Reposted as apparantly it didn't work properly last time:

What I was particularly intrigued by is whether the length of the
tug was determined by the working route. Stewarts and Lloyds and
had their tugs shortened to around 40ft from former long distance
carrying boats so they could be employed in "shunting" duties around
the works. T and S Element didn't bother to shorten their boats at
all. So why did Ernest Thomas, along with a few others choose 50-
55ft? A longer boat is obviously much easier to handle but I was
wondering if say at Hednesford or Anglesey it was not possible to
turn a 70 footer hence the need for shortening. The original open
day and hampton boats on these runs were in general double ended and
therefore didn't need "winding."

And as an aside, whereas today the term joey tends to be applied
erroneously by many to all BCN day boats, when I've talked to a
number of BCN "characters" they've tended to call them barges,
sometimes "correcting" themselves to say narrow boat to appear PC in
front of a modern day enthusiast.

Kind regards,

Paul Hunter