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Hi, User:E.M.Gregory, this new article popped up on my watchlist because it linked to some article or another that I created. This flight of 5 locks is most salient in Erie Canal history, and i am sure it is well-covered under some other title. So I think this new version will need to be merged or redirected. I'll browse around looking for where it is covered, but this is just a heads up to you. --Doncram (talk) 18:07, 4 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(EC, simultaneous to EMGregory reply above) Hmm, maybe it is not well enough covered, and maybe a separate article providing a lot more detail would help. Lockport Industrial District seems to be the National Register of Historic Places listing for it; the article covers an 1859 set of locks and a later one, and the article is a tiny stub. However the New York State system for NRHP documents got changed a few years ago and since then I have not been able to access anything since. Another editor, User:Pubdog (not much active recently) did most of western NY's NRHP coverage.
The Erie Canal was fully opened in 1825 though. Erie Canal#Construction briefly covers the story that i know, that canal-digging proceeded rapidly elsewhere and that completion of locks at what became Lockport was late or last to be completed. That section includes a photo with caption "An original five-step lock structure crossing the Niagara Escarpment at Lockport, now without gates and used as a cascade for excess water." Hmm, IMO there is no way that is the original original; the photo caption in the Erie Canal article needs to be changed.
There exist elevation profiles of the Erie Canal route (with magnified vertical scale) which show Lockport/the Niagara Escarpment very dramatically. Low point of canal might be in central New York near Syracuse (in the Finger Lakes / Oswego River watershed) or maybe in Albany (at the bottom of the Mohawk River watershed), IIRC. Including an image of that profile would make sense for this article if it is kept.
The original locks would have been relatively narrow, in the first version of the canal, and would have been replaced when the canal specs soon changed to allow wider boats, maybe it was about 10 years or less after the canal opened. There were lots of local re-routings made necessary, and new aqueducts were needed, in the 2nd canal. It was earlier than 1859 I am sure. At Lockport it could have all been rebuilt on the same spot a few times, including in 1859.
So offhand, it appears now to me that the separation of an article is probably helpful and it should include a lot of detail and engineering drawings and coverage of various versions of the locks. And various links to/from it, including with respect to that Lockport Industrial District article. It seems like you found a very important / needed topic, to my surprise. --Doncram (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
New timbering during 2008-09 first restoration of any original Erie Canal aqueduct, at Nine Mile Creek Aqueduct, which i watched (but this is not my photo).
P.S. Also there is perhaps a need for a list-article of Erie Canal major works, i.e. the locks and aqueducts such as the Nine Mile Creek Aqueduct, for the first few versions of the canal, as opposed to the current / differently routed NYS barge system whose locks are well-covered. Or at least a category for these, i am not sure if that exists or not. --Doncram (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
