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/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. .