WORKING BRITISH WATERWAY BOATS 'WHALE' ,'GRAMPUS' AND 'DEARNE' WITH CRANE NR KILNHURST ON ROUTE FROM SWINTON. Photograph condition is excellent there are some details written in pencil describibing what is in the photo and locationsIn 1948 the company was nationalised and became a part of British Waterways. By the 1960s traffic was dwindling and the official head of the main line of the navigation became the new steelworks at Aldwarke, below Rotherham. Repeated proposals were made in the 1960s and 1970s to upgrade the system to allow larger vessels as far as Rotherham. Go-ahead was finally given in the early 1980s: the channel was deepened to 8 feet and the locks were rebuilt to take 700-ton vessels. A new wharf and freight terminal were built in Rotherham utilising the disused riverside bus depot as warehousing; various other facilities on the navigation below Rotherham were upgraded. The improvements were opened in 1983. Although these have received traffic sporadically since (and are still used in a limited fashion today), the upgrade was not the success that was hoped.By the 1970s, boats rarely ventured above Rotherham. The effort made in the 1980s to attract traffic to the waterway below Rotherham did not extend to the stretch above the town: the locks remained suitable only for much smaller barges. Over time parts of the Sheffield Canal gradually slid towards dereliction through lack of use. In 1990 there was a concerted effort by Sheffield City Council and British Waterways to revitalise the waterway, which brought traffic back to a redeveloped Sheffield Basin (now focussed on leisure and commercial activities and renamed Victoria Quays).Today the system is open to navigation throughout the main line, the Stainforth and Keadby and New Junction canals, and is mostly used for leisure boating. Some commercial carrying does take place from the quarry at Cadeby and the wharves at Rotherham and Doncaster; plus there is an active commercial barge-yard at Swinton and leisure boatyard and boat-builder at Sheffield. In 2008–09 the system carried 290,000 tonnes of freight, of which 266,100 tonnes were limestone from Cadeby.[19]The Rother Link is a scheme that would see the River Rother upgraded to navigable status from Rotherham as far as Killamarsh, where a short canal would link to the Chesterfield Canal to complete a leisure cruising circuit. A canal restoration group is also seeking the re-opening of the Dearne and Dove Canal, has performed some restoration work at Elsecar and commissioned an engineer's report into reopening.