Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Oceanliner Designs" channel.

  1. There is a memorial in Liverpool that looks like Cleopatra's Needle. It says on one side In honour of All heroes of the Marine Engine Room This Memorial Was Erected by International Subscription MCMXVI The south side says: The brave do not die Their deeds live for ever And call upon us To emulate their courage And devotion to duty
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  2. Normandie was so far ahead in design and engineering, comfort and efficiency, that she was out of sight. Cunard was quite dumb to use such outdated design & engineering for the Queen Elizabeth.
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  3. Respect.
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  4. In the 1930s there was big move to diesel motor vessels as the vid states. By 1939 they were just about outnumbering steam vessels. But leading up to WW2 the British government standardized on the easy and quick to manufacture Liberty freighter ship, named after the Empire Liberty, developed in Sunderland. The triple expansion steam engine was chosen not a diesel. The engine was so simple and reliable it could be made actually in the shipyards, while diesel motors were made by specialist manufacturers. importantly the steam engines could run on coal or oil. If Britain was successfully blockaded home produced coal would run the engines. The Liberty Ship was taken up by the USA in a big way. At the end of WW2 there were more steam ships than diesels.
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  5. Rudolph Diesel did not invent the diesel engine. Ackroyd Stuart did. All well documented - one is in the Science museum in London. Ackroyd Stuart's engines were put into some trucks exported to the USA. Engines were mainly static used for turning machinery in factories. Fires were frequent using petrol in the type of storage used. so much many companies could not get insurance. Ackroyd Stuart invented the engine running on less volatile fuel to reduce fires. Diesel said he only improved the thermal efficiency. Diesel fell of the back of a cross Channel ferry on his way to England.
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  6. The British submarine, Thetis, sank twice.
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  7. Pure incompetence by Burnett. Why didn't the crew take to the lifeboats?
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  8.  @OceanlinerDesigns  || The starboard side was pretty well untouched. Some lifeboats could have been launched. None were. The ship did not sink that quickly.
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  9.  @paulfri1569  The ship should not have been so close. It had guns to stay out of range. It was broadside. Madness.
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  10. I wonder why it was DC, not AC, as AC was well established by then.
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  11. SS Olympic was converted to oil in 1919. The coal bunkers were converted to oil tanks. Large burners were fitted into the boilers. Efficiency was not a great as with boilers specifically designed for oil burning, but far better than coal burning. By the late 1920s very few coal fired steam ships were about. In the 1930s ships were moving quickly to diesel engines in new designs and refits. However the British designed Liberty ships of WW2 were specifically designed with now old technology, reliable, piston steam engines that could run on coal or oil boilers, in case oil was not available. So many Liberty ships were built that there were more steam ships in 1945 than in 1939.
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  12. There is talk of fuel cells powered by hydrogen, which in turn generates electricity to drive electric motors driving the propellers. 100% emissions free. Far more efficient than huge polluting diesel engines. Looks like it is the next stage in propulsion. .
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  13. A problem was that the centre turbine powered propeller could not reverse. As the two outer props were put in reverse the centre prop was acting against them. I believe there may have been a way of shutting it down (not 100% sure on that in Olympic class).
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  14. There are a few electric ships running on batteries.
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  15. One of her propellers is at Liverpool.
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  16. Which has zero relevance to the accident.
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  17. The two support pylons were in deep water. They should be in water shallow enough so large ships cannot hit them. In short, the span was too narrow.
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