04/12/2009
Views: 14
This lock structure is part of the (current) fourth Welland Canal. Here, ships enter the three locks that are linked together and ascend the Niagara Escarpment. This is where the greatest elevation change occurs on the canal - 44 metres by the time all three linked flight locks have been travelled.
The locks are twinned, which allows different ships to travel in opposite directions at the same time.
At Lock #4, the water is also utilized for a hydroelectric power station and you can easily see the surge tower.
From Wikipedia: (
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"Loosely, a flight of locks is simply a series of locks in close-enough proximity to be identified as a separate group. For many reasons, a flight of locks is preferable to the same number of locks spread more widely: crews are put ashore and picked up once, rather than multiple times; transition involves a concentrated burst of effort, rather than a continually-interrupted journey; a lock keeper may be stationed to help crews through the flight quickly; and where water is in short supply, a single pump can recycle water to the top of the whole flight. The need for a flight may be purely determined by the lie of the land, but it is possible to purposely group locks into flights by using cuttings or embankments to "postpone" the height change. Examples: Caen Hill locks, Devizes.
A lock flight should not be confused with a lock staircase. In a flight, each lock has its own upper and lower gates, there is a pound (however short) between each pair of locks, and the locks are operated in the conventional way."