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By the middle of the 19th Century,

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railway travel made the world
a much smaller place.

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

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00:00:30,490 --> 00:00:35,370
at speeds that nobody could have
imagined 50 years before.

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

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between the continents faster.

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

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

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00:00:53,370 --> 00:00:55,810
once their time was up.

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

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There are still some
of the smaller ones around.

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This lovely old steamboat
is the SS Sir Walter Scott

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built in 1899 by William Denny
of Dumbarton.

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

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to supply the houses and farms
round the edges.

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When it were built,
it were no great shakes -

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just another steam launch
on one of the Scottish lochs.

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

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

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

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

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

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Nothing leaves the boat
and goes into the lake.

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

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

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

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Eventually it came to be
the main unit of propulsion

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in almost every ship they built.

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

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

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

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

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

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In my opinion, we've gone backwards.

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

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The triple expansion engine
turns screw for power,

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and this powers the ship.

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And very nice it is too!

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

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

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

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They weren't very seaworthy

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and the great problem were keeping
them supplied with coal.

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

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

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Something else had to happen.

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It was one of my heroes,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

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who made the breakthrough.

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

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It was the first
big ocean-going ship

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to be constructed from iron
and powered by steam.

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

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

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

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

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below the water line.

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

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and made changes to his design.

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The screw propeller was an
important development in seafaring.

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

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It had paddles and a propeller.

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But the propeller
went on to rule the waves.

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

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

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

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All the big steamships have gone.

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

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was built in Glasgow in 1955.

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It had a rather different
occupation when it were built -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hello, John! Hello, Fred.
Good to see you.

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Have a look at our boiler room.

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Aye.

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

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She was built as a coal-fired ship.

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She was converted in the shipyard
before she left.

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She's never used coal.
What pressure does she run off?

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She runs at 180psi.
That's a fair pressure, innit?

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

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Do you sweep the tubes?

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We've got a steam suck-blower.

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Going?

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I tried that. Unsuccessfully!

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

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A big, black cloud!

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

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Let's look
at the triple expansion engines.

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

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

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The exhaust from that goes
into the medium pressure cylinder.

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That exhaust goes into
the low pressure cylinder.

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

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

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

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That includes the steering.

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

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

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working on the rudder quadrant.

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

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

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Right. Oh, it's nice in here.

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Lovely brass switches.

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

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It's a hydraulic steering system.

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The wheel connects to a gear wheel
inside here.

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

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You displace fluid along a pipeline
to the receiver. Yeah, yeah.

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There's even a check, I noticed,

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look, 200psi already.

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That's good that, innit.

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There it is.

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

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

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around the waters of the Solent.

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I've got an interesting old book

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to explain how these triple
expansion engines work.

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

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It's more or less self-explanatory.

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Steam comes in at the high pressure
cylinder end.

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

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

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till the valve on the intermediate
cylinder opens.

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It's let through
into the intermediate cylinder.

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

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where it waits to enter
the low pressure cylinder.

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Finally, down here,
into that big square trunking,

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into the condenser.

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Using every ounce
of the power of the steam,

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it's actually used three times.

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

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

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Of course, they made quadruple
expansion engines

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and all sorts of variations.

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

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You've got to go long.

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Although the really big ships
have all gone,

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

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They weren't just used in ships.

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This is the Bratch pumping station
near Wolverhampton,

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

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The engines in here are the size

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that the ones on the Titanic
would have been.

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Come up here and have a look.

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Go through there. Yeah.

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This is where it happens.

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Like a ship, isn't it?

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

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Beautiful.
Crossing the north Atlantic.

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

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Beautiful.

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

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

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

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Glen's a good steam man.

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

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

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

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It's got three speeds.

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Come on, old girl.

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There you are. A little toot. Yep.

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These cranes were built to haul
big industrial Lancashire boilers

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the length and breadth
of the country.

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The boilers would weigh
up to 40 or 50 tonnes.

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

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It's a very versatile engine.

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A crane and a big engine all in one.

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

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the crane lifted it
onto the trailer.

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Once you were loaded up,

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the traction engine took over

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and towed the trailer
from the works to the docks.

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

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I really enjoyed that.

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00:13:29,050 --> 00:13:35,570
But getting back to the water -
the canals were still
very important.

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

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the canals were still thriving
for the transportation of goods.

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And steam power came to the canals.

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This is the steam canal boat
The President.

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

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

186
00:14:04,570 --> 00:14:10,050
In steam-driven canal boats,
the machinery took up too much room.

187
00:14:10,050 --> 00:14:15,130
You could get 25 tonnes
on a normal horse-drawn canal boat,

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00:14:15,130 --> 00:14:20,530
but driven by steam, you lost about
12 tonnes of valuable cargo space.

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00:14:20,530 --> 00:14:23,490
It had one good thing though -

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00:14:23,490 --> 00:14:28,530
it could pull two fully loaded
boats called "butties" behind it.

191
00:14:28,530 --> 00:14:33,610
So I suppose that in some ways,
it was an improvement on a horse.

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00:14:33,610 --> 00:14:36,650
The boiler is coke-fired,

193
00:14:36,650 --> 00:14:41,810
and it's fed with filtered
canal water by this steam pump.

194
00:14:41,810 --> 00:14:48,650
The original engine has been
replaced, and the power now comes
from a simple twin-cylinder engine

195
00:14:48,650 --> 00:14:52,930
that came originally
from a Thames launch.

196
00:15:01,210 --> 00:15:06,090
On the canals, steam engines
were put to a variety of other uses

197
00:15:06,090 --> 00:15:08,730
especially pumping.

198
00:15:08,730 --> 00:15:13,410
This is the Crofton Pumping Station
on the Kennet and Avon canal

199
00:15:13,410 --> 00:15:16,050
near Marlborough.

200
00:15:16,050 --> 00:15:20,130
The canal,
which connects London to Bristol,

201
00:15:20,130 --> 00:15:27,090
at this point is higher than any
natural source of water, and every
time a boat crosses the summit,

202
00:15:27,090 --> 00:15:31,690
the water has to be pumped
out of the river

203
00:15:31,690 --> 00:15:35,370
to enable the locks
to work properly.

204
00:15:35,370 --> 00:15:42,090
The beam engines were installed
to ensure the locks
always had a supply of water.

205
00:15:42,090 --> 00:15:48,770
The locks are 14-feet wide
and 75-feet long
and contain 70,000 gallons.

206
00:15:48,770 --> 00:15:51,690
Every time a boat comes along,

207
00:15:51,690 --> 00:15:57,330
70,000 gallons have to be pumped
out of the river at the other side.

208
00:15:57,330 --> 00:16:03,370
The building that houses
the engines is over
a total of three floors.

209
00:16:03,370 --> 00:16:07,850
This is the top floor
where the great beams are.

210
00:16:07,850 --> 00:16:12,730
They're pivoted on the beam wall -
the main wall of the engine house.

211
00:16:12,730 --> 00:16:17,690
It goes from one beam to t'other
straight down to the foundations,

212
00:16:17,690 --> 00:16:22,490
and it's very strong to support all
the pull and thrust of the engines.

213
00:16:22,490 --> 00:16:26,770
There are two working engines
in here.

214
00:16:26,770 --> 00:16:31,850
One of them is an 1812 Boatman Watt

215
00:16:31,850 --> 00:16:35,890
which is the world's oldest
working beam engine

216
00:16:35,890 --> 00:16:39,130
still doing its original job.

217
00:16:47,050 --> 00:16:52,130
On the middle floor you get an idea
of the feeling of power.

218
00:16:52,130 --> 00:16:57,610
It's got an eight-foot stroke
and 42-inch diameter pistons.

219
00:16:57,610 --> 00:17:01,090
You get a good view
of the central wall

220
00:17:01,090 --> 00:17:07,570
which supports all the beams,
which in turn support
the great cast-iron beam itself.

221
00:17:07,570 --> 00:17:11,970
The engine house
is really part of the engine.

222
00:17:13,690 --> 00:17:19,170
This is the ground floor
where the engine's controlled from.

223
00:17:19,170 --> 00:17:24,130
And at this end
is the actual pumping end.

224
00:17:24,130 --> 00:17:30,530
Also on this floor
is the boiler room
which has two Lancashire boilers,

225
00:17:30,530 --> 00:17:34,210
that run on 20 pounds
per square inch.

226
00:17:34,210 --> 00:17:38,490
Doesn't seem a lot
for moving all this iron,

227
00:17:38,490 --> 00:17:43,450
but the secret is the actual vacuum
and atmospheric pressure.

228
00:17:43,450 --> 00:17:46,970
By the end of the 19th century,

229
00:17:46,970 --> 00:17:52,770
the steam engine was being put
to a wide range of uses.

230
00:17:52,770 --> 00:17:58,570
And when engineers had to construct
a bridge over the river Thames,

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00:17:58,570 --> 00:18:03,450
that would allow ocean-going ships
to come up river into London,

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00:18:03,450 --> 00:18:08,330
it was steam power
that came to their aid.

233
00:18:08,330 --> 00:18:11,650
The idea they came up with

234
00:18:11,650 --> 00:18:16,690
was a bridge based on the bascule
principle of a lifting section.

235
00:18:16,690 --> 00:18:23,290
It was two huge pumping engines
that provided the power
to lift the bridge.

236
00:18:23,290 --> 00:18:26,210
This is one of a pair

237
00:18:26,210 --> 00:18:30,250
of compound-steam engines
that work two water pumps

238
00:18:30,250 --> 00:18:33,250
that pump up the accumulator

239
00:18:33,250 --> 00:18:40,610
that generate the energy
to work the hydraulic engines
that lift the bridge up.

240
00:18:40,610 --> 00:18:43,530
These two large green iron tanks

241
00:18:43,530 --> 00:18:47,970
contain approximately
100 tonnes of iron blocks.

242
00:18:47,970 --> 00:18:54,610
The steam engine works
the pump that pumps water
up underneath the 100 tonne of iron.

243
00:18:54,610 --> 00:18:59,370
When this valve here is opened -
like I'm going to do now...

244
00:18:59,370 --> 00:19:03,570
WATER SPURTS

245
00:19:03,570 --> 00:19:07,370
..all 100 tonnes
come down on the piston,

246
00:19:07,370 --> 00:19:09,850
compressing the water

247
00:19:09,850 --> 00:19:14,930
so the hydraulic engine works the
quadrant that raises up the bridge.

248
00:19:14,930 --> 00:19:19,010
"Bascule" is actually French
for seesaw,

249
00:19:19,010 --> 00:19:22,850
and this is the base
of one of the piers.

250
00:19:22,850 --> 00:19:26,930
In spite of the complexity
of the system,

251
00:19:26,930 --> 00:19:30,650
they only took a minute
to raise to 86 degrees.

252
00:19:30,650 --> 00:19:34,010
This is the actual valve

253
00:19:34,010 --> 00:19:38,050
that controls the pressure
from the engines.

254
00:19:38,050 --> 00:19:41,570
I've shut it -
down comes the bridge.

255
00:19:41,570 --> 00:19:46,290
Today, the bascules are
still operated by hydraulic power

256
00:19:46,290 --> 00:19:51,410
but now they're driven by oil
and electricity rather than steam.

257
00:19:51,410 --> 00:19:56,090
Back in the 1890s,
when Tower Bridge was first opened,

258
00:19:56,090 --> 00:20:01,250
a revolutionary steam engine was
set to make a dramatic appearance

259
00:20:01,250 --> 00:20:06,330
at an event designed to gain
the maximum publicity for it.

260
00:20:06,330 --> 00:20:10,810
In 1897, in celebration
of her diamond jubilee,

261
00:20:10,810 --> 00:20:15,890
Queen Victoria had the whole
British fleet lined up at Spithead -

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00:20:15,890 --> 00:20:22,570
six miles of battleships
and cruisers witnessed by
the crowned heads of the world.

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00:20:22,570 --> 00:20:27,450
Into the middle of it, an uninvited
guest came speeding through.

264
00:20:27,450 --> 00:20:31,130
The fastest thing anyone had seen
on water.

265
00:20:31,130 --> 00:20:36,010
It was a little 44-tonne
experimental steam turbine vessel

266
00:20:36,010 --> 00:20:39,330
that had been built
by Charles Parsons.

267
00:20:39,330 --> 00:20:44,930
Here it is - the first steam
turbine-driven ship - the Turbinia.

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00:20:44,930 --> 00:20:50,370
And it's got pride of place
in Newcastle's Discovery Museum.

269
00:20:50,370 --> 00:20:55,170
In use, they reckon flames
used to come out of the funnel

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00:20:55,170 --> 00:21:02,610
and Charles Parsons would be in the
control room shouting instructions
to the lads in the engine room.

271
00:21:02,610 --> 00:21:07,250
And the thing did an unbelievable
34 knots, I think,

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00:21:07,250 --> 00:21:09,810
which is nearly 40 miles an hour.

273
00:21:09,810 --> 00:21:14,970
And nobody had ever seen anything
go so fast on the water before.

274
00:21:14,970 --> 00:21:18,050
The success of the Turbinia

275
00:21:18,050 --> 00:21:20,690
stemmed from two innovations.

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00:21:20,690 --> 00:21:23,330
Number one was the steam turbine

277
00:21:23,330 --> 00:21:26,410
and number two, the slender hull.

278
00:21:26,410 --> 00:21:32,850
Mr Parsons rowed, so he made it
like a rowing boat on the river Cam
in Cambridge.

279
00:21:32,850 --> 00:21:38,170
With these speeds, the steam
turbine could no longer be ignored.

280
00:21:38,170 --> 00:21:44,450
The Admiralty took up
building destroyers
with steam turbines inside.

281
00:21:44,450 --> 00:21:50,570
The steam turbine is like a series
of windmills inside a case.

282
00:21:50,570 --> 00:21:53,570
The wind can't escape...

283
00:21:53,570 --> 00:21:57,730
Instead of being wind, of course,
it's steam.

284
00:21:57,730 --> 00:22:05,490
It impinges onto the blades of
the windmill. They're all attached
to a shaft. It makes it go faster.

285
00:22:05,490 --> 00:22:08,210
I've got a wonderful book...

286
00:22:08,210 --> 00:22:12,690
When you look at a steam turbine,
it don't look much at all.

287
00:22:12,690 --> 00:22:15,330
It's shrouded in cheap tin

288
00:22:15,330 --> 00:22:19,810
that contains the casing
that covers up all the works.

289
00:22:19,810 --> 00:22:24,850
When we've taken off the wagon,
you've got to lift up the next bit

290
00:22:24,850 --> 00:22:27,650
revealing the main spindle.

291
00:22:27,650 --> 00:22:33,010
That's what holds it all together,
that's what it all spins round on.

292
00:22:33,010 --> 00:22:37,650
At the left-hand end here
is the main steam valve

293
00:22:37,650 --> 00:22:42,050
the main delivery of the steam
feeding the turbine.

294
00:22:42,050 --> 00:22:44,770
The main pipe is mostly lagging

295
00:22:44,770 --> 00:22:47,170
to stop condensation.

296
00:22:47,170 --> 00:22:52,890
Then we'll sort of take the inside
of the outer casing away...

297
00:22:52,890 --> 00:22:56,170
which reveals the actual blades,

298
00:22:56,170 --> 00:23:00,450
or the windmill part of it, inside.

299
00:23:00,450 --> 00:23:04,850
There's like a slight taper
in these vanes.

300
00:23:04,850 --> 00:23:09,170
At the narrow end,
the high pressure comes in

301
00:23:09,170 --> 00:23:11,810
and as its energy is expanded,

302
00:23:11,810 --> 00:23:16,810
it...it has less power, and
the vanes are a bit bigger, you see.

303
00:23:16,810 --> 00:23:21,410
So that way it utilises
the full power of the steam.

304
00:23:21,410 --> 00:23:26,770
When you see one in reality,
it looks ever so fragile, you know.

305
00:23:26,770 --> 00:23:31,810
You think if a bit of muck got in,
it would smash it to pieces.

306
00:23:31,810 --> 00:23:36,610
And these are the actual turbines
in Turbinia.

307
00:23:36,610 --> 00:23:43,010
There's three turbines in here -
a big 'un in the middle and
two smaller ones on the outsides.

308
00:23:43,010 --> 00:23:45,490
Each has a prop shaft

309
00:23:45,490 --> 00:23:50,370
that sticks out the back end, with
three propellers on each prop shaft.

310
00:23:50,370 --> 00:23:54,850
That's some power
sticking out of the stern end.

311
00:23:54,850 --> 00:24:00,810
It's crammed a lot of machinery
in a hole hardly eight feet wide.

312
00:24:00,810 --> 00:24:07,650
It's bad enough when the ship's
stationary. What it must have been
like doing, 40 miles an hour...!

313
00:24:07,650 --> 00:24:10,290
Must have been incredibly hot!

314
00:24:11,690 --> 00:24:14,130
By the 1920s,

315
00:24:14,130 --> 00:24:19,450
turbine-driven engines had taken
over the world's shipping routes.

316
00:24:19,450 --> 00:24:25,730
Steam turbine virtually replaced
the old reciprocating steam engine
on major vessels.

317
00:24:25,730 --> 00:24:31,010
On the seas, the turbine-driven
liner represented the high point

318
00:24:31,010 --> 00:24:33,450
of overseas passenger travel.

319
00:24:33,450 --> 00:24:39,090
Turbine meant that ships were not
only bigger, they were also faster.

320
00:24:39,090 --> 00:24:43,930
The White Star and the French Line,
among others, were competing

321
00:24:43,930 --> 00:24:46,450
to make the biggest and best liners.

322
00:24:46,450 --> 00:24:49,170
But the Cunard Line was the leader.

323
00:24:53,010 --> 00:24:59,050
Alas, you can't see many now,
but there's still a special one
to look around.

324
00:24:59,050 --> 00:25:06,130
This ship is the world's
most famous turbine-powered ship -
the royal yacht, Britannia.

325
00:25:06,130 --> 00:25:09,970
It was built by John Brown
of Clydebank.

326
00:25:09,970 --> 00:25:14,330
I must say he made a wonderful job
of the hull.

327
00:25:14,330 --> 00:25:20,970
It's perfectly smooth.
The reason is they butt-jointed
the plates of the hull.

328
00:25:20,970 --> 00:25:24,130
They're held
by straps on the inside

329
00:25:24,130 --> 00:25:28,930
and a double row of rivets, which
is a wonderful way to build a boat.

330
00:25:28,930 --> 00:25:33,770
The cheaper way is to lap them over.
You'd see rivets and a lap joint.

331
00:25:33,770 --> 00:25:39,050
With this method you don't see a
thing, like it were made of plastic.

332
00:25:39,050 --> 00:25:41,410
I name this ship Britannia.

333
00:25:41,410 --> 00:25:48,290
The royal yacht was launched
in 1953 and commissioned in 1954,
and between then and 1997,

334
00:25:48,290 --> 00:25:52,970
it ferried the Queen and
the Royal Family around the world

335
00:25:52,970 --> 00:25:55,370
almost 1,000 times.

336
00:25:55,370 --> 00:26:00,570
Here I am in the heart of the ship,
the engine room.

337
00:26:00,570 --> 00:26:03,810
And, of course,
these are the turbines.

338
00:26:03,810 --> 00:26:06,490
The steam come out the boiler house

339
00:26:06,490 --> 00:26:12,610
through this pipe
into the high-pressure cylinder,
the smaller of the two black things.

340
00:26:12,610 --> 00:26:18,810
The steam did its work
in the turbines
and turned the spindles round

341
00:26:18,810 --> 00:26:25,410
into the gearboxes -
these two white bits with lots
of lubrication and pipes on.

342
00:26:25,410 --> 00:26:32,650
Then, it turned the two prop shafts
at the stern end which turned
the propellers and away we went.

343
00:26:32,650 --> 00:26:37,650
It took Britannia more than
a million miles across the world

344
00:26:37,650 --> 00:26:40,210
without a major refit.

345
00:26:40,210 --> 00:26:47,090
This is one of the two great
gearboxes that transmit the power
from the turbines to the prop shaft.

346
00:26:47,090 --> 00:26:51,970
The prop shafts are 30 metres long
and about 12 inches diameter.

347
00:26:51,970 --> 00:26:57,570
They turn the propellers at the
stern end which are ten foot across.

348
00:26:57,570 --> 00:27:03,170
It developed 12,000 horsepower
and propelled the ship at 21 knots.

349
00:27:03,170 --> 00:27:06,250
This area here were quite important.

350
00:27:06,250 --> 00:27:12,250
It's where the ship were controlled
on orders from upstairs,
from the captain.

351
00:27:12,250 --> 00:27:16,810
And all these beautiful
chromium-plated wheels

352
00:27:16,810 --> 00:27:24,490
represented full forward gear and
full backward gear and the gauges
sent it in the right direction.

353
00:27:24,490 --> 00:27:27,130
There's lots of wonderful bits

354
00:27:27,130 --> 00:27:31,410
that there wouldn't be
on an ordinary ship.

355
00:27:31,410 --> 00:27:35,850
Steam valves have a habit
of dripping and, of course,

356
00:27:35,850 --> 00:27:41,170
they've got beautiful drip trays
with little drains on them.

357
00:27:41,170 --> 00:27:47,410
No doubt it was some guy's job
to come round with a draining can
and drain 'em all off.

358
00:27:47,410 --> 00:27:53,530
When you've done with the main
steam turbines that propel the ship,
you've not done with steam.

359
00:27:53,530 --> 00:27:58,210
There's another three steam
generating sets stood here

360
00:27:58,210 --> 00:28:01,450
in a miniature power station

361
00:28:01,450 --> 00:28:06,130
with three steam turbines to
generate electricity for the ship.

362
00:28:08,410 --> 00:28:15,890
Charles Parsons had revolutionised
marine propulsion with
his invention of the steam turbine.

363
00:28:15,890 --> 00:28:22,170
But the turbine had an even greater
impact on the provision of power
for the 20th century.