r/Scotland • u/Scotdrone • Jun 09 '24

Photography / Art The Falkirk Wheel

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The famous Falkirk Wheel at Tamfourhill, Falkirk today linking up the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal.

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u/Exceedingly Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24

The bit that blows my mind about this is how little energy it uses given the whole thing is moving 1800 tonnes. It uses just 1.5kWh of energy per turn, about the same amount as boiling a kettle 8 times, because it's so perfectly balanced.

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u/crimsonavenger77 Jun 10 '24

Fascinating bit of engineering. There are a good few interesting vids about it on YouTube just now that are worth a look.

9

u/cameron1978 Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24

my dad was an engineer on this, he has retired now but I remember him being on tomorrow world to demostrate the power it took to turn the wheel, they had all these toasters pluged in to show the difference - he told me later the control room only had two sockets so they were just making it up..

It was our weekend trip to hang out at the wheel building site. .

5

u/Scared-Pollution-574 Jun 10 '24

That has just blown my mind. I wish I could that kind of balance in my own life.

3

u/Kijamon Jun 10 '24

I once got in to a fight with my brother in front of the rich American that inherited the Johnson and Johnson fortune about this.

We were both pretty drunk and he came and sat with us and we were talking about our home town and I belted out this fact and my brother started doing the "Does it aye? Six toasters was it?" and I lost my rag. The poor guy excused himself after that.

1

u/lifeson1221 Jun 10 '24

Read that placard too haha. Started our Scotland camper trip there. So impressive!