Welland Canal Port Maitland. With the opening of the extension, the canal stretched between the two lakes, with 40 wooden locks. The minimum lock size was , with a minimum canal depth of . Deterioration of the wood used in the 40 locks and the increasing size of ships led to demand for the Second Welland Canal, which used cut stone locks, within just a few years. In 1839 the government of Upper Canada approved the purchase of shares in the private canal company in response to the company's continuing financial problems in the face of the continental financial panic of 1837.
Welland Canal, bridge 13 the Welland streetcar system (the Niagara, Welland and Lake Erie railway) was slated for abandonment before the bridge was actually opened and this track was never installed. The bridge is long and has a skew of approximately 22.5 degrees - meaning that the towers and span are off square by this amount. The reason that the skew is required can be seen from the old picture of the second canal bridge above - the canal does not run at a 90 degree angle to Main Street. While a bridge out of alignment with the road was acceptable in the 1840s,