Posted by James Pepper on January 25, 2000 at 08:09:19 in 152.163.204.191 :
In Reply to: I have a question for you James posted by Doug May on January 25, 2000 at 03:51:27:
This is all first person explanations of how everything works, as opposed to books written by people who were not alive when the ship was afloat. The articles are written by specialists of the day, and by the people involved in building the ships, therefore the critical eye of experts encompass the pages. The engine schematics alone are worth the effort, the detail is incredible! They have plan, section and elevations of most of the ship, in a lot more detail than you would find in most books. And you can compare the parts to other ships, also displayed within the text. For instance we have all seen the boiler schematics in various publications, but Engineering's folio sized fold out schematics are much more detailed. Imagine looking at those plans, on a sheet of paper, that is two pages wide in folio size!
Take the latest find of the stern pieces, being loaded onto the train to transport them to the ship, the large bronze pieces that hold the propellers, pieces that must be reproduced in order to get the shape of the hull correct, if you want working propellers. I had to use the photographs found in Engineering to get the shape correct, they photographed them at Darlington Forge, the photograph looks like a model, but they are actually propped up for display, in the configuration they would be in the ship. I mentioned the photograph because members in the UK might be able to look through their newspapers to find articles on the movement of the pieces of the ship. They needed a special train on the North Eastern Railroad. A source of direct information and possible newspaper ads.
And then you have these expositions, which must have been advertised and products advertised for them. It is a resource that we didn't know existed, now people on this board can look to find information on the exhibition (World's Fair). You can bet Harland and Wolff was well aware of the Brussels exhibition and would have made a point to show off their ships there!
And not to mention the accumulators being water pumps, we have all speculated on what they were for, some suggested that accumulator was an "English" word for battery, but there is an article in Engineering on Water pumps and other accumulators.
Just because I can not reproduce the pictures, due to the constraints of the library, doesn't mean they are not valid as a research tool. The prints are unique, made by their own photographers, such as a picture of the two ships in the gantrys, taken from just off the starboard side of Olympic about B deck, looking down and seeing the port side of Titanic under construction below. Pretty impressive! They have their own copyrights on all of the pictures and they are numbered, meaning they may be in a library somewhere in London!
Not to mention the Olympic pictures of the forecastle with no chains and workman using a ladder bridge to get from b-deck to the forecastle.
Then you have the Harland and Wolff Works article in I think it is the Britannic issue, 1914, which has pictures of various parts of ships all in 5X7 inch photographs lying around the shops, labeled by their ship number.
To find all of this I have to look through the pages one at a time, there is an index but it is useless, made for the magazine in print, and of course doesn't coorespond to the half year volumes. The reader's guide is of no help, it gets all of the Engineering type magazines listed as the same journal, "Engineering", "Engineering (New York)", "The Engineer", and another Engineering type journal. Therefore if anyone on this board can find access to the London Design Council's "Engineering", they will have the listings to find this stuff! I think Ohio State University and I know SMU has this journal. SMU's editions also include special pull out sections and extra special issues.
The books, on specific ships and shipbuilders is interesting, making it possible that they may be in other libraries, it would be a matter of finding the specific titles, since the authors would be individuals working for Engineering or the magazine itself.
And Olympic was the first ship, and since it was almost identical to Titanic, most of the articles on Titanic make references to Olympic articles. That is why I am describing the Olympic articles.
James Pepper