The Titanic was designed to float with two of the watertight compartments flooded, but four or five were breached. Also, the upper bulkheads of the compartments were not watertight at their upper parts to allow steam lines and so forth to pass through. A warship would have been built with total watertight integrity, but not a civilian ship. Also, the double bottom didn't extend above the bottom of the ship.
One of the reasons that German ships at the battle of Jutland were so hard to sink is that there were no passageways at all through the transverse bulkheads so to pass from one area to the next required the crew to go up to the weather decks and then drop down to the next compartment. At least I understand this was the way they did it. Maybe someone else can clarify?
German capital ships indeed had watertight integrity as described in the previous post, which improved the survivability of the ships but made life much more difficult for the crews. Although it was called the High Seas Fleet, the German battle fleet was not really designed for extensive operations beyond the North Sea.
The German Imperial Navy also did a better job of learning lessons from the early battles. One was that the powder magazines needed to be isolated from each other, as a fire in one magazine leading to ignition of the other magazines caused the loss of at least one German ship in 1914 (see Massie's Castles of Steel). The Royal Navy was a bit slower in learning this lesson, with the HMS Hood being lost because of this in 1941.
It might be better to ask why the Royal Navy ships were so easy to sink in comparison with the German Imperial Navy ships.
Getting back to the original question of this thread, I'm still wondering if steam locomotive boiler explosions were really less common than steamboat boiler explosions.
- Erik
I'm not so sure watertight integrity on German ships was carried out to the extreme where crewmen had to go up to the weather deck to get from one compartment to another. Not a very efficient way of doing things, especially under combat conditions.
It is true that compartmentalization was carried out to a much greater degree on German ships than on British ships, but there was a reason the Brits designed their ships the way they did. British warships had to be capable of going anywhere in the Empire and be livable there, especially the tropics, so that meant many more open spaces on British warships for ease of ventilation. No air-conditioning back in those days. The Germans didn't have that problem. More open spaces means more difficulties in maintaining watertight integrity.
I'm not saying the RN was wrong in designing their ships the way they did. ALL warship designs involve compromises.
As I understand it, the German fleet was designed with one purpose, to keep the British fleet bottled up at Scapa Flow. Their crews were based on land and pretty much used them as day-boats. Not meant for any kind of long deployment. I think it was Admiral Tirpitz who said that "We build fine fair-weather ships, lovely to look at but useless in the North Atlantic." I recall a picture of the SMS Seydlitz returning to harbour after Jutland and her bow deck was just about awash so there's something to be said for thier design.
That's because she was heavily damaged with thousands of tons of water reducing her forward freeboard to almost nothing.
Edit: I think I misinterpreted your post, so strike that.
Yes, but back to explosions. Regarding railroads, when was the last time it happened? Either on a museum railroad or in regular service back in the day?
Last catastrophic boiler explosion occurred with a Cuban Baldwin back in March 2000.
I believe that the last catastrophic boiler explosion in commercial service in North America occurred when Norfolk & Western Y6 #2153 blew up in December 1955 in Virginia.
http://www.riteboiler.com/April1995_66-69.pdf
The only boiler explosion in the preservation era that I'm aware of was when CPR 4-6-2 #1278 suffered a crown sheet failure in June 1995 on the Gettysburg Railroad, injuring all three crew members in the cab. Thanks to CPR's own engineering expertise, this failure wasn't catastrophic and the crew survived. Even the Pacific has been deemed reasonably repairable.
Interesting the way the boiler on that Cuban locomotive came apart. Mind you, I don't mean "interesting" in a cold-blooded analytical way, it must have been tragic for all concerned.
What I mean is it doesn't look like the typical crown sheet failure. It looks like, for whatever reason, metal fatigue, corrosion, erosion, or overpressure the boiler shell disintegrated back of the smokebox. Usually when the crown sheet goes the boiler detaches itself from the locomotive frame and launches itself down the right-of-way.
Chills your blood to look at it, doesn't it?
By the looks of it, the crown sheet didn't fail, the forward flue sheet did.
Most of the devastation was up front, and the cab was not blown off, it was removed a couple weeks later, before the photo was taken.
Leo_Ames Last catastrophic boiler explosion occurred with a Cuban Baldwin back in March 2000. I believe that the last catastrophic boiler explosion in commercial service in North America occurred when Norfolk & Western Y6 #2153 blew up in December 1955 in Virginia. http://www.riteboiler.com/April1995_66-69.pdf The only boiler explosion in the preservation era that I'm aware of was when CPR 4-6-2 #1278 suffered a crown sheet failure in June 1995 on the Gettysburg Railroad, injuring all three crew members in the cab. Thanks to CPR's own engineering expertise, this failure wasn't catastrophic and the crew survived. Even the Pacific has been deemed reasonably repairable.
Johnny
Deggesty Leo_Ames Last catastrophic boiler explosion occurred with a Cuban Baldwin back in March 2000. I believe that the last catastrophic boiler explosion in commercial service in North America occurred when Norfolk & Western Y6 #2153 blew up in December 1955 in Virginia. http://www.riteboiler.com/April1995_66-69.pdf The only boiler explosion in the preservation era that I'm aware of was when CPR 4-6-2 #1278 suffered a crown sheet failure in June 1995 on the Gettysburg Railroad, injuring all three crew members in the cab. Thanks to CPR's own engineering expertise, this failure wasn't catastrophic and the crew survived. Even the Pacific has been deemed reasonably repairable. I remember reading about that last catastrophic explosion when I was in college, in Bristol; someone higher up than those in road service was reported as saying that the boiler did not blow up, but blew down.
I remember reading about that last catastrophic explosion when I was in college, in Bristol; someone higher up than those in road service was reported as saying that the boiler did not blow up, but blew down.
Looks like a failure of the first course of the boiler. Those were not unheard of but were rather uncommon compared to the number of crown sheet failures. A failure of a boiler course is usually due to structural weakness that went undetected.
I wonder how much non-destructive testing is done on the locomotives of Cuba. If they're maintained like the old American cars that use shampoo for brake fluid (I am told) I think I'd be a little leery about visiting the sugar mills when they run the engines.
You'd be hard pressed to find any down there now. The age of steam is over for the Cubans.
STILL A FEW NARROW GAUGE SHUGAR CANE RAILWAYS WITH STEAM
FRIEND AND SON RETURNED FROM VISIT WITH PIX
If some sugar cane railroads in Cuba are still using steam it wouldn't surprise me, especially the small 'roads using narrow gauge locomotives. It's been a common practice for sugar cane 'roads to use bagasse, the pulpy waste left over from the cane processing as fuel. Not just in Cuba mind you, but anywhere in the world sugar cane is grown, with the exception of the US. Bagasse is a cheap fuel ready to hand, and what else would they do with it? The Colin Garret world steam books do a good job illustrating this.
Firelock, I was going to reply earlier, but I've been racking my brain trying to remember exactly what my grandmother told me at least sixty years ago about her father's sugar plantation. He had a sugar mill on the plantation and a railroad to transport the cane from the fields. He used bagasse to fuel the mill, and I think she said he used it in the locomotive for a while but later switched to coal. My avatar is a picture of the locomotive.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Thier are no unloading bridges in Lorain Ohio. Shore cranes are used.
when I worked for The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company 20 years ago, the forms for a new insured would ask the following:
Type of burner- automatic, stoker or hand fired.
type of fuel: natural gas, fuel oil, coal, wood or bagasse.
I never heard of bagasse and had to ask my boss what it was. Working in New York State as I did, I never did see the sugar plantations. It does sound like something that would leave a deposit like creosote though. I'd be interested to know just how it was used to fire a boiler, hand fed or ground up and blown in or what?
Tossed in as bales, I believe.
Not compressed, I doubt they'd of been able to do much more than maybe use the whistle (Not to mention the amount of fuel they could take with them would be far less with the same capacity, if not compressed).
Some (Most?) sugar plantation engines could burn oil when bagasse was in short supply.
There are great piles of bagasse around the sugar mills, and I've often wondered what they do with it. It has a strong rotten-sweet smell to it so I can't imagine it burning very cleanly.
The steam locomotive largely replaced the steamboat after the Civil War.
Did many men with steam experiece on the rivers take jobs running steam locomotives and other steam powered devices with the railroads?
I recall that Mark Twain wrote a story about that, how the riverboats declined as reflected in the boat captain's clothing and demeanour. Once neat and then a slob. Wish I could find that one again.
I imagine that with the growth of shipping on the Great Lakes that was rising simultaneously with the explosion in the rail industry, that there were plenty of jobs for those that were seeing a decline on the Mississippi and other navigate inland waterways in America's heartland.
Not to mention that I imagine America's ocean going fleet was growing right along with our growth during the industrial revolution, although most of my familiarity there doesn't go back past the start of the 20th century. I bet there were plenty of jobs on the oceans for American merchant mariners.
The riverboat died, the steamboat didn't.
Paul of Covington There are great piles of bagasse around the sugar mills, and I've often wondered what they do with it. It has a strong rotten-sweet smell to it so I can't imagine it burning very cleanly.
I imagine now that the era of steam is behind Cuba, the Philippines, and elsewhere that unless there's something like a biomass generator at the plant or very close nearby, most of it is put back into the fields to break down and return nutrients to the soil for the next harvest.
54light15I recall that Mark Twain wrote a story about that, how the riverboats declined as reflected in the boat captain's clothing and demeanour. Once neat and then a slob. Wish I could find that one again.
I think what you're talking about is in Life on the Mississippi, but it isn't so much about him being a 'slob' as being an impoverished has-been.
See this Google Books version (scroll up slightly to p.474 for the beginning...)
https://books.google.com/books?id=RlkjAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA475&lpg=PA475&dq=life+on+the+mississippi+kid+gloves&source=bl&ots=wzHzg6wFWL&sig=51G_RnY-brvlcgKjDifjfO4W7Jg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nbK9VIKyBIKXgwSEkYPABw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=life%20on%20the%20mississippi%20kid%20gloves&f=false
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