Titanic Sinking Animation

[Parks Stephenson]

Tad,

I'm hanging in there and hope you are doing likewise or better.

Make sure you read this coming Monday's (12/7/09) edition of USA Today. You'll see why then.

I agree that the image of water coming into the cabin as Phillips continued sending his desparate pleas for help makes for good drama. But that's all it is. The wreck tells us that the Marconi room was blown apart by violent hydrodynamic forces, not by steady progressive flooding as suggested by the NYT fiction.
What I see in the wreck is more consistent with the sudden lurch that the ship took, creating the "wave" that washed Bride and others overboard.

Parks

[Tom McCluskie]

I have to agree with Parks, I don't recall ever seeing any mention of red emergency lights on the Olympic class vessels. I do recall there was emergency lighting provision made on the boat deck in way of the lifeboat stations but it comprised of white floodlights with a dual power feed from the main and emergency generators switched via the main switchboard.

[Aaron Quirey]

I definitely recall seeing emergency red lighting along the ceiling of the promenade deck. At the moment I'm trying to find detailed deck plans showing this. The below website shows it, but it won't let me enlarge the deck plan. The key they provide shows the symbol for emergency lighting on Titanic.

I'm currently searching all the survivor accounts for people who saw them lit on the promenade deck.

Hugh Woolner was standing on the promenade deck waiting to jump into Collapsible Boat D as it was being lowered. The sea by now was creeping up to this deck. The emergency lights would almost certainly turn on at this stage. As Mr Woolner waited he described what he saw:

"The electric lights along the ceiling of A deck were beginning to turn red, a red sort of glow. So I said to Steffanson: "This is getting rather a tight corner. I do not like being inside these closed windows. The sea came in onto the deck at our feet."

Jack Thayer jumped into the sea and thought he was going to be sucked back into the promenade deck. He turned around and described the lights:

"I saw the ship in a sort of a red glare"


http://www.rmstitanicplans.com/home.htm





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[Parks Stephenson]

The lights glowing red were a function of the reduced power exciting the filament in the light bulbs. The more power, the hotter the filament, the brighter the light. With lesser power, the filament does not get as hot and does not glow as bright. A reddish colour then results.

Emergency lighting aboard Titanic was not about special lights; instead, it was a reduced number of lights (therefore a reduced load) that could be supported by the emergency dynamos. The symbols you quoted are from Bill Sauder's plans...I'll see if I can get him to join this conversation. He's the real expert on this topic.

Parks

[Aaron Quirey]

Thanks. I initially saw them on 'Olympic's deck plan some years ago which first made me curious. I don't know if it was from the original design or an alteration possibly made some years later. I saw the witness accounts totting up which seemed to justify the growing possibility that Titanic had emergency lighting.

One thing I'm curious about. Emergency lights would light the floor along the promenade deck and the passengers on that deck would see them (According to Woolner the deck was totally empty which made him anxious to leave) but the lights wouldn't be strong enough for people in the distant lifeboats to see. Most of them said they were too far away to make out people on the deck, so I doubt they could see a dim red light glowing along the promenade deck.



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[Aly Jones]

Aaron,Its a very interesting Animation & I like it very much so,I think you are a very smart young lad.

On the topic about Titanic having emergenacy red lighting (just an inquiry) Titanic had no electrical alarm systream & including an manual speaker & had crew members alraming the passengers by door knocking,flare rocket & gun,why would Titanic have electronics alram lighting systreams? What I mean by this is, It seems ,the electronics lighting systream is way out of its time,like never have been thought of as yet! (Just an inquiry)

But then again,which Aaron looked up,the eye witness accounts did recall there were emergenacy lighting!
???

[Aaron Quirey]

Thanks, but I realize now 'Emergency lighting' in those days were just safety lights. e.g. when you go to the cinema the floor and the walls have special lights for directing people to the exits. At 11:30pm each night it was customary for a passenger ship to 'shut off her lights' This just means that all the lights in the ship that are not needed during bed time are turned off. So 'emergency' lights come on. These would just light up corridors and passageways for safety reasons. Survivors saw her lights glowing red, which made me think the bulbs were red, but I guess since the ship was nearing the end, the power would have been failing, so the lights simply dimmed to the point they glowed red.

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