Not dangerous at all. Most beam engines with Cornish boilers rarely exceed 30 psi.

I worked as a wiper one summer on an old ferry boat in Port Jeff, the Martha's Vineyard. An old steamer hull from the '20's that was refitted with a pair of WWII diesel Sub engines. Really cool...the boat had it's own makeshift machine shop. We were always replacing copper oil lines, rebuilding air delivery valves, shimming journal bearings and constantly adjusting the thrusts.

Great fun, and I learned alot.

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Well back then everything had to be lubercated all the time. If you watch any of Jay Leno's videos about his steam engines he shows you all the various lube points. That would be part of someones job, to walk around every few hours and check the oilers.

OTOH they were quite reliable, a lot of these motors ran damn near non stop for 80+ years.


The cool part about steam power is that its very quite.

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2006 CL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2026 Genesis GV70
2007 Tiara 3200

Pretty much anything nuclear powered is using steam.

Carleton, I was considering the general safety of fire-tube vs water-tube boilers. Scotch and other type boilers may have been more likely to explode than an LP Cornish. By their nature, since the entire FT boiler is under pressure, a failure is likely to be more damaging than a WT .

A wiper huh? Were the sub engines Fairbanks Morse Opposed Piston engines? In my mispent yute I was a Fireman/Oiler/Watertender () on bay ferries. We had an old WWII LST conversion that had big V-twin GM 16 cyl. main engines. Come to think of it, that ferry went to Montauk and I coincidentially saw it running back in around '99-'00. The DRBA in the late 70's build some new ferrries that were equipped with twin FM OP 12 cylinders, direct descendents of their WWII applications. 2000shp each. Those OP's were darn good engines. Still in service 30 years later.

...is that it isn't. Cool.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Yeah, a pair of F.M. 36's, 10 cyl I think about 1,500 h.p. installed with their Gennies and drive motors, a really neat conversion, only the non-standard props would cavitate like hell and shake the whole stern, parts of the frame of which would develop fracture lines that we just gusset welded over.

One of the Orient Point ferries to New London, the Cape Henlopen was an LST that participated in the Normandy invasion. It is still in service although 10 years ago the original diesels were replaced with new EMD's.

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If you ignore bombs.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

...and high temperature gas reactors.

Yes, MV Cape Henlopen was brought up from Virginia to the Delaware Bay Cape May - Lewes Ferry in the 60's along with 3 other VFC steam powered ferries. I rode across Delaware Bay many times in her ER. Trying to manuever her in good winds was a treat. The bow draft was about 2 FT. When a strong wind would catch her superstructure, she would spin like a top ( and usually hit the dock pilings hardas she had no bow thruster!!).

And I was mistaken. It was Orient Point where I saw her. Wrong point! But it was a long day on motorcycles running around Eastern LI reaching both tips. Hard to believe it is still in service. Been a ferry for what 60 years or so? She must be cared for better these days.

Did you ever have to pull the upper crankshaft and change a cylinder liner on one of those OP's? A lot of work. Trust me.

Never had to swap out liners nor pull crankshafts. Did a great deal of shimming and repacking of the mechanical injectors, I'm tellin' ya, it was a time never to be duplicated, I was in heaven! turning packing washers on a beat up Southbend 10x16 lathe, cutting shimstock with cheap scissors and patching the cooling condenser with "rust powder" for a "rust joint".

Great days, man....great days.
One occasion the blower started grinding so we had to run half ahead on the port engine while we dismantled the blower and jig-rigged the spindle bearings with ground keystock hammered in until we could order new ones.

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The first time we did injector maintenance on one, our shop welder jury rigged what I guess you would call a "puller" for lack of a better term. Start with a 30" stainess steel rod about 9/16 in diameter. Put a male fitting on it, which is designed to be screwed into the injector fuel line female connector. Then bore out about an 18-24 oz tubular weight and weld a stop to the other end. Presto you have a slammin hammer to bang out the injectors with. 4 or 5 good whacks usually were enough to loosen them up. Then off to bench test the atomization.
The best thing on the market for coating them when re-installing was "Blue Ointment", the crab lice treatment. Drew some curious stares at local pharmacies when we asked them for all the blue ointment thay had. That's a true story.