by some . The plan was well received, and work began in 1847. Charles Ottley acted as chief engineer, but found difficulty in recruiting a labour force. The number of men looking for work had been reduced by famine and emigration, and the railways were competing for workers. The project took eleven years to complete. A double chambered lock was constructed at Portna, where the shoal was removed, and four other locks were needed to negotiate the difference in levels. Quays and swing bridges were erected, and various alterations had to be made around Lough Neagh to cope with the drop in the surface level. The final lock on the Lagan Canal, the Coalisland Canal and the Ulster Canal had to be rebuilt with a lower cill and deeper lock gates, and the River Blackwater had to be made deeper and wider. The cost of the project overran by £50,000 and the government was asked to make up the shortfall. The Upper Bann Navigation included the River Bann between its junction with the Newry Canal at Whitecoat Point and Lough Neagh, a route across Lough Neagh to the mouth of the Blackwater, and the lower of the Blackwater as far as Blackwatertown. The finished scheme was not well received by the counties through which it ran. As originally conceived, revenue from tolls and water power on the Lower Bann would finance maintenance work on the Upper Bann. Instead, three separate Trusts were set up. These were the Upper Bann Navigation Trust, the Lower Bann Navigation Trust and the Lough Neagh Drainage Trust. The adjoining counties appointed representatives to each, and also financed their continued operation. Those to the south of the lake had to contribute towards the drainage and navigation works which had been completed, and also find £800 per year for ongoing maintenance, with no source of income to cover it. Coleraine was expanded as a port, but even the Lower Bann did not generate the expected revenue, and the adjoining counties had to finance an annual deficit of around £400. A passenger service between Coleraine and Toomebridge was started in 1863, but the increased flow on the river made travel upstream difficult, and the service was abandoned. Like so many schemes that tried to combine drainage and navigation, this one did neither particularly well. Flooding around the southern shores of Lough Neagh continued to be a problem, and