Machinery

The machinery fitted in the canaller over the period covering the various stages of its development has followed the general trends of marine engineering practice and falls into the following groups.

Early Steam Installations

The first steam-powered vessels, already referred to in the text, were fitted with simple expansion machinery.

During the 1870's the compound engine was introduced. This type of engine was much more economical and gave considerable impetus to the general introduction of steam propulsion in the canals. These engines generally exhausted into jet mixing condensers.

Triple Expansion Engines

After 1885 the compound engine gave place to the triple-expansion engine and surface condenser. This type is still in use in a majority of canallers today.

These engines are generally in the 600 to 900-ihp range operating at 60 to 80 rpm with steam pressures up to 180 psi.

The boilers are of the Scotch marine two-furnace type. They were originally all hand-fired coal-burning installations but several ships have been converted to forced draft for coal or oil burning.

The steam vessels are generally equipped with steam steering gear and deck machinery together with a steam-powered generator of low power, the electrical load being, in most cases, for lighting only.

The steam canallers were frequently fitted with a large rectangular shell port in the engine room, originally intended for shipping machinery parts and to augment the ventilation. The fact that this port is now mainly used by the engine-room crew for viewing the canal scenery has given rise to the expression, well known on the canals, of "The engine room pilot."

Several postwar vessels have been fitted with Skinner Unaflow engines of 750 ihp at 85 rpm. These ships are fitted with oil-fired Scotch boilers.

Early Diesel Vessels

In the early 1900's Diesel-powered vessels were beginning to make their appearance and the first canaller to be fitted with an oil engine was the Toiler built in 1911 by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Limited. The machinery installation was built by A. B. Diesels Motoren, Stockholm, Sweden and consisted of two 180-bhp motors driving twin screws. The engines were 2-cycle, 4-cylinder Diesels with 250 mm bore X 370 mm stroke with direct drive at 280 rpm giving a speed at deep load of 6 knots. The Toiler was the first Diesel-powered vessel to cross the Atlantic and is still in service. The Diesels were later replaced by a triple-expansion engine and the vessel converted to single screw. The ship is now known as the Mapleheath and is owned by Canada Steamship Lines (9).

The Toiler was soon followed by the Calgary from the same builders but had increased power, the engines being each of 260 bhp giving a speed of knots. These engines were 290 mm bore X 430 mm stroke with direct drive at 250 rpm, the auxiliaries being steam driven from an oil-fired donkey boiler.

The Calgary, was later reengined and converted to an oil tanker for lake service and became known as the Bacoi.

In 1912 the Fordonian was completed by the Clyde Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. for the Merchants Mutual Line of Montreal, one of the companies which later became the Canada Steamship Lines, and was fitted with one of the largest Diesels then in existence, a 750 bhp Carels-type engine.

The Carels engine was a 2-cycle open-type engine and that fitted in the Fordonian was a 4-cylinder model with a bore of 450 mm X 900 mm stroke, direct coupled to a single screw at 140 rpm, giving a speed of 13 knots, a considerable advance over the earlier ships.

The Fordonian later became the Georgian and in September 1930 was the first ship to navigate the Welland Canal. The ship was lost on Grand Island in Lake Superior in November 1932.

In 1913 a further Diesel development was introduced in the Tynemount built by Swan Hunter for the Montreal Transportation Company later absorbed by the Canada Steamship Lines. This vessel was fitted with a Diesel-electric installation of two Mirrlees Diesels each of 300 bhp at 400 rpm with one propulsion motor.

Later Diesel Vessels

Fig. 36 Diesel Bulk Canaller Grainmotor, Built in 1929

The early trend to Diesel powering was not maintained and Diesel engines were relatively few in number until the postwar period. Notable exceptions were the Grainmotor Fig. 36 and Chicago Tribune Fig. 24, of 1929 and 1930. Both were single-screw vessels, the former being fitted with a 4-stroke 8-cylinder single-acting engine and the latter with a 2-stroke 4-cylinder engine.

The Franquelin built in 1936 represented a new trend. The cruiser-stern hull was used in association with twin medium-speed Diesels and small-diameter propellers. This ship was very successful and two postwar vessels, the Col. Robert McCormick and the Joseph Medill Paterson have been built for the same owners, the Quebec and Ontario Transportation Company, using the same arrangement but with Burmeister and Wain engines.

Most of the ships built since 1946 have been fitted with Diesel machinery, both single and twin screw, various types of engines having been used.

A typical twin-screw installation is the machinery of the Frankcliffe Hall owned by the Hall Corporation, which is fitted with two Fairbanks-Morse reversing opposed-piston engines each developing 640 bhp at 720 rpm. The Iroquois of the Canada Steamship Lines has Fairbanks-Morse nonreversing type engines of the same power and Falk reverse reduction gearing and Air-Flex clutches.

Several single-screw installations have been made such as the Belvoir, D. C. Everest, and Irvingwood. Their machinery is generally similar to that of the twin-screw ships with engines developing about 1200 bhp. These vessels all have electric auxiliaries and, of course, much higher powered generators than the steam vessels.

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This paper was presented at a meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and is reproduced with permission.