Écluse 15 Vaires - River Marne - Vaires-sur-Marne - France
Posted by: ntpayne
N 48° 52.100 E 002° 39.018
31U E 474355 N 5412878
This is lock number 15 on the River Marne known as Vaires.
Waymark Code: WM1102M
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 07/21/2019
Views: 6
This is lock number 15 on the River Marne known as Vaires. It is situated on the south east corner of the town of Vaires-sur-Marne.
This lock still has a lock cottage that also has the lock name and a couple of distance plates on its walls.
This lock is situated at the upstream end of the Canal de Chelles, one of many cuts that were built to avoid large loops in the River Marne.
There are 18 locks on the River Marne and the sizes are as follows:
Lock 18 - 125m long by 11.4m wide
Lock 17 - 100m long by 11.4m wide
Locks 1-16 - 45m long by 7.4m wide
Just before Créteil a 13km loop is cut off by a cut with a lock and a tunnel. The loop itself is still used for half its length by commercials down to some container ports. There is also a lock on this section which is also 125m long by 11.4m wide.
Locks 2-7 are operated by the boater using poles hanging over the lock entrances to set the operations in progress.
Locks 1 and 8-18 are operated by permanent lock keepers operating in control towers. They are contacted by VHF short wave radio.
History: The Marne was a heavily navigated free-flowing river until the 19th century. However, it had one gated short cut, 500m long, the Canal de Cornillon in Meaux, which was built in 1235, possibly the oldest canal in France. The ‘modern’ canalisation was started in 1837, and inaugurated up to Épernay in 1867. It included a number of canals by-passing the more extravagant meanders. Locks are wider than the Freycinet gauge, but shorter than those of the Canal Saint-Denis in Paris, of similar width. The Marne remains in the national VNF network as a commercial navigation. For this reason we have indicated the average opening dates of the locks as 1/1/1850.
More information can be found on the River Marne by following this link here:
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visit link)