Don’t get your hopes up, they’re not open yet. Rest assured though that I shall be first in the queue when they do, engine running, drive engaged, bows nudging the gates of the first lock.
Since the Canal Company Ltd are patently pellucidly polypsychologically politically and pcommercially pincapable of even beginning the task of their restoration, the Bro and I undertook some preparatory exo-planetary peregrinations of our own. We travelled in a vehicle of the Bro’s construction. He says that he built it for the grand-sprogs, but there was no harm in taking it for a “shake-down” run.
It is based upon a Tamiya G6-01TR Chassis that the company supply with a lorry-like ‘Dynahead 6×6’ bodywork. Elder sibling, naturally, could do better, and promptly did so, designing the bodywork shown here in CAD form in order to be able to send out over the electro-magnetoid aetherweb to some industrious peasants for 3D printing, to some similar others for Laser-cutting. The parts all eventually arrived in straw-filled tea-chests delivered by sweaty horse & creaking cart at the smaller tradesman’s yard of Hutson Towers, and were duly bonded together and finished in the workshops below the Bro’s laboratory.
The result, I think, outdoes the original in aesthetics and function, being both beautiful and balanced, reminiscent of the best works of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
Both the N.A.S.A. and the E.S.A. have made enquiries.
The beast has tickled tough-terrain long-travel suspension (much like myself), and is significantly geared down from the original, the better to climb steep and rough territory and to maintain r/c velocities within the managerial scope of the human brian-gland (also much like myself).
It is photographed here on the arid and airless wastes of the Canal Company Ltd’s various stone, gravel and general slag-heaps of the Calveley Yard – the nearest that we could find to conditions on Mars.
Tamiya quite like it.
I hear that the grand-sprogs are quite amused, too
The expedition was a success. The canals of Mars? Well, I estimate that there is a stonk-load of work to be done before they can be opened – several weeks of hard labour at least.
Damn it.
It should be noted that Mars is some one hundred and forty milliode miles distant from Cheshire – and it’s all uphill from here – so the new link canal will need to be in the form of a flight of at least six or seven quite deep locks.
Also damn it.
Chin-chin, chaps.
Ian H. &etc.
The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company. 
What a clever machine.
I fear you may find the Martian Canals a trifle boring. A sameness of color and texture to the surrounding terrain is their chief weakness. Although the aforementioned lack of CR&T may well make up for the desolate nature of the landscape.
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It is indeed a brilliode wee rover isn’t it?
In truth I _would_ miss the lush green of this, one of the wetter places of Earth, but Mars would be great for a swift visit (no more than a few years perhaps). I must begin my research and check that ASDA delivery groceries to Martian postcodes…
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I think we can guarantee that if they ever did open up the canals of Mars to boaters there’d be a family of screaming kids with footballs and transistor radios ready and waiting up there when you arrived.
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Sadly I think you’re correct. The Terrestrial canals have changed horridly in general character of late. I have had to purchase an extra-capacity battery for my hand-held Taser. The one on the roof naturally takes its feed from the domestic batteries and the solar feed, and can maintain its rate of fire throughout the daylight hours.
Would that t’were so. My days would be filled with “bzzzzzt!” sounds and the Cardinal surrounded with shallow puddles of involuntarily-released urine from subscribers to the large boat hire companies, and from anglers/ramblers and lycra-brained bicyclisters. Noise pollution would be significantly reduced.
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