The answer to the style which Thomas's chose may seem a little odd.
Thomas were very powerful in the canal transport hierarchy, sparring
almost continously with the other big fleet of Yates bros, both
companies leased boats to other firms. The tug sesign, style of
painting etc was simply a move to impress the competion. Huge Gardner
engines, bright paintwork which included hullside bands in yellow
were all very flash. the Thomas style didnt stop there, there was the
American cars and lorries, they owned the former S&W Co directors
house, had an areoplane etc. When carrying slowed they were plannibg
to have a new "Enterprise" yug built, complete with 6 cylinder Rolls
Royce engine!After the cessation of carrying they built the lavish
water gardens at Calf Heath with hire craft and so on, this complex
still exists with plant tubs in concrete as minature joeys.
T&S Element used anything that was handy, even using knobstick buttys
as joeys toward the end, they did shorten one motor, "Princess Anne"
formely "Plato".
The term "Barge" and "Bargee" was and is common in the Black country,
I can never remember our local coal merchant referring to "joeys"
when I was young. Many boatmen also referred to joeys as barges. Tug
steerers "drove" the boat too not steered it.
Certainly local conditions influenced the Stewarts and Lloyds boats
but if you look further afield 45-50ft was the norm, Thomas's and
Yates producing the most eye catching boats.


--- In CanalScapeBCN@..., "paulchunter" <paul@...>
wrote:
>
> 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
>