Steam on the Water Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam

By the middle of the 19th Century,

railway travel made the world a much smaller place.

People and goods could be transported the length and breadth of Britain,

at speeds that nobody could have imagined 50 years before.

Then steam power was introduced to the oceans to make sea travel

between the continents faster.

Sadly, none of the big steam-powered liners have survived.

Unlike railway and traction engines, they were too costly to renovate

once their time was up.

But you can still get a feel of what a steam ship was like.

There are still some of the smaller ones around.

This lovely old steamboat is the SS Sir Walter Scott

built in 1899 by William Denny of Dumbarton.

In them days nearly every Scottish loch had a steam ship company plying on its waters

to supply the houses and farms round the edges.

When it were built, it were no great shakes -

just another steam launch on one of the Scottish lochs.

Now it's survived, it's unique. It's the only one left.

One of the reasons it's survived is that it doesn't pollute,

unlike a diesel engine that spits all sorts of stuff out.

The water of Loch Katrine is the actual drinking water of Glasgow,

so they can't afford to muck it up by having diesel like on Lake Windermere and places.

Nothing leaves the boat and goes into the lake.

So, let's have a look at the engine.

This is what's known as a triple expansion marine engine.

It was perfected by an American called John Elder in the late 1880s.

Eventually it came to be the main unit of propulsion

in almost every ship they built.

In my opinion, it's not gone for any better.

If you go in a modern ship, and there's a diesel engine,

if it's driving an oil tanker, the noise it makes is incredible.

The man who looks after it isn't in lovely tranquil surroundings like what we are down here.

He's in a soundproof box with ear muffs because of the bloody noise!

In my opinion, we've gone backwards.

Looking at something like this, the SS Walter Scott, 100 years old and as sweet as a nut.

The triple expansion engine turns screw for power,

and this powers the ship.

And very nice it is too!

But the first steam-powered ships were propelled by paddle wheels.

The first paddle steamers were built in the early 1800s.

But like early locomotives, they had a lot of limitations.

They weren't very seaworthy

and the great problem were keeping them supplied with coal.

The boilers were uneconomical and when they rocked it were terrible.

They were mainly used on rivers and very near the coastline.

Something else had to happen.

It was one of my heroes, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

who made the breakthrough.

The SS Great Britain was built by Brunel and was an outstanding achievement of the Victoria age.

It was the first big ocean-going ship

to be constructed from iron and powered by steam.

Brunel's plan had been to build the Great Britain with paddle wheels.

But he knew that paddles weren't the best form of propulsion

for crossing the ocean. About this time, a new method

was being developed, using a screw propeller attached to the stern,

below the water line.

Brunel decided that this was a big advance on the paddle wheel

and made changes to his design.

The screw propeller was an important development in seafaring.

Brunel went on to build an even bigger ship, the Great Eastern.

It had paddles and a propeller.

But the propeller went on to rule the waves.

Within 25 years of the launch of the SS Great Britain,

massive advances had been made in the building of iron steamships.

From the mid 19th Century, all of the great transatlantic liners had propellers.

All the big steamships have gone.

But there's one or two small ones, like this one, the SS Shieldhall,

was built in Glasgow in 1955.

It had a rather different occupation when it were built -

it was owned by Glasgow Corporation and they used it for delivering treated sewage out into the sea.

In the summer months, they tell me, it doubles as a passenger boat.

As well as sailing with treated sewage, it had passengers too!

It must have been whiffy. Anyway, it survived and it's in Southampton.

They do cruises and it's one of the few sailing round the Solent today.

I'm going to go and have a look at the engines and inside.

-Hello, John!

-Hello, Fred. Good to see you.

Have a look at our boiler room.

Aye.

Aye. Have they always been oil-fired, these boilers?

She was built as a coal-fired ship.

She was converted in the shipyard before she left.

-She's never used coal.

-What pressure does she run off?

-She runs at 180psi.

-That's a fair pressure, innit?

Mind you, for a compound in three times, you need start off with high pressure.

Do you sweep the tubes?

We've got a steam suck-blower.

Going?

I tried that. Unsuccessfully!

We've got the advantage that the ship can go out of sight of land!

A big, black cloud!

Anyway, we'll now retire to the engine room.

Let's look at the triple expansion engines.

Aye. We could perhaps explain what the triple expansion engine is.

The steam from the boiler comes into the high pressure cylinder.

The exhaust from that goes into the medium pressure cylinder.

That exhaust goes into the low pressure cylinder.

That exhaust goes into a condenser, then the feed tank and then it's pumped into the boiler again.

-They've got to preserve as much clean water as they can.

-Yes.

The thing is, everything on a ship like this is run on steam.

That includes the steering.

The steering gear has got a two cylinder reciprocating steam engine.

This alters the rudder angle through a rack-and-pinion arrangement

working on the rudder quadrant.

Rudder movement is transmitted from the ship's wheel on the bridge

by hydraulic pumps, which form part of the wheel assembly.

-Right.

-Oh, it's nice in here.

Lovely brass switches.

You could have this on your sideboard. How does it work?

It's a hydraulic steering system.

The wheel connects to a gear wheel inside here.

It pushes two rams up and down. As one goes up, one goes down.

-You displace fluid along a pipeline to the receiver.

-Yeah, yeah.

There's even a check, I noticed,

look, 200psi already.

That's good that, innit.

There it is.

Now it's time to get the engines turning, so we can put to sea.

Shieldhall is fully operational and they do over 20 cruises per year

around the waters of the Solent.

I've got an interesting old book

to explain how these triple expansion engines work.

It's a lovely engraving of a triple expansion engine.

It's more or less self-explanatory.

Steam comes in at the high pressure cylinder end.

It pushes the piston up and down after the valves let it in.

Then it's exhausted into a receiver where it hangs about a bit

till the valve on the intermediate cylinder opens.

It's let through into the intermediate cylinder.

It does its work there and then it's exhausted again into another expansion chamber

where it waits to enter the low pressure cylinder.

Finally, down here, into that big square trunking,

into the condenser.

Using every ounce of the power of the steam,

it's actually used three times.

In, like, a single cylinder, it's used once and then up the chimney.

But at sea they've got to get every bit of economy that they can.

Of course, they made quadruple expansion engines

and all sorts of variations.

Three cylinders, on top of t'other. But there's no room on a boat.

You've got to go long.

Although the really big ships have all gone,

you can still see what the huge triple expansion engines were like.

They weren't just used in ships.

This is the Bratch pumping station near Wolverhampton,

which has been restored by a friend of mine, Len Crane.

The engines in here are the size

that the ones on the Titanic would have been.

Come up here and have a look.

-Go through there.

-Yeah.

This is where it happens.

Like a ship, isn't it?

Basically, it's like the engines that were in the Titanic.

Beautiful. Crossing the north Atlantic.

When we first regulated, for the first time, and it moved and turned, it was a beautiful feeling.

Beautiful.

You wonder what they're all for, but they're all doing something.

The world's got to keep advancing, but in lots of ways, not for the better.

Instead of sitting in their bloody office with a mouse and - what are they called? - a computer!

Glen's a good steam man.

He's known this engine and been involved with it for 60 years.

That's not all he's got - parked outside is a lovely steam crane.

There's not many of these around, and there was no way I was leaving without having a go.

It's got three speeds.

Come on, old girl.

-There you are. A little toot.

-Yep.

These cranes were built to haul big industrial Lancashire boilers

the length and breadth of the country.

The boilers would weigh up to 40 or 50 tonnes.

And it would take a week to get from Wolverhampton to Birkenhead.

It's a very versatile engine.

A crane and a big engine all in one.

When they had a boiler to deliver to the docks or the shipyards,

the crane lifted it onto the trailer.

Once you were loaded up,

the traction engine took over

and towed the trailer from the works to the docks.

Once it got there, a crane would be used to unload it.

I really enjoyed that.

But getting back to the water - the canals were still very important.

Although railway mania had gripped the country by the middle of the 19th century,

the canals were still thriving for the transportation of goods.

And steam power came to the canals.

This is the steam canal boat The President.

70-foot long, and made of riveted wrought iron,

with an elm bottom, powered by a compound-steam engine.

In steam-driven canal boats, the machinery took up too much room.

You could get 25 tonnes on a normal horse-drawn canal boat,

but driven by steam, you lost about 12 tonnes of valuable cargo space.

It had one good thing though -

it could pull two fully loaded boats called "butties" behind it.

So I suppose that in some ways, it was an improvement on a horse.

The boiler is coke-fired,

and it's fed with filtered canal water by this steam pump.

The original engine has been replaced, and the power now comes from a simple twin-cylinder engine

that came originally from a Thames launch.

On the canals, steam engines were put to a variety of other uses

especially pumping.

This is the Crofton Pumping Station on the Kennet and Avon canal

near Marlborough.

The canal, which connects London to Bristol,

at this point is higher than any natural source of water, and every time a boat crosses the summit,

the water has to be pumped out of the river

to enable the locks to work properly.

The beam engines were installed to ensure the locks always had a supply of water.

The locks are 14-feet wide and 75-feet long and contain 70,000 gallons.

Every time a boat comes along,

70,000 gallons have to be pumped out of the river at the other side.

The building that houses the engines is over a total of three floors.

This is the top floor where the great beams are.

They're pivoted on the beam wall - the main wall of the engine house.

It goes from one beam to t'other straight down to the foundations,

and it's very strong to support all the pull and thrust of the engines.

There are two working engines in here.

One of them is an 1812 Boatman Watt

which is the world's oldest working beam engine

still doing its original job.

On the middle floor you get an idea of the feeling of power.

It's got an eight-foot stroke and 42-inch diameter pistons.

You get a good view of the central wall

which supports all the beams, which in turn support the great cast-iron beam itself.

The engine house is really part of the engine.

This is the ground floor where the engine's controlled from.

And at this end is the actual pumping end.

Also on this floor is the boiler room which has two Lancashire boilers,

that run on 20 pounds per square inch.

Doesn't seem a lot for moving all this iron,

but the secret is the actual vacuum and atmospheric pressure.

By the end of the 19th century,

the steam engine was being put to a wide range of uses.

And when engineers had to construct a bridge over the river Thames,

that would allow ocean-going ships to come up river into London,

it was steam power that came to their aid.

The idea they came up with

was a bridge based on the bascule principle of a lifting section.

It was two huge pumping engines that provided the power to lift the bridge.

This is one of a pair

of compound-steam engines that work two water pumps

that pump up the accumulator

that generate the energy to work the hydraulic engines that lift the bridge up.

These two large green iron tanks

contain approximately 100 tonnes of iron blocks.

The steam engine works the pump that pumps water up underneath the 100 tonne of iron.

When this valve here is opened - like I'm going to do now...

WATER SPURTS

..all 100 tonnes come down on the piston,

compressing the water

so the hydraulic engine works the quadrant that raises up the bridge.

"Bascule" is actually French for seesaw,

and this is the base of one of the piers.

In spite of the complexity of the system,

they only took a minute to raise to 86 degrees.

This is the actual valve

that controls the pressure from the engines.

I've shut it - down comes the bridge.

Today, the bascules are still operated by hydraulic power

but now they're driven by oil and electricity rather than steam.

Back in the 1890s, when Tower Bridge was first opened,

a revolutionary steam engine was set to make a dramatic appearance

at an event designed to gain the maximum publicity for it.

In 1897, in celebration of her diamond jubilee,

Queen Victoria had the whole British fleet lined up at Spithead -

six miles of battleships and cruisers witnessed by the crowned heads of the world.

Into the middle of it, an uninvited guest came speeding through.

The fastest thing anyone had seen on water.

It was a little 44-tonne experimental steam turbine vessel

that had been built by Charles Parsons.

Here it is - the first steam turbine-driven ship - the Turbinia.

And it's got pride of place in Newcastle's Discovery Museum.

In use, they reckon flames used to come out of the funnel

and Charles Parsons would be in the control room shouting instructions to the lads in the engine room.

And the thing did an unbelievable 34 knots, I think,

which is nearly 40 miles an hour.

And nobody had ever seen anything go so fast on the water before.

The success of the Turbinia

stemmed from two innovations.

Number one was the steam turbine

and number two, the slender hull.

Mr Parsons rowed, so he made it like a rowing boat on the river Cam in Cambridge.

With these speeds, the steam turbine could no longer be ignored.

The Admiralty took up building destroyers with steam turbines inside.

The steam turbine is like a series of windmills inside a case.

The wind can't escape...

Instead of being wind, of course, it's steam.

It impinges onto the blades of the windmill. They're all attached to a shaft. It makes it go faster.

I've got a wonderful book...

When you look at a steam turbine, it don't look much at all.

It's shrouded in cheap tin

that contains the casing that covers up all the works.

When we've taken off the wagon, you've got to lift up the next bit

revealing the main spindle.

That's what holds it all together, that's what it all spins round on.

At the left-hand end here is the main steam valve

the main delivery of the steam feeding the turbine.

The main pipe is mostly lagging

to stop condensation.

Then we'll sort of take the inside of the outer casing away...

which reveals the actual blades,

or the windmill part of it, inside.

There's like a slight taper in these vanes.

At the narrow end, the high pressure comes in

and as its energy is expanded,

it...it has less power, and the vanes are a bit bigger, you see.

So that way it utilises the full power of the steam.

When you see one in reality, it looks ever so fragile, you know.

You think if a bit of muck got in, it would smash it to pieces.

And these are the actual turbines in Turbinia.

There's three turbines in here - a big 'un in the middle and two smaller ones on the outsides.

Each has a prop shaft

that sticks out the back end, with three propellers on each prop shaft.

That's some power sticking out of the stern end.

It's crammed a lot of machinery in a hole hardly eight feet wide.

It's bad enough when the ship's stationary. What it must have been like doing, 40 miles an hour...!

Must have been incredibly hot!

By the 1920s,

turbine-driven engines had taken over the world's shipping routes.

Steam turbine virtually replaced the old reciprocating steam engine on major vessels.

On the seas, the turbine-driven liner represented the high point

of overseas passenger travel.

Turbine meant that ships were not only bigger, they were also faster.

The White Star and the French Line, among others, were competing

to make the biggest and best liners.

But the Cunard Line was the leader.

Alas, you can't see many now, but there's still a special one to look around.

This ship is the world's most famous turbine-powered ship - the royal yacht, Britannia.

It was built by John Brown of Clydebank.

I must say he made a wonderful job of the hull.

It's perfectly smooth. The reason is they butt-jointed the plates of the hull.

They're held by straps on the inside

and a double row of rivets, which is a wonderful way to build a boat.

The cheaper way is to lap them over. You'd see rivets and a lap joint.

With this method you don't see a thing, like it were made of plastic.

I name this ship Britannia.

The royal yacht was launched in 1953 and commissioned in 1954, and between then and 1997,

it ferried the Queen and the Royal Family around the world

almost 1,000 times.

Here I am in the heart of the ship, the engine room.

And, of course, these are the turbines.

The steam come out the boiler house

through this pipe into the high-pressure cylinder, the smaller of the two black things.

The steam did its work in the turbines and turned the spindles round

into the gearboxes - these two white bits with lots of lubrication and pipes on.

Then, it turned the two prop shafts at the stern end which turned the propellers and away we went.

It took Britannia more than a million miles across the world

without a major refit.

This is one of the two great gearboxes that transmit the power from the turbines to the prop shaft.

The prop shafts are 30 metres long and about 12 inches diameter.

They turn the propellers at the stern end which are ten foot across.

It developed 12,000 horsepower and propelled the ship at 21 knots.

This area here were quite important.

It's where the ship were controlled on orders from upstairs, from the captain.

And all these beautiful chromium-plated wheels

represented full forward gear and full backward gear and the gauges sent it in the right direction.

There's lots of wonderful bits

that there wouldn't be on an ordinary ship.

Steam valves have a habit of dripping and, of course,

they've got beautiful drip trays with little drains on them.

No doubt it was some guy's job to come round with a draining can and drain 'em all off.

When you've done with the main steam turbines that propel the ship, you've not done with steam.

There's another three steam generating sets stood here

in a miniature power station

with three steam turbines to generate electricity for the ship.

Charles Parsons had revolutionised marine propulsion with his invention of the steam turbine.

But the turbine had an even greater impact on the provision of power for the 20th century.