Editing Oxford Canal (section)

====Slow decline====
The straightening of the canal coincided with the beginning of the [[railway]] age, and the opening of the [[London and Birmingham Railway]] in 1838, signalled the end of the dominance of the canals. However, despite the railway competition, the total tonnages of cargo carried on the canal did not decline immediately, and in fact continued to rise for some time, however, the company was forced to slash its tolls in order to remain competitive, and this put an end to the large profits which had previously been made, although ironically the railways provided a new source of income to the canal, who paid them to provide water for their locomotives at Rugby. Traffic on the canal remained such that the three [[Hillmorton Locks|locks at Hillmorton]], the first on the canal after the stop lock at Hawkesbury Junction, became severely congested. The solution to the congestion was to duplicate or twin the existing locks at Hillmorton, creating three pairs of two parallel narrow locks, which allowed twice the traffic to pass the lock at any time. The work to double the locks was completed in August 1840. In 1842, nearly 21,000 boats passed through the locks.<ref name="DTRPE"/><ref name="OCCG"/>

In 1833 a section of the new line of canal in Barby Fields near Dunchurch was used as a test site for a new [[wrought iron]] boat, ''Swallow'', built by Graham and Houston. Drawn by two horses, the boat completed a distance of 1.5 mile in 7 minutes 35 seconds, a speed of almost 12 miles per hour.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Fast Boats on Canals | url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000358/18330713/009/0003 |newspaper=Berkshire Chronicle |location=England  |date=13 July 1833 |access-date=4 September 2020 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref>

Traffic on the Oxford Canal held up reasonably well in the face of railway competition compared to many other navigations, but did see a gradual decline; in 1838, 520,000 tons were carried, which declined to 482,000 tons in 1868. However, income declined much more sharply due to the company slashing its tolls; takings which had gone from £18,478 in 1791/3, and then risen to a maximum of £90,446 in 1827/29, then fell to £26,312 in 1855. Nevertheless, the company was still profitable, and was able to pay dividends.<ref name="DTRPE"/>  

The northern section of the Oxford Canal between Coventry, Braunston and Napton remained an important trunk route, and remained extremely busy with freight traffic until the 1960s. The staple traffic was coal from the [[Warwickshire]] and [[Leicestershire]] [[coalfield]]s to London via the Grand Union Canal. However, the southern section from Napton to Oxford became something of a backwater, and carried mostly local traffic.

[[File:St Barnabas by canal Jericho Oxford 20051224.jpg|thumb|upright|Looking from the Oxford Canal towards [[Jericho, Oxford|Jericho]], with the [[campanile]] of [[St Barnabas Church, Oxford|St Barnabas Church]] in the background]]