Just fascinates me. Without the canals be it motor powered boats or horse pulled the industrial revolution would have been massively hindered with all the interlinking of the majority city's.
It was the transporting of raw materials, barges pulled by horses moving coal around. Eventually we got the static engine and then the railways and the canal system was relegated. The age of steam overtook horsepower. Like ICE would supersede steam. We're in the electric age.
Horses, blacksmiths, stables, public highways and public houses. Environmentally, although coal was burned, it wasn't like the scale we've seen pollutants released since.
IM Power, Charleroi
Smardale Gill viaduct, Cumbria.
Train graveyard in an old quarry, somewhere in Cheshire apparently.
en.wikipedia.org
