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My father was in the USN from 1915 to 1923. He served on large, coal fired ships. Coaling was an all hands event. The men prepared for coaling by rubbing oil or a vaseline like jelly over their whole body so the coal wouldn't get into their pores. It made cleaning their bodies easier. The had clothes just for coaling. And this at a time when fresh water was not as available as today. Not all ships had distillers and navy ships had large crews. If they had showers, there was a salt and fresh water shower heads. On some older ships, they washed themselves and their clothes out of a bucket, squatting on the deck. So they washed in salt water and did a rinse in fresh. I have pictures of my dad & his mates covered in coal dust. Coaling ports were on the deck of warships. The USN had coaling ships with conveyors, but just dropped the coal on the deck. The crew then had to bucket it to the ports.

Fun thing, even 100 years later coal suppliers still try to short shift you today... As someone working in a coal powerplant qich burns American and Russian coal, we constantly find large amounts of iron in the coal, everything from wire and bolts up to entire bicycles or steel plates thrown in, to increase the weight of the coal. Not even mentioning the rocks and sand, put in by the suppliers to increase weight

It was even worse for military vessels that couldn't have the hatches in their sides due to their armour. Coal was loaded in bags and carried below by the crew, coal was often used between the outer hull and the armour plate to increase the protection, as a result of this and other factors coal was all over the ship complicating the firing process. Often military vessels would be used to blockade an enemy port, this meant that ships involved had to refuel and reprovision while at sea often under difficult conditions, this could make a difficult job even harder.

As a LONG-time liner historian, I just want to say that the content of your videos are excellent and informative, and you deserve many subscribers.

Britain's Royal Navy was in the process of converting as many warships to oil when WW1 broke out. Those coal burning warships were the last ships you wanted to be on. Coaling was a filthy time consuming job that had to be done regardless of weather conditions. Usually done by chutes from a collier. Woe be the officer in charge if coal dust fouled the decks. The dust tended to get blown into the on deck machinery and gun turrets., or became a slurry in bad weather making the decks dangerous to walk. Deck hands then had a messy job to clear any trace from the decks.

You are the channel I needed as a child. I grew up loving ocean liners! Your videos are great. Thank you!

The coal fired Great Western carried enough coal to make the round trip from Britain to Australia and back. That's a lot of coal.

I coaled a Clyde puffer - a 60ton coaster- once in the 1980's. We only loaded about 5 tons. I was the dirtiest I have ever been afterwards, I was also the stoker. it had a haystack boiler and a compound engine.

The ordinary man or woman today can't comprehend the hell it was down in "The Hole" on some ships and in certain regions of the World. It's been over half a century since I did my time in engine rooms and the worst I had to endure was on a WW2 Tank Landing Ship (LST) in the Mekong Delta. We did our watches in consistent 135 degree temps but had the luxury of a totally relaxed uniform, meaning our pants were cut off, shirts sleeveless and unbuttoned, we had water we could keep them soaked with and a couple supply vents to get in front of, plus we made runs to the galley to get buckets of ice cubes to eat. Compared to those guys shoveling coal to feed the boilers, we were on a luxury cruise. The noise in those diesel engine rooms was something to experience, this was before there was any "safety equipment" concerns, a far cry from today. I really enjoyed your video, well done.

An example of how coal supply can cause problems was RMS Atlantic - for a long time Canada's worst ship disaster in terms of lives lost. Atlantic was inbound New York, pretty-well full of passengers including steerage, whose access to the boat deck was severely circumscribed by the two little hatches that were all they were given. Unknown - but rumoured - the White Star Line had 'salted' its coal load with some cheap stuff; Welsh steam coal was acknowledged the best, and needless to say, it also commanded the highest price so it was not unknown for shippers to bung-on a few thousandweight of cheaper stuff (or even 'made' coal; collected coal dust with a binder to hold it together - Kipling's "McAndrew's Hymn" refers). So RMS Atlantic set-out against the Gulf Stream and continuously encountered foul weather, and used more coal than planned, and at some point the chief Engineer advised the Captain that they likely didn't have enough coal to reach New York; in this, modern estimates suggest he was wrong and was exaggerating the problem, but hindsight is 20/20 after all. The Captain turned north toward Halifax to get more coal, and a "comedy" of errors and disobeyed orders resulted in tragedy. Celestial navigation with stars and sextant was how ships navigated across oceans then, but they'd been in ugly weather long enough that they were navigating by dead-reckoning and unsure of their position. The Captain retired to his cabin for some sleep, leaving orders that he be awakened at midnight; his intent was to slow the ship and start taking soundings with the deep-sea lead to learn the water depth and bottom composition, which would give him an idea of how far offshore they were. Then they would anchor and await daylight, to take sightings of the shore and compare with their charts, and if need be they'd send a boat ashore to ask a local fisherman where they were - all perfectly normal in those days before GPS. But the bridge watch decided to let the Captain sleep so they never called him at midnight and RMS Atlantic kept-on northward at high speed, and the current off the Nova Scotia coast sets to the southwest; so as they approached the shore, watching for the Sambro lighthouse west of Halifax harbor, they were already too far southwest to see it. RMS Atlantic slammed into the rocks just offshore and was swept onto its beam-ends; most of the immigrants drowned trying to get onto the deck, and the heavy swell drowned many more of those who did get off. The stupid little things that cause fearsome results...

Thank you for this exploration of an often-forgotten aspect of steamship life. One minor quibble: Only the first-class express liners, where turnaround time outweighed all other considerations, were converted to oil immediately after World War I; elsewhere, the lower cost of coal was still compelling. I knew a man who toward the end of his maritime career was Assistant Second Engineer on the SS UNITED STATES. He started in the 1930's on a passenger ship making the run from New York to Charleston, SC and she was still fired with coal. He worked as a trimmer, coal passer and stoker.

Please note that the men who fired the furnaces on merchant ships were called Firemen. Not stokers, which was a Royal Navy name. The men who moved the coal were trimmers.

Super interesting and informative! I really enjoyed this video, especially the footage of the Leviathan during her bunkering.

Every naval memoir I've read from the age of coal agrees on one thing. Bombay (Mumbai) coal was the worst you could get. Engineers used to do anything they could do to avoid using it.

I remember in a book about the German merchant raider SMS Wolf (spent an astonishing 451 days at sea w/o once entering port), they're on their way back to Germany & about to run out of coal, & as a result basically pirated a Spanish freighter loaded w/ coal. at first they thought this was an incredible bit of luck, but ended up screwing them over because the vastly inferior Spanish coal only had about 1/20th the energy as the plundered British coal they had been running on. trying to transfer the coal at sea actually ended up burning coal at the same rate-of-speed they could transfer it to The Wolf, so they had to cut their losses & abandon the newly captured freighter & coal

I'm writing a historical fiction / high seas Thriller that takes place during the years before during and after the first world war. This information is very helpful in video form. Enjoyed the video very much

Let us pay our respects to the different workers involved in the process of refueling coal-powered ships and different ship workers involved in other mundane but dangerous jobs.

Oh boy, I miss those days when the liners indeed operated by real coal steam! Just kidding. Wow!! Greatly informative and eye-opening, Never realized the extent of the logistics required in getting the SS ocean liners ready for their ocean crossings. And I am sure many of the stokers also suffered the Black Lung syndrome with that livelihood. Thanks for posting this. Superb job!!

Never knew how complicated and fascinating coaling an ocean liner could be! Love you videos as always!

My Grandfather worked in a slope mine named " Ocean" . The mine and the town named due to the fact that the mine supplied Coal for ships on the Atlantic. Town was located in Western Maryland outside the town of Midland, Md. Thanks for the memories.

The coaling problems encountered by Admiral Rozhestvensky and his Second Pacific Squadron is almost worth a video on its own. It certainly influenced the outcome of the battle even if it didn't directly lead to any lost ships. This channel keeps getting better and better and I really enjoy watching your videos! I think something you might want to work on is the audio. Sounds a bit like you're sitting at your kitchen table with an open window doing the narration. :)

Interesting video, thanks. Being a bit of a collector, this film reminds me of the time I bought a B&W 16mm cine film from an antiques fair. Didn't know what was on it but it was cheap enough. I have a 16mm projector, and watched the film when I got home. It turned out to be someone's pre WW2 home movie of an overseas holiday to the far east. In one sequence the coaling of the ship is show, Suez Canal perhaps. All done by hand with the locals carrying the coal up a gang plank in baskets, on their heads. Amazing to watch, I later passed the film on to the BFI in London.

From passenger deck of "SS Empire Trooper" in 1950, watched our manual coal bunkering in Port Said, Egypt. Similar to clips of your footage, hordes of loin cloth turbaned labourers toiling for a living in baking sun. Trotting circular rail-truck to ship, heavily coal-sack ladened, dockside up long plankings for discharge into ship bunker ports. I was 7 yrs. Burnt into memory. We'd first passaged aboard coalers SS Stratheden then SS Empire Test. Then oilers; Braemar and Warwick Castle. Me RN warships 11 years, oil diesel and gas turbine. Us burned beers instead.

Thanks for this hugely interesting episode. I visited USS ‘Olympia’ in Philadelphia some years ago and was impressed that everything on that ship ran on steam, all of which was reliant on coal. At points in the ship there were steam-powered hoists which brought ash up from the fire rooms, and tracks along the overhead to scuttles in the hull so the ash could be dumped overboard. I had never thought about that kind of waste problem while underway. A danger you did not touch on which coal-fired ships faced was fire, from spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker. That could happen from bringing aboard wet coal, which is a separate question (if the coal,was in open barges, there was no way to protect it if it rained. so loading wet coal increased the chance of that coal spontaneously combusting, once it was stowed in bunkers), and required in some cases men actually going into the bunkers and digging down, if possible, to the source of the fire and extinguishing it. The USS ‘Maine’ experienced just such a slow-burning fire in a coal bunker when she was sent to Havana, Cuba in 1898 as a show of American potential. Unfortunately, the plan of the Maine’s bunker layout had that burning coal adjacent to a bulkhead that separated the bunker from an explosives magazine. The heat from the fire elevated the temperature of the bulkhead until the powder stored in the magazine detonated, tearing off the forward section of the Maine,sinking the ship and killing a large number of the sleeping crew. The US newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst claimed the explosion was due to a mine (Spanish, according to Hearst; a ‘dastardly trick’) instead of an accident. So the US went to war with Spain over a coal bunker fire. Analysis of the sinking of the man conducted by the Navy in the Mid-20th Century proved pretty conclusively that was the reason the ‘Maine’ blew up, and not the mine or outside cause claimed by the Hearst papers. Great work; thanks for your efforts. PS - I was an Infantry officer in the Army. I grew up in an Army family; my father was a Transportation Corps officer. Their motto was ‘Try Moving Without Us’, and though the Infantry ostensibly gets around on foot, the Army’s ability to move troops equipment, and logistics is reliant on the techniques developed by the Transportation people. I am an historian, and appreciate your motto of being at the intersection of transportation and history.

Looking at what engine rooms looked like back then vs now, it's amazing

This is why liner hulls were typically painted black.

As a retired ship's officer (deck department) and sailboat captain, nice job and on an informative and well done presentation. Bunkering with fuel oil was bad enough. Coal was obviously much worse. Nothing like the old wind ships, which l missed out on.

Very interesting video. The biggest danger with coal dust (or any large amount of dust) isn't that it's messy. It's that it can auto-ignite, causing large explosions.

What an awesome video. I’ve learned a lot but I mean A LOT with this video, keep the amazing job. Idea for video: how engine telegraphs work, telegraph commands and telegraph movements (obviously on old ocean liners)

Brilliant. Very interesting look at a seemingly mundane process. Thank you

That was a very Good Presentation ! Without coal or oil there is no transportation. Thank YOU

A friend of mine has related a story about how he a two friends decided they wanted to 'see the world' by signing on to work on a lake boat working in the Great Lakes between Toledo and Duluth. They signed up and were hired, but only one of them got called to work. They heard from him a week or so later from Duluth: "Don't get on that Boat! and can you borrow a car and come get me?" His story of handling coal for two six hour shifts every day is similar to what is being told here. Back breaking and harsh conditions. It amazes me that the steam ship companies hadn't mechanized at least some of the coal handling process in some way. Powered conveyors if nothing else.

Can't wait for the oil video!

Back when boats still actually looked like boats. Cruise liners look like huge floating blocks now-a-days

First video by this creator, really glad this was suggested to me. I never knew coaling a ship was so difficult, I always assumed it used the same kind of conveyors and towers or rotating dumpers you see at powerplants or loading coal carrying freight trains because of the volumes of coal needed for the largest ships.

Great video. You should expand it and talk about the Trimmers and Coal Passers whose job it was to be actually inside the huge coal bunkers. The Trimmers would make sure that as the tons of coal was moved to the furnaces that it didn't unbalance the ship. They worked like sea going cola miners. Like coal miners, they could be killed when the sea shifted a mountain of coal down on top of them. The Coal Passers kept the Stokers supplied with properly sized coal pieces to feed to the furnace. Hard work. Hard men.

"Honey I'm gonna go bunker up Ol' Smokey. I'll be back in 48 hours at the latest if I haven't died yet."

I don't know that it was caused by shorting coal, but SS Sirius on her maiden transatlantic crossing ran out of fuel and had to burn furniture.

Wow! What an informative video. I never thought about what an undertaking it was to fuel those old coal burning ships. I loved all the old photos too!

So many fine photos and film clips of barges, trimmers and coal ports. A great episode, and timely for one of my projects, where I'm writing about early-20th Century shipping and the coal needed for it. Thanks, JHW

Hi there! Great video! So educating and interesting. I love the narrator´s vocie, which, for me at least is very, very important in docs. and you tube videos. I think there may be one instance in which the shortage or difficulty to gain acces to coal may be considered, --- at least indirectly ---- a cause for disaster. The SS Atlantic, which ran aground on the coast near Halifax on April 1873. Travelling from Liverpool to New York, she changed course to Halifax in order to refuel on coal, since as you guys explained, officers were discrete in their calculations of coal supplies, in order not to be short. The SS Atlantic had enough coal to make it to New York, but still was deviated to Halifax in order to refuel due to this practice. As I said, this is and indirect cause of the disaster, but it´s in part a contributor to it because, at the end of the day, if she hadn´t been deviated from its course to refuel, she probably would have made it safely to New York City, don´t you think?

The Titanic could load almost 7,000tons of coal. That was enough for 6-7 days. They had to dump around 100 tons of ash from burning the coal in the ocean every day. You could get all that energy from only 2.2 kilograms of uranium. That sounds like a lot, but is only a cube of 2x2inches. About one of these big ice cubes you'd get in a nice bar. Shows how far we've come since then...

Great video mate! Very interesting :) I'm a stoker myselfe. Just one thing about the stokers and trimmers: The trimmers supplyed the stokers/firemen with coal. Also, the trimmers had to clear the boilers many fireplaces of ash and slag. Haul it away from the boiler room and hoist it up and dump it over board. The firemen were much higher in rank than the lowly trimmers. The stokers/firemen on the other hand, "only" were feeding the boilers coal and keeping an eye on the water level in the boilers. So in other words, the trimmers had a much harder and more brutal enviorment to work in. Cheers!

Please keep making videos. Most people may not get giddy about coaling/bunkering ocean liners, but I do, and a lot of people here feel the same. Awesome video!

On RN ships, there were very few excused coaling, just the Captain and a few select individuals such as the ship's doctor or medic but usually everyone, regardless of rank, had to haul coal or shovel it down the hatches. The ship and men were always filthy afterwards and the entire crew had to wash themselves,their clothing and the ship was washed down from masts to waterline, inside and out, as coal dust got everywhere.

What an amazing channel! I had no idea coaling was such an interesting topic!

the mass of rivets on old ships is astounding!

B. Traven, who wrote 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' also wrote the book, 'Death Ship' - which is really worth reading if you like old coal burning ships. : )

Ocean liners are indeed very hungry. I personally, enjoy the Ship Story's that you make the most. If you could make some more of those I would love it!! Great vid btw.

Awesome video, just yesterday me and a friend of mine were just talking about this, because he was curious how did older coal burning vessels get loaded

My grandfather served aboard a Royal Navy ship run by coal in WWI. He was a signalman, but I read that all hands, officers included, had to help load the coal. You're video helped me envision what a nasty job it was. Many thanks to you.

An excellent video highlighting a forgotten maritime era. Well done.

I bet going to work as a stoker on an oil-fired ship was like a holiday after all that shovelling!

This was really interesting. I never understood what coaling all entailed. Thank you for posting.

Very informative, thank you!

There were mechanical devices to help with coal bunkering generally based on a bucket ladder. The De Mayo and Michener are two such devices.

Haven’t watched yet, but this looks like a good and not so well known topic! :) Edit: It was an amazing video! Never knew about most of the stuff covered.

Logistics episode... Sounds GREAT 👍

I am one of those weird people who enjoys learning about the "behind the scenes" aspects of technology (Yes. I knew about bunkering. This video supplied several new-to-me details and a number of previously unseen visuals). Too often, people do not think about how things happen. Somehow a magic wand is flourished and the desired condition is established. Unfortunately, some of these non-thinkers are involved with new technology creation, planning and acquisition. Being that I also enjoy the history of technology, videos such as this one are very satisfying to me. I look forward to more. Good Job.

Navy engineer here. Fantastic piece! Thanks!

I can't believe no one came up with an auger or convener belt system to load coal on ships and trains. It seems like come convener belts and augers could cut down on the labor required by a substantial amount.

The aquaitania was one of the first cunard ships to burn oil. Hence why its life was so long. (1914-1950)

Opening graphic shows RMS Campania. Capt Arthur Rostron sighted a sea serpent while in command of this ship. He was later captain of Carpathia, hero of the Titanic disaster. Rostron's memoir is a great read.

My dad was born in Southampton England in 1902. In 1915 he went to sea on a channel steamer supplying war material. In 1916 he was taken into the Royal Navy as an able seaman in which capacity he served for the rest of the war on the Acquitania on the Atlantic run from Liverpool to Canada or the US. After the war he was hired by the Cunard until coming to America in 1923. Coaling was one of the tasks which he told me about, and it differs from your account. The entire crew worked at coaling which was accomplished by a circular line of men being loaded with 80 lb. sacks of coal walking in a circle up one gangway, depositing the coal, then making their way down another gangway until the process was complete. Everyone hated it, but there was no avoiding it. On the America to Liverpool run the Acquitania was a troopship and dad served as a steward. On the Liverpool to America run the Acquitania was a hospital ship and dad served as a surgeon’s assistant. Sincerely, Fred Orman

Wow thank you very informative.

Have often thought how tough a job it would have been to work in engine room of a coal burning ship. Did not realize what a manual process was involved to refuel. Did some of the older oceanliners continue to burn coal till their retirement? You might look at a video on how Military vessels like battleships handled coal loading and burning. Great video!

Very many thanks. I’ve been trying to find out what those swing-arms on the sides of the ships were for and the best I could discover was, bunkering. I knew what bunkering was, but not the details. So informative...

Even more stuff I never knew. Thank you!

"Spending weeks away form home." -Would often be years.

I was boiler maker on SS Canberra for her 1976 world cruise. I recall bunkering 5000 tons of heavy fuel oil from lighters in Acapulco, took about 24 hours, I was knackered at the end.

Thanks for this. It was really informative. My distant cousin was a fireman who worked aboard the Olympic and the Titanic. He survived the disaster. It's nice to find out a bit more about the nature of his work.

Anyone have an idea why this video reports "This video is unavailable on this device."? And yes, I've Googled it. And done every thing I've found. Thx for any help. Good day.

Fascinating and informative.

As someone who works in commercial operation of ships today, I cannot even begin imagining complexity of attempting to get ships bunkered 100 years ago.

Very interesting and revealing video about a nearly forgotten aspect of the coal fired age.

So that’s what the cranes on Olympic’s A Deck were for 😂

I spent about 27 hours fueling up a chemical tanker two times within a month. Fuel was too cold and stalled the big Cummins engines driving the pumps. It sucked

I rewatch all these videos since I enjoy them that much!

Great little doc. Thanks for sharing.

Anyone else have this video unavailable on their device? On both phone and desktop in UK.

Really interesting and informative! Learned a lot.

This makes even the hardships of sailing look downright civilized by comparison.

cool info i'm adding a wharf to my steam era railroad

As a former firefighter with modern technology I can only imagine what those poor guys had to go through in the bowels of the ship to keep her going.

I've learned something today: under no circumstances accept an arm wrestle challenge from a fireman on an early 20th Century steamship

Years ago I worked for Peabody Engineering Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of combustion equipment, mostly for power generation. Ernest Peabody learned how to mechanically atomize heavy (bunker "C") fuel oil without the use of steam. His burners were used on various steamships during the second decade of the 20th century, and were considered a great advance over firing coal.

4:12 My grandmother's brother was a Fireman aboard the RMS later HMS Duke of Albany. Must have been brutal and back breaking work. He died when she was torpedoed in August, 1916.

I really want to watch this video, but it keeps telling me it’s not available on this device. I’ve tried my laptop and my phone. Any suggestions?

The SS Atlantic wrecked as a result of the captain thinking they were going to run out of coal in 1870

Thanks! for your great description and attention to the "Black Gangs" as they were known, they were heroes in their own right, in many At sea disasters, myself and my friends would love to see more content on this topic! yea!

Thanks for the video! I tried to dig up details online if the coal bunkering process a few months ago but couldn't find any good sources, so I'm glad you found some. I'd love to see more videos on the "behind the scenes" work in the ocean liners, such as loading food and stores, embarking/disembarking passengers, crew quarters and recreation on board, etc etc.

Well looking at this, from a modern sailors perspective. 'a matter of hours' may be a bit light, we generally bunker about 1000 mt of fuel oil, which takes from start to finish 10-12 hours. And to immagine that there is now only 3 people running the engine room. 3 pounds a ton for coal :O compare that to the 380 usd that you pay for a ton of fuel now! oh and the buisness principle of fuel suppliers to try to steal some of the fuel you ordered and payed for is still standard practise. note; Shipping still has a problem with finding enough technical crew! many of my collegeas (and me too) regularly is on board longer due the company not having a reliever. (not even mentioning the problems the pandemic has caused in crew changes)

Im surprised they didnt just have a huge shaft in the top of the ship that a conveyor belt or some other machine like they have for loading gravel trucks could just dump coal into. Nobody ever thought of making this easier?

I actually never thought of this process. Super interesting, thank you!

It’s these fascinating and essential details that bring seafaring alive. Many thanks.

Nice video I loved it

I can't believe they couldn't come up with a more efficient system to load coal on a ship.

Very interesting. I always wondered how it was done. In the beginning i thought the i am the only kid who found ocean liners interesting because when I try to share my interest with others, they will change the subject. The comments tell me that i'm not alone :) Subcribed.

5:33 getting all excited to hear a lecture on different kinds of coal. 5:47 damn