Oh that's hysterical! Now what's needed is a view of the engine rooms with stokers madly shoveling dialithium crystals into the furnaces!
Just imagine...
Scotty: "All right lads, listen up! The Cap'n wants Warp 9 out of her!"
Stokers: "GROAAANNNNNN...."
Firelock76Oh that's hysterical! Now what's needed is a view of the engine rooms with stokers madly shoveling dialithium crystals into the furnaces!
Not a TNG fan? Season 7, episode 23. "Emergence". Sorry, no Q in that one though, Firelock.
Worf got the job of shovelling coal, though.
But Data got to drive.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
This goof on a steam-punk starship is not that far off the mark on the era of luxury steamships.
There are accounts of the crew working as stokers on Titanic and sister ships. These ships were coal fired and hand stoked. Even though they were compound expansion to below-atmospheric condenser pressure, they were not running at particularly high boiler pressure and their thermal efficiency was not that much greater than contemporary steam locomotives. These ships required "black gangs" of stoker crew, working around the clock in multiple shifts, to feed the large number of boilers needed to supply the steam powerplant.
So while the wealthy first-class passengers were pampered in their above-deck quarters, down below, a large number of men sweated in the dusty dark keeping the ship moving. I guess this was "civilized" travel for the privileged few who could afford the fare, especially compared to sitting for 8 to 10 hours crammed into a coach seat in a jumbo jet, the largely unnoticed service of the men moving coal gives a different perspective on "civilization."
On the other hand, there is always, "Battle speed, hortator!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXh1tW16V-8
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Zugmann, I remember that "TNG" episode, however I found the inaccurate representation of a steam locomotive cab a bit of a turn-off. Oh well, some times it's a burden if you know too much.
And Paul M, see if you can find a copy of John Maxtone-Graham's "The Only Way to Cross," a wonderful history of trans-Atlantic travel in the steam ship era. There's a chapter devoted to the stokers and what an unglamorous and dirty job it was, Maxtone-Graham doesn't pull any punches, calling stoking a steam ships furnaces a "soul-destroying job."
Oh yeah, that clip from "Ben-Hur." I was watching it with Lady Firestorm one time, and she asked "WHY is Jack Hawkins doing that?"
"Two things," I replied. "One, he's taking the ship into combat, and he wants to know just what he's working with. Second, and you'll find out later, as an owner of gladiators and charioteers he's looking for material."
"Or third, he's planning on doing some water skiing later."
Did you know there's a "Ben-Hur" remake coming out soon? I've seen the trailers, looks like a "Ben-Hur" for the video game generation.
Black gang stokers ? Brings up the question when did coal powered steam ships get mechanical stokers ?
blue streak 1 Black gang stokers ? Brings up the question when did coal powered steam ships get mechanical stokers ?
According to the Maxtone-Grahame book I mentioned earlier they never got mechanical stokers. After the First World War steamship companys started convering the ships to oil firing as soon as possible. Oil was a lot easier to deal with, didn't filthy up the ship like coal did during the fueling process, the dust would get everywhere unless special precautions were taken, and of course was pumped and sprayed into the furnaces eliminating the stoking crew entirely.
In the British Merchant Marine and navy however the men whom worked and monitored the furnaces were still called "Stokes" in shipboard slang for years.
The only steamship I'm aware of, and it surprised me to hear it, that has a mechanical stoking system is the SS Badger, which is discussed in a different thread.
Firelock76he only steamship I'm aware of, and it surprised me to hear it, that has a mechanical stoking system is the SS Badger, which is discussed in a different thread.
Leo Ames is our likely expert here. But mechanical stoking systems for ships are well-established, and among other things were used as a precedent for some of the proposed 'more automatic' (I use the term advisedly) locomotive systems in the Eighties -- notably the Detroit Stoker approach with Elvin-like flingers for placement.
Firing ships is a completely different prospect from locomotives, much more akin to building or factory boiler practice. Be it noted that, even with locomotives, proper design could make firing intervals almost astoundingly long -- there is a chart in Westing's book on Pennsylvania locomotives that shows the number of miles a train could be run without attention by the fireman other than injector (mostly I think early E-class Atlantics with a smattering of D-class 4-4-0s) -these were not trivial, one being greater than half the equivalent rail distance between New York and Philadelphia. So while there was a larger mass of fuel commensurate with the larger scale, there was unlikely to be the kind of intensive firing people usually associate with locomotives (or fictional accounts of black gangs).
Investigate the chapter on ship boilers in any version of the Babcock 'Steam: Its Generation and Use' book if you want useful detail on the benefits of oil firing. Add to the obvious ones a lack of ash issues, and the ability to implement full and variable separate superheat control. Military (and high-speed) advantages go far beyond that for normal merchant shipping.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.