He maha aku pukenga miharo.

Exactly John. Interested to hear what is happening. Less interested in the negative and completely speculative suppositions. As an engineer with a bit of experience incident management and dealing with this sort of thing I would give almost exactly the same answer to those questions at this time when they are up to their collective arses stopping the flow of water, its immediate effects on the rest of the system and surrounding areas and arranging assistance for the narrowboaters immediately affected by the breach. To use a medical analogy a bit like criticising the paramedic for not saying how and where the rehabilitation is going to be acheived while he's administering roadside CPR and then complaining it will never happen. Sorry if a bit brusque, but can happen when posting political opinions.

Yes I've never got on with rails, ok for smaller sockets, but you soon run out of space fitting larger sockets to them. I have a few loose sets that I kept in a tool box, think they were ment to be screwed to the wall or a tray like yours. I have left a few spaces in the foam, but think I've probably got every socket I'll ever need, metric unf and witworth in every size unless I buy a lorry.  The draws could be lined in 2, 3 or more sections of foam so the layout could be changed or sections added as needed. 

Been forever looking a "shadow foam" style inserts for my tool boxes, but it's sooo expensive to do and no matter how well you lay it out, you half the contents of your drawers. It's a deliberation, ease of access Vs quantity 

All in favour of positive items, but this thread is about "Interesting YouTube channels"!  I'm interested  because the canal, if not the collapse, is right next door to Daughter & Co's home, in fact they walked down the towpath to see what had happened yesterday!  OK, keep to channels more in  line with our board ethos! John

This is a great YouTube channel. Back to the core values of enjoying motorsport.    cut through the more modern stuff ( even though old car based)  and search the most popular videos for proper period racing.  https://youtube.com/@hamishracing?si=l9H6NrF7rKfXFE_C

Cutting depressions in  foam works, but isn't flexible if you add to your sets. I use a socket rack like this:  There are very many available.  This one's from B&Q While the rails take clips for, from R to L, 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" drive sockets you can add them anytime.  And they won't fall off the rack if you need to transport your chest. John

Cracker Can't beat a tidy tool chest full of tools

Forever, I've only ever used tool boxes to store sockets, spanners etc. With a few machinemart wall mounted peg boards for screwdrivers and odds and sods, and a few metal cabinets.  The main problem is trying to find the correct size socket or a particular spanner, buried in the tool boxes, and sometimes can't see the wood for the trees. I've never considered tool chests for some reason, and then at Christmas got a couple of Halfords vouchers and started to look at what I could buy with them. In my experience Halfords is expensive, but they do have genuine half price sales, and on offer was a six draw tool chest with cabinet, on heavy duty casters. £120 was a great price, so I bought it. Good quality, with roller bearing draws. Started to think how I could organise things and had a search for ideas on YouTube. One fellow showed how by just using a socket on a drill you can easily cut the correct size hole in foam to organise sockets.  Halfords had garage foam flooring on sale so bought a few packs and used a couple of sheets to line the tool chest draws. Took some time cutting out the holes and swaping to the relevant size socket for each hole cut. I found by using high speed and not to much preasure the heat generated by the frictinion cuts through the foam with ease, leaving a neat hole.  If i had known this years ago i could have relined the numerous socket set boxes, where the moulded plastic socket holders had disintegrated, and the reason the sockets ended up in a tool box in the first place.  Worked out well, and is going to make finding the right socket/tool so much easier, wish I'd  done this years ago. Here is three tool box worth of sockets and spanners. Still got two deep draws and the cabinet below to use. I  just need to thin out the amount tools. How many spanners do I really need? Just rounded up my screwdriver collection from various places. 71 screwdrivers! Think I may have a problem.

Just so.  I actually think that sheer scale and drama of the failure means there’s a far better chance of raising the cash and enthusiasm to fix it and “make the canal whole again”, compared to raising cash and enthusiasm for more mundane maintenance. Of course the scale makes the challenge greater, but I reckon it will be repaired - just might take a while.