QE2 - a ship of many parts

[Cunarder Man]

Quiz question.....QE2. We have discussed portholes in various places....can anybody tell me where else on the QE2 where portholes were an essential part of the ship...CLUE...they are not on the ships side!

Rod, I recall an officer saying there were Portholes on the underside through which they could see the propellors, he said they were difficult to access.

[Lynda Bradford]

Carpet in First Class cabins came from The Royal Carpet Factory Ltd - Wilts
Tourist Class cabin carpet came from Woodward, Grosvenor & Co - London

Flagship The Cunarders 1840 to 1969 magazine, published at the time of QE2's maiden voyage mentioned that there were 16 suppliers of carpets for the QE2 (the 6 who had advertisements in the magazine are mentioned below with some information on rooms carpeted).  Do you have any other information on carpet suppliers and what area of the ship they supplied carpets for prior to her maiden voyage.  . 

QE2 Carpets (16 suppliers, 6 advertised in publication)

Kosset Carpets Ltd. Brookfoot, Brighouse, Yorkshire – Colombia Restaurant, Theatre Cocktail Bar, Swimming Pool Foyer, Library,  some of the special staterooms (stately blue or gold), cocktail bar (olive green), double public lounge (the biggest single area on the ship)

The Carpet Manufacturing Co. Kidderminster (CMC) – 6,680 yards of carpet.  300 yards Observation Lounge.  2960 yards Tourists Cabin.  1750 yards First Class Cabins.  1630 yards Tourists Restaurant.  40 yards Synagogue. 
Page 73

Crossley Carpets, Halifax, Yorkshire – “Kirby” a Wilton woven carpet for QE2 Art Gallery, Shopping Arcade, First Class Staircase

Gilt Edge Carpets, Kidderminster – Wilton Carpets

Templeton Carpets, Glasgow in association with S J Stockwell & Co. (Carpets) Ltd. – Wilton carpeting for 736 Club, Theatre, Grillroom and Stairs. 

Grays Carpets Ltd Ayr, Scotland – The contract division of Grays manufactured and supplied 10,000 yards of Wilton carpet specially designed for the QE2


Duralay Ltd.  London supplier for Neoprene foam carpet underlay that conforms to the required maritime standards of fire resistance

[Michael Gallagher]

Lynda

Here are others I have listed but no great detail on what they did:

John C A Bogie Ltd (Glasgow) - making and lying of fitted carpets in deluxe cabins

Brintons Ltd (Kidderminster) - carpeting, launches, powder room

Carpet Trades Ltd (Kidderminster) - carpeting

Chlidema Carpet Co Ltd (Kidderminster) - carpeting

Firth Carpets (London) - carpeting first class corridors, tourist class public areas

Humphries & Taplings Ltd (London)

Lancaster Carpets Ltd (Manchester) - Boat Deck Bar, Shops, galley, Suiterooms, Two Deck

MacKay, Hugh & Co (London) - Senior Officers cabins

Northdown Contracts (Decor Sales) Ltd (Surrey) - cruise launches, underlays

Steele (Oxon) - Officers cabins

Stockwell Carpets Ltd (London) - Club and Theatre

Stoddard A F & Co (Renfrewshire)

Thomson, Shepheard (Ealing) - First Class cabins, Library

Woodward, Grosvenor & Co (London) - Tourist class cabins

The Royal Carpet Factory Wilton (Wilts) - First class cabins

[Lynda Bradford]

Quiz question.....QE2. We have discussed portholes in various places....can anybody tell me where else on the QE2 where portholes were an essential part of the ship...CLUE...they are not on the ships side!

In response to Rod's quiz question was it something to do with sewage or drainage viewing windows. 

[Rod]

OK. I had forgotten the doors onto the decks. Sorry!
An innovation on the QE2 was "porthole gauge glasses" , waterlevel measuring devices on QE2's boilers. At the reading level, boiler room platform, you could look through a series of mirrors and see the water level in the boilers....yes we had to do that...not all the stuff on QE2 was automatic. Through a series of mirrors, and the device itself.....water was green, steam was red....the device itself, had 9    1" dia glass inserts..portholes...to enable the viewer to see the water/steam level...they were a pain as people walking past vibration etc could upset the mirrors, and, therefore  the colors/colours.....
Another example of a good idea being impractical!
At the boiler room platform, they would show up as a series of dots coloure/colored red of green!

[Twynkle]

This topic is superb - and thanks so much to all for so many comprehensive details

(Hoping this isn't a duplicate - some of the items on the list still crop up on eBay's auction site too!
http://www.rmsqueenelizabeth2.com/1969ad.html   )

[Twynkle]

Hello Rosie
....The lights on white posts were added in 1983 when the Magrodome was added - the posts were originally painted black.

Michael

Hello Michael,
It seems as if there may have been even more 'metal' structures originally painted black and then later on, white.
Just wondering - was this change made for a specific reason? Rust prevention perhaps - and / or artistic effects etc?
The davits immediately come to mind, as well as the 'lamp posts' on the decks aft, and possibly the metal 'lamp' protectors - and even more?
Thank you!
Rosie
 

[Trevor Casey]

Why were davits painted white? Instead of keeping them black?

[Lynda Bradford]

When reading the PR document The New Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2 Press Guide, which was probably written around the time of the ship's maiden voyage, I realised that there was a wealth of information about suppliers within the Main and Auxiliary Machinery section that would be of interest to readers of this topic. 

I have extracted this information listed below, but if you have an interest in the ship's machinery, I would recommend that you read the document I have attached to the Press Guide topic. 

QE2 Main and Auxiliary Machinery Suppliers
as at 1969

Main Turbines and Gearing: Pametrada Design, built under licence by John Brown’s Engineering, Clydebank

Turbine Control Room

Turbine Control Valves: Pametrada Design, manufactured by John Brown’s Engineering, Clydebank.
Actuators supplied by Serck Glocon
Two main thrust blocks: Michell design and manufacture they are equipped with thrust meters
Tailshafts: designed and manufactured by John Brown’s engineering in conjunction with Cunard’s technical staff.  The shafts run-in Tufnol lined stern tubes and are fitted with Crane’s mechanical seals.

Propellers: designed and manufactured by Stone Manganese Marine.  They are six bladed and made of Superston 70, secured in place by Pilgrim Nuts.  Cones are of fibre glass.

Main Condensers: Fabricated Main Condensers (fitted with brass tubes) : Pametrada Design, manufactured by John Brown Engineering, Clydebank.  Fitted to each condenser are Axial flow varies pitch pumps, supplied by Vickers, with motors by AEI. Two Drysdale horizontal axial flow pumps have been fitted for stand-by and manoeuvring conditions. 

Weir’s Pumps: two Weir turbo-driven main feed pumps in the engine room for normal steaming and one for back up.  For harbour use one one turbo and one electro feeder is fitted in the boiler room, supplied by Weir’s Pumps. 

Lubrication - One tank top mounted submersible centrifugal pump manufactured by Stothert and Pitt fitted for each set of machinery.  Four Serck lubricating coolers, of tubular type.  Two Vokes full-flow filters fitted on the discharge side of the lubricating oil pumps. 

Boiler Installation

Three identical boilers of Foster Wheeler ESD II design built key John Brown’s Engineering fitted in the boiler room which is between the engine room and the generator room.

Each boiler is fitted with a bled steam air heater designed and manufactured by Serck.  Economisers supplied by Greens are fitted with steel gills in the hot zone, while cast iron has been used in the cooler zone.  Combustion air is supplied by three two-speed vane controlled, electrically driven fans by supplied by Davidson.  AEI supplied the 535 horse power 3.3kV driving motors.  Oil burning is based on the spill system, supplied by Lucas.  Each boiler is fitted with a plain bubble gauge glass and one bi-colour porthole gauge glass supplied by Klingers.  Ribbon type indicator supplied by Foxboro installed in Main Control Room and Turbine Control Room.  Hylif Safety valves supplied by Hopkinson.  Smoke observation periscopes supplied by Barr and Stroud. Three oil fuel pressure pumps supplied by Stothert and Pitt. The five main oil fuel heaters supplied by Serck’s.  Clyde Blowers supplied a comprehensive system of blowers which are sequentially controlled by a solid state electronic controller of Brookhirst Igranic manufacture and design.  A boiler cleaning vacuum plan fitted in the Boiler Room supplied by British Vacuum Cleaning company.

Machinery Space Ventilation - Eight exhaust fans and six supply fans (power range from 24 to 35 hp) for the Engine Room and Boiler Room supplied by Woods of Colchester. 

Main Electrical Generators and Distribution

AEI manufactured the three 5.5 MW 6.6 MVA CMR alternators installed in the turbo alternator room.

Transformers - Manufactured AEI, Trafford Park
(see The New Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2 Press Guide Section 6 Main and Auxiliary Machinery for more information)

Main and Auxiliary Switchgear - manufactured by Whipp and Bourne Limited

50 Volt Low Power System - Ferguson, Munro and Parker Limited. 

Alkaline Batteries Limited supplied, Nickel Cadmium Batteries, for emergency loss of power use.

Auxiliary Generators - two Paxman Diesel driven AEI alternators were installed in the emergency generator room.   On failure the main generators are automatically started from 24 V batteries supplied by Alkaline Batteries Limited. 

Emergency Lighting  - both tungsten and fluorescent are fed through a 150 kW 240 V DC output transformer/rectifier supplied by English Electric. 540 ampere-hour emergency battery supplied by Alkaline Batteries Limited. 

Control Rooms:
Main Control Room (MCR)
Turbine Control Room (TCR)
Safety Control Room (SCR)

Pneumatic Control Equipment supplied by AEI with the exception of a few valves
Fisher Governor have supplied the control valves throughout the ship
Enfield Cables Limited and British Insulated Callender Cables Limited have supplied multicore piping for the control systems.
Young and Cunningham have supplied Cockburn Rockwell butterfly valves and Cupedo valves that have been used extensively throughout the ship.

Computer: - Micro miniature Argus 400 Ferranti Computer, which was located on the starboard side of the main control room. The installation was a progressive development, the outcome of two years investigation and development, in which the British Research Association, the National Research Development Corporation, Ferranti Limited and Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. 

Peripheral equipment supplied includes transducers by Consolidated Electrodynamics, Fielden and Ferranti; thermometers by Sangamo, Elliot Marine and Richardson Westgarth.  Printers supplied by IBM, Creed and Kleinschmidt,  The four magnetic tape transports by Ampex. 

Ship Services and Auxiliaries

Piping supplied by Yorkshire Imperial Metals Limited

Main Fresh Water Distillation Plan

Three Weir’s flash evaporators, each is capable of producing from sea water, 400 tons per day of fresh water.  These are installed in the Main Engine Room. Turnover Filters Limited supplied dechlorinating filters plant. 

Tanks and Pumping System - Hamworthy supplied eight dolphin pumps and three centrifugals.

Sanitary Water and Sewage System- Ejectors for the comprehensive sewage ejection system were supplied by Adams Hydraulics.  Sanitory water is provided by four vertical non self priming pumps were supplied by Hamworthy. 

Bilge: Clean and Oily

Three clean bilge pumps of 300 tons per hour, installed in machinery spaces supplied by Hamworthy.

Two oily bilge pumps of 100 tons per hour capacity supplied by Stothert and Pitt. 

Ballast System - pumps provided by Hamworthy

Fire and Wash Decks Pumps - supplied by Hamworthy

Sprinkler System - Pumps for the comprehensive sprinkler system supplied by Mather and Platt

Multispray - Mather and Platt multispray system fitted in machinery spaces. 

Compressed Air System- Four Atlas Copco air-cooled compressors

Steering Gear

A duplicate system of steering, each which is capable of producing maximum torque of 1340 tons feet, supplied by Brown Brothers and consists of four hydraulic rams.  Hydraulic power for the rams is by two Vickers SP 30 pump units.  The all electric steering control system was supplied by Sperry. 

Bow Thrusters - Twin Stone Kamewa Bow Thruster Units mounted in the bulbous bow of the ship. 

Stabilisers- Two pairs of Denny Brown stabilisers.  They are the of the swing back type and controlled by the Gyro system manufactured by Muirheads.

Air Conditioning Plant - Carriers design and manufacture for the air conditioning throughout the ship. Three centrifugal compressors have been installed in the alternator room.  Freon II is used and the total capacity of the three plants is 24,000,000 Btu’s per hour. 

Whistles - Two whistles supplied by Kockums are mounted on the mast structure. One is a model KT230/75 air whistle.  The other is a MA 18/75 electro Tyfon. 

Watertight Doors - 58 watertight doors are of the electro-hydraulic type supplied by Stone Manganese Limited. 

Deck Machinery

Eight self-tensioning mooring winches supplied by Clark, Chapman and Company Limited. 

Warping Capstans - two electrically driven 24 ton warping capstans supplied by Clark, Chapman and Company Limited. 

Anchor cable capstan gear forward - cable lifters and one electrical driven anchor windlass supplied by Clark, Chapman and Company Limited. 

Deck Cranes - two 5 ton cranes fitted on Quarter Deck supplied by ASEA of Sweden and have the ASEA Thyrister control system.

Domestic Refrigerators  - refrigerated stores are kept in 23 separate chambers.  Refrigeration system Carrier/Carlyle. 

Sound Reproduction System -  SRE system supplied by Tannoy Products.

Telephones - Standard Telephone and Cables Limited supplied the installation. 

Lighting - fitting supplied by many well know firms but the greater proportion if from Philips Electrical. 

Gent Illuminated Call System

[Thomas Hypher]

Wonderful information, thank you for posting this Lynda! I've gone down a bit more of a rabbit hole with the ship's various Kockums whistles and found some detailed Kockums documentation on her last installed bow foghorn (installed sometime in the mid to late 1990s to replace it's predecessor that was perhaps damaged in the 90ft wave encounter?). This last installed bow foghorn has been completely removed sometime in her current hotel conversion as I noticed back in January.

http://www.kockumsonics.com/pdf/marine/KSM520EN-ELECTROTYFON-MT150-130/files/assets/seo/page1.html

[June Ingram]

Thank you very much, Lynda, for putting together this amazing list from the press book. I find it very helpful to have a list like this ! 

[Lynda Bradford]

Radio Communications 1969

The information on equipment is from the New Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2 Press Guide produced for the ship's maiden voyage. 

An improved telephone service for passengers achieved by the use of ..

Notch Aerials - little black boxes developed by the British Aircraft Corporation for supersonic jets

The revolutionary Lincompex system designed by the GPO.  Research and engineered and produced by GEC

Automatic self-tuning transmitter developed by International Marine Radio Company


Remotely controlled transmitters

“For long distance communication there are three main transmitters of a type recently developed, specially designed to be remotely controlled from the wireless room, whilst for short distance radio telephone, ship to shore and ship to tug communication four VHF transmitter receivers are installed. “

Redifon manufactured main telegraph receivers and auto alarm unit

Muirhead picture transmitter installed for the transmission to the press and news agencies

International Marine Radio Company was responsible for the whole installation on QE2. They engineered and installed the system including the four simultaneous conversation and the two picture circuits

In the event of emergency adequate battery power transmitters installed aboard and in two of the lifeboats Marconi Salvare II is permanently fitted powered by nickel cadmium batteries supplied by Alkaline Batteries Limited. 

The Plessey PT 200 and the Diplomatic Wireless Service/ Marconi Piccolo systems were on trial to cater for the production of the Daily Telegraph on board. 

Have a look at the Cunard Press Release publication topic where you can read page on Radio Communications.   I would also recommend you read the Radio Room topic for more first hand accounts of the radio communications equipment in use on QE2

[June Ingram]

Many thanks, Lynda, for all the work you are doing in gleaning valuable information by category from the press book ! It is very interesting and informative !