Dining Room Linoleum Floor

[Nigel Bryant]

Hi guys,

Parks Stephenson did a rendering of the First-class Dining Saloon tiles that were observed by Ken Marschall on his visit to wreck site in 2001. Parks created a CG reconstruction from what Ken reported. Park's CG image is on his site. Here is the link:

http://titanic.marconigraph.com

Then click on Ken Marschall's report "What we Saw Inside the Wreck" and go to the Debris Section, near the end of the write-up.

Most experts belive that Burgess was mostly likely getting mixed up with the carpeted reception room with the uncarpeted dinning saloon. Some have also noted that carpet runners were never used onboard Olympic, so it seems unlikely that Titanic had them.

Even if this fixture was added on Titanic as an "improvement" it seems likely that runners would have then been placed in Olympic's dinning saloon, but as photographs show after the 1913 refit when Olympic got most of Titanic's interior improvements, the floor is the same and stayed that way till the late 1920s when a dance floor was added and other minor changes introduced.

Nigel

 

[James Sapphire]

Good points. I've certainly learned a few new aspects of the ship. However, I had thought Titanic was more likely to contain carpet providing she traveled in cold weather and carpet is known to keep a room warmer than tile would. There was no electrical fireplace in the saloon either.

Although, I am aware smoking room tables had raised edges to prevent spilling of drinks in rough seas, so tile would make more sense to have been placed.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>However, I had thought Titanic was more likely to contain carpet providing she traveled in cold weather and carpet is known to keep a room warmer than tile would.<<

Well, in reality, all the transatlantic liners routinely traveled in cold weather. The question was one of certain practicalities taking precedence over others. Tile's easy to clean in the wake of a technicolour yawn.

Carpet isn't.

 

[David F. Smith]

I would think that any carpet on the Titanic would have long been eaten up by those pesky micro-organisms. Also, isn't there like a foot of silt and sediment on the floors? Isn't it possible that the Titanic was indeed built with Tile floors like the Olympic and then the carpeting put down per Ismays instructions? That would certainly explain why Tiles have been found and the carpet has not. Even if the carpet was there I'm sure it is long gone by now.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

David, mud tends to preserve things, not eat it up. And if Ismay gave instructions that the dining room was to be carpeted, I'd certainly be interested in seeing the memorandum or the shipbuilders instructions and notebboks. I have a copy of the shipbuilder's notes that you sometimes hear of as "Thomas Andrews Notebook." It gives no indication of any such specification, nor have I seen any such instruction in copies of the builders plans that I've seen. (Perhaps somebody has copies of detailed fitting instructions and specifications which speaks to this?)

Carpeting dining rooms just wasn't a very common practice for the reasons I've cited in my earlier posts. It wasn't done with the Olympic and there's little reason to suppose from any extant documentary sources that it was installed on Titanic.

 

[David F. Smith]

LOL, well then call me Mud because I have been proven wrong. He he he!

But seriously, it is amazing how we keep learning new things all the time. Well, until the ship is gone I guess. Tis a shame that we didn't have the technology 50 years ago to explore the ship the way James Cameron has. Imagine how much more we would have seen before the majority of the rusticles took over.

 

[Nigel Bryant]

Hi,

I agree with what Michael’s comments. With regards to a carpet being laid over the tiles, I remember someone (Bill Sauder, I think) mentioned some time ago that the first-class Dining Saloon linoleum was the most expensive on the ship due to the elaborate colours and complex pattern so why waste such an expense by laying it all down, then recarpeting it all over? It just seems such a waste of tiling. As said before it seems most likely that she was tiled in the same way as her sister the Olympic.

Bill Sauder also mentioned that even Britannic was not even installed with a carpet but with tile in her proposed dinning saloon.

Nigel

 

[Dan Cherry]

What is the acidity of the mud on the ocean floor in the vicinity of Titanic? I ask this because a couple of artifacts come to mind that seemed to have corrosion where they were in contact with the mud, most specifically a cooking pan and the captain's megaphone.