*RE: UNITED STATES plans/Steam pressures*
Hi, Steamboating colleagues:
Interesting postings/questions above. I hate to 'milk' this out on a site devoted to just steamboats as we know them but a 'shy lurker' E=Mailed here last night RE: the above and more on the UNITED STATES. Bear with me and then I'll shut up.
Question: No, I couldn't possibly have examined all the drawings/plans for the ship at Mariners Museum. They have strict archival control providing samples of the designs and related archival material. I had to 'sign in' with identification [Sorry, no camera] seated in a closed room with the head librarian watching from a nearby office though a glass window. There are some 120,000 individual blueprints required during her building. I recall most plans either on onion skin paper or fine linen or heavy white stock paper in black ink in use then--no white on blue prints we usually see. Alan Bates well knows these methods from his own design work. The US has 1,500 miles of welding. Some 1,500 railroad cars brought in materials/components from contractors far and wide to be assembled by 3,500 workers at the yards at one time.
There are/were four 18 ft. propellors; eight 'Babcock & Wilcox' boilers delivering steam to the turbines at 1,000 degrees under 900 psi. I know it's hard to believe but her power was greater than an aircraft carrier of the day (1952) and beyond that needed for the IOWA Class battleships. All interior fittings done so for quick conversion as a troop carrier when needed. Yes, her hull did have to be repainted after the speed trials as paint was blasted off down to the steel. A correction: I didn't actually 'dislike' the interior of the US, finding her rather 'cold, sleek, modern' inside. This a far cry from what I'd seen on the old QUEEN MARY and ELIZABETH with their acres of fine wood panels, inlays, rich Art Decco fittings and carpets with high window drapes so heavy they were lifted up and down for cleaning by a crew of men using block and tackle. Those lounge stewads on the MARY & ELIZABETH worked long hard hours cleaning, polishing, vacuuming keeping all in order. The first thing that 'hit me' boarding those two ships were the fragrances of cut flowers, furniture wax, food and English lavender soap in the cabins. Up on deck the down draft from those huge funnels smelled the same as the smoke from the DELTA QUEEN. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
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