Electric canal boats

The traditional way to haul canal boats until the 19th century was using muscle, usually horse muscle but sometimes human too. Steam and later internal combustion engines later powered barges but there was an experiment in the 20th century to power barges via an electric overhead line. This Pathé newsreel shows an experiment held in Kidderminster (the photo below is of the canal at Kidderminster so near to where the experiment was).