Deborah Meldrum
Member
Hello all
I thought I would make my first proper post an interesting one. I'm currently researching the Californian for a talk I'm giving in February. As I come from Dundee in Scotland - where the Californian was built in 1901 by the Caledon shipyard - I have been looking through newspaper reports for any information. A great story came to light about the Californian's boilers. The Caledon shipyard on the banks of the river Tay had its Foundary (Lilybank Foundary) some distance from the yard and this meant that when the boilers all 85tons of them had to be moved it was a major operation. WB Thomson of Caledon came up with the solution of loading them up on to 20 ton bogies and taking them by the roads down to the dock. There was just one problem - the town council were not so keen - rightly as it turned out. When the boilers were moved at the end of November 1901 (shortly after her launch) one of them caused a large crater to appear in a main street and became stuck. They were moved at night and thousands of people came out to watch. The journey of the boilers caused tram wires to be lifted out, water mains to be damaged and in the end the shipyard faced a bill for the damage that came to £670 (about £40,000 in today's money.)
In the local papers the controversy was quite interesting especially since the Californian was the largest ship built on the east coast of Scotland at that time.
i've also managed to find two photographs of the Californian - one of when it was being built and one of it prior to it leaving on its first voyage. They are courtesy of Dundee City Archives who have managed to get a the design plans of Californian back from their owner. I also got a photocopy of the layout of the Californian they hold.
Hope this is of interest.
Debbie
I thought I would make my first proper post an interesting one. I'm currently researching the Californian for a talk I'm giving in February. As I come from Dundee in Scotland - where the Californian was built in 1901 by the Caledon shipyard - I have been looking through newspaper reports for any information. A great story came to light about the Californian's boilers. The Caledon shipyard on the banks of the river Tay had its Foundary (Lilybank Foundary) some distance from the yard and this meant that when the boilers all 85tons of them had to be moved it was a major operation. WB Thomson of Caledon came up with the solution of loading them up on to 20 ton bogies and taking them by the roads down to the dock. There was just one problem - the town council were not so keen - rightly as it turned out. When the boilers were moved at the end of November 1901 (shortly after her launch) one of them caused a large crater to appear in a main street and became stuck. They were moved at night and thousands of people came out to watch. The journey of the boilers caused tram wires to be lifted out, water mains to be damaged and in the end the shipyard faced a bill for the damage that came to £670 (about £40,000 in today's money.)
In the local papers the controversy was quite interesting especially since the Californian was the largest ship built on the east coast of Scotland at that time.
i've also managed to find two photographs of the Californian - one of when it was being built and one of it prior to it leaving on its first voyage. They are courtesy of Dundee City Archives who have managed to get a the design plans of Californian back from their owner. I also got a photocopy of the layout of the Californian they hold.
Hope this is of interest.
Debbie
