The City of Paris Disaster.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6237, 9 June 1890, Page 3

The City of Paris Disaster.

WRECK OF A HUGE ENGINE.

(From the Engineer)

The accident to the Inman and International Company’s Steamship City o£ Paris is entirely without a parallel in the history of steam navigation. Thanks to the courtesy of the Company we are enabled to place before our readers a statement of the facts. The City of Paris is propelled by twin screws, each weighing about 40 tons and driven by triple expansion engines of about 9000 indicated horse-power. The engines are housed in separate rooms, with water-tight bulk head between. The cylinders in each case are 45in., 74in , and llGin. diameters, with sft. stroke ; and (he engines made about 85 revolutions per minute. Each cylinder was supported on two A frames of cast steel, weighing about 12 tons. At half-past nine on the evening of the 25th April, the City of Paris was about 216 miles from the coast of Ireland, running at full speed. There were in each engineroom at the time three men, one on each platform. The man on the top platform of the starboard engines felt the tail-rod of the low pressure engine and went forward. Ho had not gone five steps when the whole low pressure engine fell to pieces. In a few seconds, this great engine, standing about 45ft high, was a heap of scrap. Wo examined the engine-room carefully before anything had been removed, and the result was to show that everything that could be broken had been broken, and what could not be broken was bent, or twisted, or distorted. The intermediate and high pressure engines alongside are quite intact to all appearance, and so far as wo cou’d see there was nothing to prevent these engines working. The low pressure cylinder was cast in one piece, with its four valve boxes, the weight of the rough easting being about 45 tons. This cylinder is in fragments. Going out to the end of the what remains of the tottering upper platform we bad before us a great chasm, and at the bottom of the chasm an enormous heap of scrap iron. Nothing so complete in the way of a breakdown has ever before been seen. It is difficult in the face of such total desi ruction to form any theory as to what gave way first. Descending to the crank platform, and crawling under and climbing over the heap of fragments, we find some curious things. The top cylinder cover seems to be at the bottom of everything. The A frames were broken off short at the bedplate. The connecting rod is still coupled to the crank-pin ; the big end" intact, but the rod, about 14 inches in diameter in the middle, is bent. The piston rod and .crosshead are still coupled to the connecting rod and lie folded back. The tail-rod, 7 inches in diameter, is bent like a bit of wire nearly in a semicircle. One side of the condenser has been torn out, the tubes are all displaced, and a good many of them flattened until they are not thicker than the blade of a table knife. The air pump levers are literady rolled up like bits of ribbon. On the side of a part of the cylinder is a great crack but the material still holds together in a way to demonstrate toughness in no ordinary degree. We are puzzled to imagine how it has been possible that material so excellent sh uld have been so completely destroyed. There is not a broken bolt or bar that does not show that it has only given way as the result of the utmost violence. But the ruin is not confined to the engine room. The screw shaft, 21 inches in diameter, and over 103 feet long, has been ripped up out of all its bearings from one end to the other, and then dropped back again. All the cap-bolts are smashed and a great rent is torn in the bulk-head where the shaft pa-ses through it. As to the precise nature of the injuries inflicted on the ship by the ruin of the engine the wildest statements have been made by persons who have written in absolute ignorance of what really took placo. One sober journal told its readers that a large portion of the cylinder had gone clean through the bottom of the ship. In point of fact nothing went through the ship. What let the water in was the smashing of the condenser. This was supplied by pumps drawing water through a pipe 2 feet in diameter, and when pumps and condenser were wrecked the water of course poured in like a cataract through the broken pipe. Then the tail rod of the ruined engine'was driven through the bulk head of the next engine room, and the ripping up of the shaft made a hole in the bulkhead on the screw alley, so that the water filled both engine rooms, but not a drop got into the boiler room. At the time of the accident there were three men in the engine room, and those on the lower platform had miraculous escapes. When the cover of the out-length of shafting was removed in tho dry dock it was found that the starboard shaft was broken, and the propeller dropped into the the dock. This gives a clue to the cause of the disaster; the most puzzling thing being the smashing of all the shaft bearings. Liverpool experts say that the outermost bearing of the propeller burst, and let down the shaft a little, when it soon wore its way further doyvn. This caused a continual bending of the shaft, first ripping up the bearings, and ending by breaking the shaft 5 then the engines “ raced," and led to the ruin of the low pressure engine. The Engineer preferred to wait till the wreckage was cleared up a little before accepting that or any other theory.

The Engineer gives two engravings of tho wreckage as seen from above, which bear out tho writer’s discreption. Readers have only to imagine a huge piston and connecting rod of the sizes given, flying about at large as long as (ho high and intermediate pressure cylinders continued to work, to understand that there would be some surprising effects produced.