A REMARKABLE SHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

A REMARKABLE SHIP.

Sir William Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., has built upon Lake Baikal one of the most remarkable steamships in the world to ferry the Siberian trains across the lake, and in winter to break the ice at the same time. This was brought out in pieces from New-castle-on-Tyne, and put together by English engineers, who have been living in this remote and llonely spot for over two years. The Baikal, as the steamer is called, is a magnificent vessel of 4000 tons, with twin engines amidship of 1250 horse power eaeh t and a similar engine forward, to drive the screw in the bow, for the principle of the new type of ice breaker is to clra-w lout the water from under the floe ahead by the suction of the bow screw, when the sheet collapses by its own weight, and a passage is forced through the broken mass by the impact of the vessel. Upon her deck she will ca*ry three trains —a- passenger train in the middle, ajid a freigh train on each side. Her speed is 13 knots, and on her trial trips she has shown herself capable k>f breaking through solid ice 38 inches thick, with five inches of hard snow on the top—such snow is much more difficult to pierce than ice—and has forced her way through two thicknesses of ice frozen together, aggregating,from 56 inches to 65 inches. Lake Baikal is .frozen from the middle of December to the end of April, and there is also talk of laying a railway across upon the ice, as is done each year from St. Petersburg1 to Kronstadt, but probably all depends upon the. success of the ice breaker this wi»*«ft