Canals in the Empire

Brother Meredith

Brother Meredith

Baron
Was always taken by the little floorplan designs in the WFRP appendix (glad to see that Cubicle 7 have continued this), they gave a glimpse into everyday life in the Empire.
One thing that struck out for me are the canals and lockkeeper cottage. Would be really interesting to make the a centre piece for a game! Does anyone know if this has been done before?
Building would be feasible to scratch build from templates out there, but not sure whether to go more grounded or grimdark aesthetic…
Are there any suitable canal boat miniatures out there?
 
empire Canal Boats.. tricky.. most of the ones I know about, the narrowboat, is more victorian.. but Canals often had small boats, like Jolly boats but they came .. 18th Century time. These were pulled along the canals and riders by horses. of course, when they were upgraded to narrowboats, they mostly still used horses until the horse was replaced with the motor.

So... depends very much on the style as to what you are looking for..
 
Brother Meredith said:
Was always taken by the little floorplan designs in the WFRP appendix (glad to see that Cubicle 7 have continued this), they gave a glimpse into everyday life in the Empire.
One thing that struck out for me are the canals and lockkeeper cottage. Would be really interesting to make the a centre piece for a game! Does anyone know if this has been done before?
Building would be feasible to scratch build from templates out there, but not sure whether to go more grounded or grimdark aesthetic…
Are there any suitable canal boat miniatures out there?
Click to expand...
Have a look at the 17th century Dutch horse towed canal boats - 'trekshuiks' (I think they are called?). A good vibe for a wooden 'empire' canal boat/ferry!
 
Canal board has been on my to-do list for ages (I love narrow boats and used to live on one). It may be some time before I get there though!
 
Would be happy with just a lock cottage!
A draw bridge would be all, get the impression from the WFRP that there are not dedicated boats for the canals? Some would be small sail boats? Don’t recall reference to any canal tunnels in the Empire?
Anyway, this is all at the concept stage ATM…
 
Ooh, I wrote a WFRP campaign back in the day that involved commercial river traffic, so here's the pointless meanderings i can remember about the barges.

The canal barges were horse drawn and made up of several cargo vessels linked fore to aft with chain, effectively forming a 'train'. Because the idea was that the rivers and canals cut through otherwise remote, heavily forested areas that may have had beastmen in them, they needed to be defensible. To do this, they had a 'crew' barge at the front which had a small kitchen, living and sleeping area, but the main space was basically a stable that enabled the barge to embark the horses overnight so they could safely moor up in the middle of the canal, which effectively protected the animals from attack or even predation from wolves etc. The crew barge also had a raised platform that served as a lookout post, but was designed to be quickly collapsible to get under bridges in towns etc.
 
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^Ooh, nicely fleshed out. Sitting a have dozen blocks from a major waterway this barge idea sings to me. I wonder if there's an advantage to the placement of the crew barge, to the front or the rear. Even in the absence of bandits and highwaymen it honestly makes sense to have a barge with crew accommodations and stores for the canal horses. The local waterway never really used the horse power, but even without horses there were modest crew accommodations on the flatboats and pirogues that carried pre-industrial traffic. Some of them were pretty primitive, if the art is to be believed. Maybe not much more than a lean to. But they always seem to be there. Gotta have a place to sleep, and cook, and toss some dice when you're not working.
 
I am unsure whether the boats would be horse drawn or with sail, they appear to be more along the line of river navigations as originally envisioned, but developed to be more extensive as the background was developed.
Apparently there are tunnels going through some of the mountains!! Imagine these were dwarf tunnels rather than excavated by humans…
 
I based my WFRP ideas on the 'Humber Keels' of the 19th century. They could be powered by sail, horse or even human power, but my thoughts were that as the Empire was still heavily forested, you wouldn't get much use out of a sail in a river that runs through a forest, so maybe they'd have dropped that part over time. The Keels were operated by families and they lived in the keel itself, but would minimise their living space to maximise cargo capacity, some of the quarters were just long enough to lie down in and carried a family of six or more people.

I think in a potentially dangerous area, you'd want the crew barge to be at the front to keep a watchful eye on both riverbanks and the horses as they worked. Also it'd be easier and quicker to get the horses back onboard if their compartment was near where they worked.

This is a great shot of some of the keels and sloops (on the right) that I got my ideas from:

Screenshot 2025-06-13 at 18.52.46.jpg
 
WFRP 'River life of the Empire' had a pull out section called 'River folk of the Empire' with nice plans & sections, albiet riverboats and patrol boat. Page 11 also had a stuff on locks with nice picture of an actual lock gate(!) and barge in action. In real life Dutch barges were able to navigate older canals in the UK (especially up from the Thames) just not the later industrial narrow boat ones I guess.
 
Tunnels through the mountains? Ooh, I love it! I've long wished some of the smaller local waterways had been better developed, but the big ones were so busy and so easy to use the little ones never got much attention. (Particularly after trains started stealing traffic off the rivers. Though never to the extent people sometimes believe. It's still a remarkably busy river to this day.) Anyway, this is a lovely project, and I'd love to see it in models!
 
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