360 Views of the Olympic class reciprocating room

[Rancor]

Think I understand the cooking surface heater now. From your diagram it seems that it used exhaust steam from the galley to preheat feed water. Initally I thought it might have been the other way round, exhaust steam being used to heat water for the galley. Thank you!

 

[Stephen Carey]

All -
I received a pdf on Britannic today which has a drawing of a main engine showing the reversing gear (clip attached). There are steam valves shown for the IP and LP cylinder starting positions mentioned by Steve in one of his posts above, which I must mention in my "starting doc". I've included a clip but cannot post the whole document as it's too large, but I can email it as required. There are some interesting parts to it such as the "three bridge telegraphs..." - see clip from the pdf, and a lot on the intricate lifeboat arrangements. There are hints to describe various safety measures in the light of "recent accidents", but the Titanic is expressly not referred to, though Olympic gets a mention here and there.

For the railings round the reciprocating engines, these keep the uninitiated clear of the moving parts, but with access to the bearings and crossheads so that the oilers can direct a stream of oil into the oil pots on the moving parts. When I first went to sea there were some "Steam Chiefs" around with a finger or two missing from where they had leaned in to feel a bearing, and had their finger removed by one of the bearing shims! All the ladders and walkways are fitted with railings so that it's not possible to fall off any of them in a seaway or when inebriated...

shows in YT the railings round the crankshaft bearing area, the gauge panel by the controls, the reversing gear wheel, "wick" lubricators and "drip wire" lubricators. Also various walkways. There's a video of the USS Texas as well, which shows them.

PS: For Mauretania fans, I also received an extract from the "Engineer & Shipbuilder" for the conversion of the ship from coal to oil. Not too descriptive, but some interesting stuff nonetheless, complete with a few piping drawings - I can mail it to interested parties.

 

[Stevefury]

Hi Codad1946.
Thanks, that's some good information.
Given the subtle difference between the 3 Olympic class ships, the only reference I found regarding the Titanic specific telegraphs was from the inquiry testimony from Fredrick Scott, a greaser assigned to the turbine room. TIP | British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry | Day 6 | Testimony of Frederick Scott (Greaser, SS Titanic)

This is some of the more interesting parts of his testimony:

5507. Do you remember the Sunday of the collision, the 14th April?- Yes.
5508. You were on watch, I think?- Yes.
5513. You were employed in the turbine engine room, starboard side?- Starboard side.
5514-5. Is that where you were when the collision happened?- Yes, just against the engine room door which parts the turbine room from the engine room.
5517. That is forward?- No, the after side of the engine room door, the after side of the main engine room.
5523. Did you notice the two telegraphs in the engine room?- Yes; four telegraphs rang.
5524. Were there four telegraphs?- She got four telegraphs, two emergency ones.
5525. Two emergency?- Yes, and two for the main engine.
5528. Let us get this clearly. I understand you are speaking now of the turbine room?- No, there are two stand-bys; you can see just the same in the turbine room; if you are standing at the engine room door you can see the two just the same.
5529. Where did you see those?- In the main engine room.
5530. That is where the reciprocating engines are?- Yes.
5531. The watertight door is open?- Yes.
5532. And you can see through?- Yes.
5533. Now I think we follow. When you speak of the four telegraphs, are they all there?- Yes.
5534. Or are there any in your room?- No, there are none in the turbine room at all, Sir, all in the main engine room.
5535. Was the telegraph signal that came the emergency or the ordinary telegraph?- That is to the main engine room. It is different. They ring the two on the main engine room, and then they ring two others just afterwards, the emergency ones.
5536. Did you hear the two?- All four went.
5537. Did you hear the two ordinary ones ring first?- No, they all four rang together.
5538. What did they ring?- "Stop."
5539. Was that before or after the shock?- After the shock.
5541. Was any reply given to the telegraph orders from the bridge?- Yes, they rang back from the engine room; the two greasers at the bottom rang back.
5542. It would be their duty, I suppose, to ring back?- Yes.
5543. Did you see them do that?- Yes.
5544. After they got the order to stop?- Yes, they were feeding the engines, and were close handy at the time.

He then apparently went aft to assist in freeing a greaser who may have been trapped in a rear tunnel behind a closed WTD.

I have forgotten the person's name but there was a greaser on duty working on the cylinder head catwalk level who's testimony whom I also interesting. A bit of searching the inquiry site can find him.

I found reading through testimonies of greasers, firemen etc (People associated with running the ship) to be extremely interesting. Of particular note was the discrepancy of the recollections of the engine orders directly before and after the collision from the crew below versus the bridge. I am not forwarding any conspiracy by saying that (Lord knows the number of conspiracy theories between these ships) but only mentioning the differences in testimony. It was indeed a desperate and chaotic event which would cloud anyone's memories.
-Steve

 

[Stephen Carey]

Hi Codad1946.
Thanks, that's some good information.
Given the subtle difference between the 3 Olympic class ships, the only reference I found regarding the Titanic specific telegraphs was from the inquiry testimony from Fredrick Scott, a greaser assigned to the turbine room. TIP | British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry | Day 6 | Testimony of Frederick Scott (Greaser, SS Titanic)

This is some of the more interesting parts of his testimony:

5507. Do you remember the Sunday of the collision, the 14th April?- Yes.
5508. You were on watch, I think?- Yes.
5513. You were employed in the turbine engine room, starboard side?- Starboard side.
5514-5. Is that where you were when the collision happened?- Yes, just against the engine room door which parts the turbine room from the engine room.
5517. That is forward?- No, the after side of the engine room door, the after side of the main engine room.
5523. Did you notice the two telegraphs in the engine room?- Yes; four telegraphs rang.
5524. Were there four telegraphs?- She got four telegraphs, two emergency ones.
5525. Two emergency?- Yes, and two for the main engine.
5528. Let us get this clearly. I understand you are speaking now of the turbine room?- No, there are two stand-bys; you can see just the same in the turbine room; if you are standing at the engine room door you can see the two just the same.
5529. Where did you see those?- In the main engine room.
5530. That is where the reciprocating engines are?- Yes.
5531. The watertight door is open?- Yes.
5532. And you can see through?- Yes.
5533. Now I think we follow. When you speak of the four telegraphs, are they all there?- Yes.
5534. Or are there any in your room?- No, there are none in the turbine room at all, Sir, all in the main engine room.
5535. Was the telegraph signal that came the emergency or the ordinary telegraph?- That is to the main engine room. It is different. They ring the two on the main engine room, and then they ring two others just afterwards, the emergency ones.
5536. Did you hear the two?- All four went.
5537. Did you hear the two ordinary ones ring first?- No, they all four rang together.
5538. What did they ring?- "Stop."
5539. Was that before or after the shock?- After the shock.
5541. Was any reply given to the telegraph orders from the bridge?- Yes, they rang back from the engine room; the two greasers at the bottom rang back.
5542. It would be their duty, I suppose, to ring back?- Yes.
5543. Did you see them do that?- Yes.
5544. After they got the order to stop?- Yes, they were feeding the engines, and were close handy at the time.

He then apparently went aft to assist in freeing a greaser who may have been trapped in a rear tunnel behind a closed WTD.

I have forgotten the person's name but there was a greaser on duty working on the cylinder head catwalk level who's testimony whom I also interesting. A bit of searching the inquiry site can find him.

I found reading through testimonies of greasers, firemen etc (People associated with running the ship) to be extremely interesting. Of particular note was the discrepancy of the recollections of the engine orders directly before and after the collision from the crew below versus the bridge. I am not forwarding any conspiracy by saying that (Lord knows the number of conspiracy theories between these ships) but only mentioning the differences in testimony. It was indeed a desperate and chaotic event which would cloud anyone's memories.
-Steve

Steve
I've also read through all the firemen's testimony. I find it strange (conspiracy theory?) that they didn't get Olympic's Chief Engineer (or 2nd even) into the enquiry to sort out the more obvious mistakes the enquiry (comprised entirely of "landlubbers") made on the ship's engineering, though they did visit Olympic itself. Firemen and greasers were the only survivors, but their knowledge of the engineering of the ship is minimal at best, even for those who had previously served on Olympic. To me as a ship's engineer there are many such misinterpretations from those leading the investigation. Probably Fred Barrett - as a Leading Fireman - has the best testimony, though he was of course up forward in the boiler rooms only. As far as I know, there was no one from H&W's engineering department to help in the enquiry either? Only Wilding and some others from the Naval Architecture department. I suppose we can put it down to the enquiry only being concerned with the sinking, but it still seems strange that they didn't have an expert witness to corroborate what the stokehold gang were saying.

Regarding the telegraphs, it still doesn't really sort things out, does it? It seems that Britannic also had the emergency ones, which on Titanic also seem to have been rung at the same time as the normal ones in the above transcript. Whether that was just because it was a genuine emergency or whether they always did it is a moot point. To me, ringing the emergency telegraphs would only be necessary under emergency conditions, and not for normal manoeuvring. It seems confusing to have all four telegraphs ganged together like they are in your 3D, but of course none of us know for sure!

I also wondered why there were no known photographs of the Olympic Class enginerooms and boiler rooms in service, until I thought of my own days at sea. We only had cheap cameras in most cases, there was not much light in enginerooms for that type of camera, and we only took a few rolls of film with us, most of which were consumed either sightseeing in foreign countries, or on piss-ups in the bar! I have very few photos from enginerooms after 18 years, whereas nowadays YT has many of them. So, in the 20s and 30s very few could afford a camera, and there's always "I'll take a few pictures next trip.."

The same is true of the paucity of piping schematics for these ships, there are very few - if any. I then went back to my own early days in the 60s and realised that's why us cadets crawled round the bilges drawing out the ship's systems in a notebook - there weren't any provided by the (British) shipbuilder! When I sailed in the "new" Japanese built ships it was a sea-change in engineering. The builder supplied two copies of all documentation to the owner, two copies for the ship, and of course kept originals themselves. We used one copy down below, with the fair copies kept in the Chief Engineer's library.

Stephen

 

[Rancor]

Hey Stevefury,

I put your stereo image attached in your above post into a HTC Vive and it was incredibly immersive. Standing there with the engines towering above you and being able to look around at all the auxiliaries and pipework in full immersive 3D is stunning. The resolution of the image is perhaps a bit on the low side for the Vive, if you were able to produce a 4k render or even better a short looping video with the engines running with some appropriate sound effects, the experience would be as close as you could get to really being there.

 

[richard de kerbrech]

Stevefury,
You are to be congratulated on what must have been a Labour of Love. You have retrospectively reconstructed the Boiler and Engine Room layout with its auxiliary pumps that would make a Marine Engineer and Naval Architect proud.
As Codad pointed out no photographs exist (to our knowledge) of the Engine and Boiler rooms as fitted out in the three Olympic class ships. This could be to exposure time of early photographic plates or the use of those 'sodium' flash trays to light up the areas. You mentioned lagging of pipes. From a contemporaneous scan of Harland & Wolff shipyard trades of the day, there are no Laggers. From this one would assume that the pipes were not lagged. Likewise the cylinders on both main reciprocating sets were not jacketed.
Again, well done Stevefury for filling the propulsion vacuum.
Richard

 

[Stephen Carey]

Hey Stevefury,

I put your stereo image attached in your above post into a HTC Vive and it was incredibly immersive. Standing there with the engines towering above you and being able to look around at all the auxiliaries and pipework in full immersive 3D is stunning. The resolution of the image is perhaps a bit on the low side for the Vive, if you were able to produce a 4k render or even better a short looping video with the engines running with some appropriate sound effects, the experience would be as close as you could get to really being there.

Will that work on a Mac? I've tried the others that Steve mentions, but they are all for mobile phones, which doesn't quite do it for me!

 

[Stephen Carey]

Thanks for the input Codad1946.
Bridge telegraphs- Wow the placement of those have been a huge mystery and IPA throughout the project. I don't think we will ever know their positions for sure.
These were the things I discovered or known about them through trial and error:

*There's a photo of the telephones mounted on what is apparently the aft center pillar of the Olympic as well as the aft electric winch. At least that's not likely going to be the position for them.
*We know from the inquiry testimony there were two telegraphs per engine. Each one had a main telegraph and an emergency telegraph. 4 altogether.
*We know that the position of them could be seen from the turbine room water tight door (Per testimony)
*The actual size of the ER telegraphs are also not known.
I made them the standard size as shown on other H&W reciprocating rooms of the period (I think 22 or 24" diameter).
* I discovered that mounting them on an engine column one above the other placed the top one too high for practical purposes. The column footing (With the big bolts) made the bottom telegraph sit about 4 feet off the ground and the top telegraph about 7-8 feet off the ground (With room to operate the handles). Setting the bottom one out away from the bolted footing made them stick out too far into the area.

How they came to the final position in my project
I had tried to make them work in a number of places: Between the aft & IP cylinder columns, mounted on the IP cylinder column, on pedestals in the aft area and between engine columns, on the forward engine columns (See them on the engine columns in the 3D stereo render in post #10).
*Since they didn't work well on any of the engine columns then I considered mounting them on one of the pillars.
*It seemed sensible they should be visible and accessible near to the starting platform.
*Considering the visibility of them from the turbine room WTD, the center pillar seemed more likely than the forward pillar- So there I had placed them at 45 degrees stacked one upon the other.

If new evidence comes along of where they should actually be, then I'll move them.

Engineers desk-
That is also a thing of confusion. You can see from the stereo 360 in post #10 it started off as a multi-drawer chest. I came across the photo of a H&W engineer desk of the period which was mounted on a large pole, so I cut the bottom off and put it on a pole. Other people (Smarter in this than me) suggested that I put it just aft of the center stairs but before the aft pillar. But it really didn't work there so I just put it behind the forward pillar.
I guess we'll never really know.

For the sake of discussion-
The appearance and position of the gauge board was also a big issue for me. One of my engineering books published around 1910 suggests the Olympic had a central gauge board. But where? How big? How many gauges?
I considered that it should be clearly visible from the starting platform and it probably had a ship's clock and some gauges.
It's another one of those things I had spent a long time working on. It started pretty close as it is now in my renderings. I also tried a similar board hanging from the catwalk above between the reversing gear. Also a gauge board with about 12 gauges which was too big for the area. It didn't work well after I put the telegraphs on the center pillar, so I moved it back where it started- facing aft on the center pillar. Someone far more experienced that I suggested 3 gauges per engine so there it is.

I had mentioned that I am currently rendering a HD fly-through of these spaces and that it will take a long time to finish.
I had ran an ultra-low version to preview and verify everything was OK before doing the time commitment.
I decided to upload it as a teaser, linked below.

-All- the fancy rendering stuff is turned off. No shadows, no shading, no transparency etc etc etc. As bare as can be. It's only 320x180 resolution so very blocky and jagged. The signs identifying the various pumps have been removed and will rely on narration. The black block around the human figure will not be seen. The human figure appears as a wireframe shape which is placed as a size reference in various places within the tour.

The auxiliary pumps are not animated in the video below. Some of them are running in the final version.
I noticed there's at least one eccentric which is 180 degrees off. Too late to correct it now.

So here's my teaser on YouTube:

Steve
Here's a picture of the engine model - no doubt you have already seen this? It shows the gauges at the control stand. I don't know how accurate this model is, but the vertical wheel is how most steamships were manoeuvred, and would probably be the HP steam valve. I'm not sure of this as the drawings in the Britannic pdf only show the handwheels facing down.
Titanic's Portside Engine - Part 1
Beautiful model though.

Stephen

 

[Stevefury]

Below is the only existing photo I know of which is said to be taken in the Olympic reciprocating room. The acceptance of its location seem to be pretty much universal. I believe the article was published in 1911. Man I'd give my bottom dollar if the camera would have been swung to point forward!

There you can see the aft LP engine column on the left, aft WTD, electric winch etc:

Hi Stephen.
I am sorry you are having a problem viewing the 360, they are hosted on Momento360.com... Maybe a firewall issue or something? I'm not sure.
I am very envious of the person's skill to create such an intricate and amazing triple expansion engine- but I don't think it reflects the Olympic class engines very well. At least in accuracy to the prototype.

Rancor,
The experience of viewing the stereo 360 3D in VR is truly unique. I had a bunch of them uploaded to PhotoBucket but they changed their policy and none are viewable to the public. (Dastardly deeds!)
I can check later- I think I still have copies of some test renders of the like on a hard drive somewhere. I'll upload them here if I can find them (My PCs are occupied rendering my project as previously mentioned).
Yes, the resolution of the posted 360 stereo is very low. I really don't want to upload any UHD images in the public domain.
-Steve

 

[Rancor]

Hey Steve,

No dramas, totally understand keeping the UHDs off the net. Looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future however you choose to share it.

Stephen,

The Vive only works on windows at the present, however I guess you could maybe dual boot windows on your Mac. You do need a bit of grunt on the GPU side to drive one though, the system I was using runs a Nvida 1070 which seems to work quite well.

If you do end up using one may I recommend trying the Titanic Honor and Glory Demo 3. I'm sure you've already tried it in 2D but in VR it's even better.

Also highly recommended Titanic VR, this allows you to explore the exterior and interior of the wreck (limited to the bow section at this stage) and in VR is an amazing if somewhat sombre experience. Unless you're James Cameron this is probably the best way to experience the wreck. I think VR has a huge amount of potential for this sort of experience.

Titanic VR | Immersive VR Education

 

[Stephen Carey]

Below is the only existing photo I know of which is said to be taken in the Olympic reciprocating room. The acceptance of its location seem to be pretty much universal. I believe the article was published in 1911. Man I'd give my bottom dollar if the camera would have been swung to point forward!

There you can see the aft LP engine column on the left, aft WTD, electric winch etc:

View attachment 39254

Hi Stephen.
I am sorry you are having a problem viewing the 360, they are hosted on Momento360.com... Maybe a firewall issue or something? I'm not sure.
I am very envious of the person's skill to create such an intricate and amazing triple expansion engine- but I don't think it reflects the Olympic class engines very well. At least in accuracy to the prototype.

Rancor,
The experience of viewing the stereo 360 3D in VR is truly unique. I had a bunch of them uploaded to PhotoBucket but they changed their policy and none are viewable to the public. (Dastardly deeds!)
I can check later- I think I still have copies of some test renders of the like on a hard drive somewhere. I'll upload them here if I can find them (My PCs are occupied rendering my project as previously mentioned).
Yes, the resolution of the posted 360 stereo is very low. I really don't want to upload any UHD images in the public domain.
-Steve

Typical electricians, taking photos of a couple of phones when all that engineroom was around them!
I meant to ask before, what's the electric winch doing in the middle of the engineroom? It looks incongruous to me and I've never seen it on any engineroom plans or in any enginerooms.

 

[Stephen Carey]

Hey Steve,

No dramas, totally understand keeping the UHDs off the net. Looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future however you choose to share it.

Stephen,

The Vive only works on windows at the present, however I guess you could maybe dual boot windows on your Mac. You do need a bit of grunt on the GPU side to drive one though, the system I was using runs a Nvida 1070 which seems to work quite well.

If you do end up using one may I recommend trying the Titanic Honor and Glory Demo 3. I'm sure you've already tried it in 2D but in VR it's even better.

Also highly recommended Titanic VR, this allows you to explore the exterior and interior of the wreck (limited to the bow section at this stage) and in VR is an amazing if somewhat sombre experience. Unless you're James Cameron this is probably the best way to experience the wreck. I think VR has a huge amount of potential for this sort of experience.

Titanic VR | Immersive VR Education

Once there's a 3D VR walkthrough of the machinery spaces and boiler rooms by Steve, I'm off to get a big PC and a VR headset I guess!

 

[Stevefury]

Typical electricians, taking photos of a couple of phones when all that engineroom was around them!
I meant to ask before, what's the electric winch doing in the middle of the engine room? It looks incongruous to me and I've never seen it on any engine room plans or in any engine rooms.

The presence of the electric winches was also a surprise to me (And some others too). I understand the aft winch was found during a 2001 wreck expedition and a pair of 4hp winches was auctioned off from the Olympic. The position of the forward winch was suggested by folks far more knowledgeable than myself.

Here's a link you may be interested in:
TITANIC FORUM - Winches in reciprocating engine room (starting platform level)

In that discussion, someone posted a diagram of the arrangement of the auxiliaries of Britannic. It seems some of the pumps may have been arranged somewhat differently within the room than the Olympic or Titanic. Interesting how little bits of information about the Olympic class ships are occasionally released after all this time. Dribbling in bit by bit.
I wish they'd raise the Britannic. I think they'd get a very good return on the cost of raising it. But that's another thread I guess

 

[Stephen Carey]

Steve
What a fascinating thread that was to browse through! Those modeller guys never cease to amaze me. I have been to steam fairs where there are exquisite models of steam engines, and none of the modellers has ever had one iota of engineering training, being clerks, bank tellers, accountants etc. I met a few engineers at sea who could make stuff like that (coming from a fitting and turning background), but there's no way I could do it even with over 50 years as a marine engineer...

Back to the winches - which look pretty good in your final green scheme - for the life of me I still cannot fathom what on earth they were used for! For dismantling a steam reciprocating engine, there's not much difference from doing the same on a diesel engine, other than the parts being heavier (and dirtier), and it's all done with spanners, hammers, chain blocks and overhead cranes. The winch seems an anachronism, unless it was used with a block and tackle to actually lift stuff out of the engineroom via a hatch placed above?

On colours, I like the cream of the main engines; were they actually that colour? All ships I sailed on built in the 50s and some earlier, were painted blue/green or a pale green, depending on the company. I have no idea what the colour was, though when Japanese and Korean ships started to make an entrance, the colour was actually laid down as "Maunsell Blue/Green" or "Maunsell B/G" - the first picture below. Some earlier ships were light grey - it seemed to be a shipowner choice in the days of British Shipbuilders, whereas with the Japanese and Koreans you tend to get what you are given!

PS That dirty green one was a ship I surveyed for my company. She had three generators, with one missing everything including the crankshaft. The second was the one shown, with parts rabbited for spares on the remaining working engine which was the sole one they came into the anchorage on - a wing and a prayer - and even that had one of the crankcase doors lying on the plates with a thermometer stuck to it with Blu-Tack, so obviously had a hot running bearing. I failed it and it went for scrap...

"Raise the Britannic" would probably bring about comments such as "Cheaper to drain the Mediterranean"! I think she's in quite good condition though, so needs a way to get an ROV in down aft. I saw a film where they got as far as the aft No6 boiler room door (I think) but had to turn back to avoid being trapped or something. I believe they managed itto get in as the bow is torn off.

 

[Stevefury]

My engines actually started green/blue-green early in the project. I was pointed to a thread in the modeling forum which discussed ship colors. I've forgotten the reference but the reciprocating engines & various auxiliaries were listed as "Light Mast".

Not finding any color category as "Mast", the Titanic masts were listed as a dark shade of brown. I copied the suggested mast color and lightened it up. The result was similar to the engine color suggested in Cameron's movie so I just went with that. I think the beige works well in an otherwise fairly monotone room.

I guess we'll never really know without paint scrapes from the wreck.

There's a couple things that I've taken liberty with such as the sun light streaming down onto the floor plate level.
Although it makes a good dramatic effect, I doubt the sun would have ever made it to that level- Given the time of year (degree of the sun), and her short life.
-Steve