Date completed 1907 Locks 114 | Start point Vitry-le-François Construction began 1880 | |
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Length 224.191 km (139.306 mi) Former names Canal de la Marne à la Saône End point The Saône at Maxilly-sur-Saône | ||
The Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne, previously the Canal de la Marne à la Saône is a canal in the North-East of France connecting the towns of Vitry-le-François and Maxilly-sur-Saône. It is a summit level canal of Freycinet gauge connecting the valleys of the Marne and the Saône rivers.
Contents
Map of Canal Entre Champagne et Bourgogne, France
It is the extension to the Saône of the former Canal de la Haute-Marne which it has incorporated.
224.191 kilometres long, it has 114 locks (71 on the Marne side and 43 on the Saône side) and two tunnels, Condes which is 275 metres long and the tunnel on the summit level between Balesmes-sur-Marne and Noidant-Chatenoy, 4820 metres long, which runs almost exactly underneath the source of the Marne.
The canal is fed by four reservoirs designed for that purpose: lac de Charmes, Lac de la Liez, lac de la Mouche, and Lac de la Vingeanne.
History
Work begins on the extension of the old canal of the Haute-Marne in 1880, the canal opens in 1907.
The canal was recently renamed "Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne" for the purpose of promoting tourism. Skippers, meanwhile, called it the "canal d'Heuilley". This is in reference to Heuilley-Cotton on its summit level, or Heuilley-sur-Saône, where they believe it starts (when in fact its origin is a few metres, on the neighboring commune Maxilly-sur-Saône). It is likely that this is the second option which is good. Indeed, it is a fairly standard process among mariners to name the channel where it starts. For example, the channel Vire and Taute in Cotentin, was also called "canal des Ourmes" the name of its first lock, "les Ormes".