Activities for Children

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Even if they had contacts like that, do you think they would let a respectable group of first class passengers anywhere near the engine rooms? <<

Doubtful. Shipping lines do not encourage passengers to go into the working spaces of a ship...especially the main propulsion plant...at least not without close and watchful supervision. The main spaces of any of any ship are especially dangerous even with the modern safety devices that exist today. The unwary can find themselves in the Hurt Locker real quick.

The boiler room scenes in the flick were especially well sanitized. These spaces on the real thing were hot beyond belief, even in the chilly North Atlantic, and with coal piled everywhere, dirty beyond description.

 

[brigitte coonie]

what would happen to a Child who wandered on to the Bridge?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>what would happen to a Child who wandered on to the Bridge?<<

He would be escorted off and taken back to his parents. White Star didn't even encourage adult visitors to the navigation bridge of their ships.

 

[Lucy Burkhill]

>>Even if they had contacts like that, do you think they would let a respectable group of first class passengers anywhere near the engine rooms?<<

>>Doubtful. Shipping lines do not encourage passengers to go into the working spaces of a ship...especially the main propulsion plant...at least not without close and watchful supervision. The main spaces of any ship are especially dangerous even with the modern safety devices that exist today. The unwary can find themselves in the Hurt Locker real quick<<

I have often wondered about how factual the engine room tour bit was in JC's flick. The scene where Jack and Rose run through the stokehold always seemed pretty implausible to me.

However, after liners were converted to oil-burning in the early 1920's, was it the case that passengers could be shown the power plant?

Here is an extract from Humfrey Jordan's Mauretania, p 238, originally published in 1936...

"The boiler rooms had become different places in which a different race of men worked- a handful where there had been hundreds before. Interested passengers could be taken round and shown the surroundings of furnaces as clean as the decks."

I'll admit if I was a child on the Titanic, I would be itching to get a glimpse of the those massive, awesome triple-expansion engines! The fact that it would be frightening and not a little dangerous down there would only add to the appeal. From as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by steam-driven plant in particular. This must have something to do with the fact that there is, (on my father's side), a tradition of engineering going back to the 18th century. When I was very small my father used to work in a brickworks, and I can remember him taking me into the building where he worked to show me the steam engine (it was like a miniature version of a marine engine) which powered the plant.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>The scene where Jack and Rose run through the stokehold always seemed pretty implausible to me.<<

It was. These were not only the hottest spaces in the ship, they were also the dirtiest and the most dangerous. Yet Rose doesn't have even a smudge on her dress after running through spaces thick with fumes and coal dust coating everything in sight.

>>was it the case that passengers could be shown the power plant?<<

Could they be? Yes.

Would they be? Well, that's the question isn't it? I think it would depend a lot on the shipping line and whether or not they were willing to take the chance. Questions of liability may not have been as vexing as they are today, but they were not non-existant. Absent that, men in a working space ay not have been all that keen to have tourists underfoot. Even without a need for stokers, a steam plant was then and still is a tricky system that needs a lot of attention and a minimum of distractions in the interests of safety.

 

[Lucy Burkhill]

>>Was it the case that passengers could be shown the power plant?<<

>>could they be? Yes<<

>>Would they be? Well, that's the question isn't it? I think it would depend a lot on the shipping line and whether or not they were willing to take the chance<<

I would presume that any visits to the power plant were at the discretion of the Chief Engineer. As in the case of the Mauretania I have always thought that as when she was new her engines were revolutionary (oops- there's a pun in there!!!!), and she still retained the Blue Riband throughout virtually all of the 1920's, there would have been some demand by passengers to see her famous engines. Also I have often wondered what type of passengers would be keen to visit the power plant. Okay, I'm making a gender stereotype here, but I would presume male, maybe from a background in engineering????

 

[Haowei Shi]

The best way to play on the TITANIC is to swing on the cargo cranes;run all over the ship;tricking other people;play hide and seek in the tank top with out getting caught;riding the elevator up and down until bored;climb on the railings if you dare;have a race with your friends to the bottom and back to the boat deck.

 

[Mark Baber]

The best way to play on the TITANIC is to swing on the cargo cranes

Hardly.

 

[Senan Molony]

The adults, on the other hand, liked to play on the companionways... as well as the cargo cranes!

My, how they laughed! (Until they got tired and cranky.)

Question - what stuff on the Titanic did the kids break? Because the kids always break stuff.

Did they break the wireless that time?

 

[George L. Lorton]

I see Doug and Mary are having a fine time posing for the camera. That Fairbanks was such a showman.

Kids love to get into everything. I bet the kids saw more of the RMS Titanic sneaking around then the adults ever did. At least those that managed to give their care givers/gaolers the slip.

 

[Senan Molony]

"Okay kids, which one of you broke the damn ship?"

 

[George L. Lorton]

>>"Okay kids, which one of you broke the damn ship?"<<not>

http://cruise.every1loves2travel.com/164/cruise-ship-activities-your-young-kids-will-enjoy

I bet some of the child passengers on the Titanic wish they had some of the activities that kids now enjoy.

I think most children were kept busy on the Titanic by their parents doing chores or boring parent inspired activities, blah, or mostly ran around playing tag, jacks, jumping rope and/or sneaking into the engineer room and other places they were not supposed to be.