Enclosed "A" deck promenade

[monica e. hall]

Moved to Design & Construction.

 

[Jamie Bryant]

The enclosed A-Deck promenade gave Titanic more variety,character and depth over her sister.

 

[Steve Olguin]

I wonder what Britannic would have looked like if they would have enclosed the entire A deck promenade deck? Hmmm.... another "what if?"...

I prefer Titanic's design, as it gave her a more sleeker look over Olympic. Although I think in the long run, it proved to be a good choice not to inclose the forward A deck on Olympic, considering the cluttered state of the boat deck after April 1912.

I can only imagine what the interior of the forward A deck promenade on Britannic would have look like with its enlarged screen windows....

 

[steven p greiner]

I'm not exactly an old tar, but the enclosed promenade actually had a purpose beyond asthetics. At least I think so. The spray from the North Atlantic under certain blustery conditions could reach the promenade deck, dousing passengers. Didn't Andrews and Ismay come up that 11th hour decision for that reason. I have also heard that the Lusitania and the Mauretania were notorious for spraying the promenade deck and dousing the passengers, as the North Atlantic could be pretty rough sometimes. Oh yeah, and I think that it looks better.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I don't know how "11th hour" the decision was, but I've seen photos of the Titanic taken in early February 1912 where the Ismay Screen was not present. My bet is that the final decision was made a few months prior to that. As this would have been a reletively simple modification, there wouldn't have been an awful lot of lead time needed for that.

 

[Ben Lemmon]

I think that I heard in a documentary that the reason the Titanic had a partially enclosed promenade was because on Olympic's maiden voyage, Thomas Andrews saw that the completely open promenade caused a vibration. I think it was because of a lack of support. That was why they put the Verandah Cafe in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure I heard something similar to this.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I think it was because of a lack of support.<<

I seriously doubt that. The enclosure was not any sort of load bearing or strength type of structure so it would have little real effect on vibration. There was, however, something of an issue with sea spray getting up there and getting people wet, and that was the chief complaint. Hence, the justification for the "Ismay Screen" up on A-deck.

One of the reasons the B-deck promanade was enclosed was because a large portion of it was no longer a promanade, but space given over to extra cabins.

 

[Nigel Bryant]

In terms of exterior design, I think both Titanic and Olympic were beautiful.I like them both. Titanic had more of a modern appearance with her partial enclosed promenade while Olympic had a more traditional design with her open promenade. They both were well balanced and beautiful liners.

Nigel

 

[TitanicNerd]

A Deck Promenade

I know the "Promenade Deck" was for first class passengers only, but how could you access it? And a door on it leads to the promenade on the forward bow, where the cabins were, was their a sign that said "Officers Only" where the staircase was that lead up to the officer promenade deck?

 

[TimTurner]

The boat deck (the topmost deck) was divided into sections. The forward most section was the Officer's promenade, the second section was the First Class promenade, there's a small section over the reciprocating engine room which was the Engineer's promenade, and after that was the second class promenade. When loading the life boats, the gates in the fences would have been opened to allow all passengers access to all boats. Third class passengers could get up to the boat deck via a staircase which ran down to E deck or thereabouts, just centerline of Scotland Road. These sections were separated by fences with gates in them. I believe the staircase your are talking about had a "Crew Only" sign. Low-ranking crew had to be able to go to the bridge in order to report to the officers.

 

[Johan Björklund]

The A-deck Ismay screen

Hello

I would like to bring back up the discussion on the distinctive screen on forward part of A deck and why it was there.

The general story usual goes that Ismay heard passengers complain about wheather on A deck and that he then ordered the enclosement of it but I do think some related matters needs to be pointed out to expand this story.

Early drawings and paintings of the Olympic class ships showed two fully open promenade decks, i.e. both A and B deck. At the time, the idea of glassed in promenade decks was upcoming and subsequently the final designs of the ships sported an almost fully enclosed B deck promenade.

During the Olympics early voyages, Andrews (and Ismay?) noted that the B deck promenade wasn't very much used by passengers and that the space could be used for more and larger 1st class cabins. This idea was fully incorporated into the Titanic after her launch, during summer of 1911.

However, and here is my point, due to the fact that the enclosed promade space (on B deck) was actually removed from Titanic, they needed to give passengers that service somewhere else and hence, the forward promenade on A deck was enclosed.

If the "windiness" of the A deck promenade had been a big problem, then the Olympic should have got it enclosed as well sooner or later. But she didn't need one since she always had an enclosed promenade like it on her B deck.

What do you think?

 

[CollinSearls]

Trying to look for the answer to the original question. The link Nigel first posted isn’t working. Was the enclosed part of the Promenade/A-Deck simply steel window frames fitted into the original beams of the forward open promenade windows?

 

[Zhang Beichen]

Hi Nigel,
I‘ve tried to open this website but failed, I wonder if you could show the text... or other resource? It'll be a great help for my research, THX.

It was noted on the maiden voyage of the Olympic by Bruce Ismay, that this space on B-deck was hardly used and on the letter from Ismay after the trip to the White Star head offices at Liverpool; he cables this across:

"The deck space, with the number of passengers on board going out, was certainly excessive, and i think, in another ship (Titanic) we might carry out the rooms on 'B' deck the same as those on 'C' deck."

The whole letter was posted at the Olympic Forum at the Titanic Research and Modelling Association some time ago. I think its still there. Check it out at http://titanic-model.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=101

I can understand also (not just increased revenues) why Ismay wanted to extend these suites out. On the Olympic as noted the outer enclosed promenade would have blocked sea views for the most expensive suites. By deleting this deck space it gave the finest suites a view of the sea, previously blocked on the Olympic.

They also extended the forward B-deck staterooms out also, unlike the next sister Britannic which this forward area retained an enclosed deck, to allow passengers better access to the forward B deck.

Basically the only area left on Titanic for a screened deck was on the A-deck promenade, this has been noted before by others on previous threads. Check out Daniel Klistorner’s comments on “Olympic & Titanic: Opinion” thread. The screened decks were a feature of the Olympic-class vessels, and proving popular so they had to place it somewhere and A-deck forward was the most ideal and only location for it on Titanic. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Nigel

 

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

Try this link... don't know if the deeper links work though:

- Viewing topics in The TRMA General Olympic Forum

 

[Zhang Beichen]

Try this link... don't know if the deeper links work though:

- Viewing topics in The TRMA General Olympic Forum

It works, but I didn't find the exact answer about Ismay's letter.