The Titanic's boilers ready for installation at Harland & Wolff, 1911.
A 10-minute sequence showing the sailing of Titanic. At the very end is one of the better sequences of engine and boiler room activity as the ship gets up to speed following Capt. Smith's command, "Take her to sea, Mr. Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs!"
One of the Titanic's enormous boiler rooms was recreated for the film. The ship had cylindrical (Scotch) boilers lined up five abreast, ten to a boiler room, in five huge boiler rooms. Despite the vessel's great size (the largest ship afloat at the time by a few hundred tons) and luxurious appointments, she did not embody the most advanced technology. She did have a low-pressure turbine for the center propeller, running off exhaust steam from the huge reciprocating engines which turned the two wing screws, making her propulsion plant very economical to run. And like most steamers of her day, she ran on plain old coal: in fact, there was a coal strike at Southampton when she sailed on her ill-fated maiden voyage, so most of her coal had already come across the Atlantic in the Olympic's bunkers! A slow bunker fire simmered throughout the voyage, only to be quenched by the fatal inundation of sea water.
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