Locks: Canal de l'Aisne à la Marne

The Canal de l’Aisne à la Marne joins the Canal latéral à la Marne at Condé-sur-Marne, in the south, to the Canal latéral à l’Aisne at Berry-au-Bac in the north. It has no junctions with other canals or rivers and Reims is the major city on the southern side of the summit.

There are 24 locks on the 58 kilometre canal, each allowing boats of a maximum length 39 metres and width 5 metres. Many of the locks have lock cottages which are in various states of repair.

All the locks are automatic so no lock keepers are present. Many are operated in chains and boats are not allowed to moor in the pounds in the chains. Once in a chain boats must proceed through all locks in the chain. This means that when a lock is in operation the next will automatically ready itself, assuming it is not already in operation for another boat. This makes for a very quick passage for boaters. The chains are organised as follows:

Écluses 2 & 3
Écluses 4 & 5
Écluses 6 - 9
Écluses 10 - 12
Écluses 17 - 24

To start a lock at the end of a chain a pole suspended over the canal has to be given a quarter turn by the boater. Locks that are independent, i.e. not in a chain have their own poles over the waterway to initiate lock operation.

At the summit is a traffic light controlled, one-way, 2.3 kilometre long tunnel called Tunnel de Mont de Billy.

History
Hugues Cosnier, who designed the Canal de Briare, built the first canal between Reims and Sillery in the early 17th century. This was part of a grand plan to build canals by-passing Paris to the east. Work on this link followed those on the Aisne lateral, starting in 1841. The canal was opened in 1866. It was later planned to emulate Cosnier’s idea of an orbital route from the Loire through to northern France. Only the north-south route was finally built, comprising this link and the Canal de l’Oise à l’Aisne. The route is still used by about 10 péniches per day, with grain as the principal traffic, while recreational traffic is mainly private boats in transit.

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