The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-10-29
CoALING FAST OCEAN LINERS.
Making Record-Breaking Trips.

Ss'ihA''o
 "When the Deutschland, Oceanic ol
 Kaiser Wilhelm come up the bay it is
 a sight worth seeing" said marine
 engineer, 'and I don't wonder that peo- | pie strain their eyes to get a better look at their great hulls. They make one proud of mans achievement, and
 could spend weeks strolling through
 them studying the complicated ma
 chinery and mechanism that have been
 slowed away behind their graceful hulls. But to an engineer there is
 something more than mere admiration,
 He natuarlly thinks of the machinery
 that pulsates below decks and makes
 the mighty leviathans blow through the
 water at rate that takes away a
 landsman's breath Their machinery is
 superb and represents the highest per- l lection of it's kind. Engines that will 1 develop over thirty-five thousand horse
 power are simply marvels. and none | but an engineer can earlly grasp what 1 that power actually means.
 But what drives this enormous ma chinery and produces such remarkable | power? That is the point that you don't hear discussed often. Those 1 great transatlantic record breakers are marvels in another way that does not i appeal so pleasantly to the imagina- ton, especially to the owners. They are the greatest coal-consuming en-
 zines ever built, and when they make
 one of their ercord trips they have to
 be fed in way that is truly alarming. The Deutschland carries away from this port every time she leaves the big gest coal pile you ever see outside of a
 coal pit. Just imagine five thousand
 tons of coal stored away in her bunk
 CTS, and when she reaches port on the
 othe side she is nearly empty and ready
 for another pile of equal dimensions.
 You don't know what five thousand
 tons of coal represent. To understand
 it just follow one of these big steam
 CTS from the time they warp up along
 side of their pier until they sail again.
 Before they have discharged a dozen
 passengers you will find on the opposite
 side of the pier coal lighters in prepa-
 ration. They come down the river, five
 and six and eight hundred-ton laden, and when the steamer is secured to the
 dock they will begin to pour their car
 goes of coal into the bunkers of the
 steamer. It Is a curious and interest
 ing sight to see the coaling of the
 steamer Of course there are points of view more interesting than others.
 Down on the lighters the men are show
 cling the coal into the iron buckets as fast as they can, and when each bucket is full it swings up into the air and de- posts it's load into the black hole that leads directly into the steamers bunk CTS. This Is monotonous work, and it begins and often ends with the coming and going of the steamer. This coal must all be slowed away before the next sailing, and the days are some times few between trips The faster the trips across the ocean the shorter time in port Is the rule. Thus the | Deutschland, with her marvellous rec ord for time, will make half a dozen more trips year than the slower | steamers She has to work as hard as | a race horse. and the strain on her ma chinery and hull must be tremendous. She is driven panting across the ocean at full speed, and not even machinery can standthis forever. Of course in the winter season she will have a little rest, and her high rate of speed will not be maintained, but during the travel ing season to and from Europe she can not afford to lag. She must show her speed continually until some faster steamer is built to replace her.
 'The coaling of steamers is done by gangs of men employed specially for this work, and they often work in diff ferent shifts night and day The work begins early in order to prevent trou ble if an accident should occur If for Instance, there was a strike among these men, the transatlantic liners would be crippled so that no regular sailing could be made Unlike manu- 'aeturing concerns, the steamers can not store up coal ahead There is not 'ast mall steamer that comes to this port which could carry enough coal to make the trip to Europe and back at ast speed. With their enormous coal they are still just able to car y enough of the fuel across the ocean 'n time, and have a thousand tons ex- ra for accidental delays. The three American liners have a storage capac- ty of about forty-ive hundred tons, tnd then consume on each trip between hirtythree and thirty-seven hundred ons, That leaves them a bare margin if one thousand tone for any unexpect- d delay At that rate of consumption if about five hundred and fifty tons per lay they would not have coal enough O carry them over two days beyond the ime limit. Of course, in the event of m accident at sea they would proceed l lnder slower headway, and their daily consumption of coal would be less, but they were for any reason carried far ut of their course they would come { 'anting into port on the seventh or ighth day with starvation almost $ taring them in the face. ( '"The Deutschland can carry over t I've thousand tons of coal, but then she I 5 bigger consumer of fuel than any ther steamer when she is reeling off ( wenty-three knots an hour She burns z Il the way from six to eight hundred ' ons of coal a day at such times. In $ We days trip she would thus burn l early four thousand tons, and in her I ve and half fully this amount and | tile more. Her margin of supply for is therefore not large 2 'The coaling of these big steamers is ''''~ved hv dirty work below decks, ' then the coal is tumbled into the ' the coal trimmers must pre- ', are it for the tiremen and distribute it u the different bunkers. This is an V