Before diesel petrol, vehicles were pulled either by humans or animals. Earlier motorboats did not operate in water transport. Earlier, boats were either propelled by oars or they used to rely on wind as a sail. But do you know that apart from this, there used to be another way of sailing boats in rivers and canals. At one time in Europe, boats were also pulled by animals. You must be wondering how this happened. But it is true that it used to happen.
The interesting thing is that even before that in England, people used to work together to pull boats. In the 18th century, Britain started building such roads along the banks of rivers and canals so that animals could pull the boats. Through this, horses were used to transport letters, people and light goods.
During the Industrial Revolution between 1770 and 1840, many canals were built in Britain. During this period, about 4 thousand miles long canals were built. That period is called the golden age of canals. These canals used to be very narrow through which even horses, mules and donkeys used to pull narrow boats. These animals were tied to the boats with long ropes and a path for them was made on the banks of the canal.
The roads built near the canals were made especially for horses. (Symbolic photo: Wikimedia Commons)
To avoid collision with other boats, bridges and winding paths were also built on the canals. They even passed through some tunnels. This type of transport was much more developed in the Netherlands after England. Even today, such boats are seen running here and there. But this happens only for tourism.
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This entire system suddenly started becoming useless. Because in the 19th century, railways started developing in which powerful engines started being capable of carrying heavier goods and longer distances and investors started spending rapidly in railways. The result was that horse-drawn boats soon became history. But its strange roads and bridges still tell its story.
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Tags: Amazing news, Bizarre news, OMG News, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED: January 17, 2024, 18:10 IST
