opportunity to build interchange facilities with the new railway. With the threat of the railways taking trade from the canals, the Don Navigation Company decided to purchase the Barnsley Canal, and to lease the Dearne and Dove for a year, after which they would buy it. The agreement with the Dearne and Dove went ahead, with the River Don Navigation taking over the canal from 1 January 1846, and paying £210,000 for it on 2 January 1847, but they failed to reach agreement with the Barnsley Canal. Tolls were reduced by 60 per cent in 1846, with free passage for empty boats from 1847, with the result that much of the coal traffic which had previously used the Barnsley Canal now used the Dearne and Dove. The South Yorkshire, Doncaster & Goole Railway Company was authorised in 1847, and the Act of Parliament allowed them to amalgamate with the Don Navigation Company, and hence the Dearne and Dove, once they had raised half of their authorised capital. The amalgamation took place on 19 April 1850. The railway company opened their line from Doncaster to Swinton in November 1849, which was followed by a branch to Elsecar in February 1850, and another branch to Worsbrough in June 1850. At Elsecar, the canal basin was moved, and about of the canal were filled in to make way for the railway. While the takeover was beneficial to traffic on parts of the Don Navigation, tonnage carried on the Dearne and Dove fell. Subsequently, both the railway and the canals were leased to the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, with a 999-year lease starting in June 1864, but in 1874 the lease became a takeover, and the canals were just a small part of a bigger undertaking. Users of the canals were unhappy with the high tolls and the lack of modernisation, and so in November 1888, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Canal Company was formed, with the intent of obtaining the canals from the railway company. They obtained an Act of Parliament on 26 August 1889, which created the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Company, with an authorised capital of £1.5 million, and powers to buy the canals, by compulsory purchase if agreement could not be reached with the railway company. The transfer did not occur until 1895, when agreement was finally reached, and the Dearne and Dove Canal became part of the