Britain used rather than greatly expanded its canals

Was Britain's canal network expanded during the Second World War?

It was used intensively rather than substantially enlarged, building on a network that already carried significant traffic before the war.

Network size differed from traffic and labour. The waterways were already active before 1939, and wartime policy sought to extract more transport value from them. One of the most important changes was replacing men drawn into other service with newly trained women crews.