Geograph - photograph every grid square

Grand Union Canal from Charles Street Bridge (G.U. Bridge 48)

The towpath along the canal is in a good state of repair these days largely due to fibre optic telecommunications! British Waterways were part of a consortium which used the canal towpaths as rights of way to build their own trunk telecommunications network of fibre optic cables serving all the major towns and cities through which the waterways network passes. In order to make the towpaths suitable for this in many cases they had to be repaired, and hence today are kept in good condition as seen here. As a discreet reminder of this use there are almost anonymous grey containers, such as that seen on the right, which house the various fibre optic transmission and access equipment for operating the network.