Here was the first post in this series. The photo below I took last week after the newly painted engine room deck had dried. At that point, I could have eaten off that “floor,” you know . . . a sandwich, a slice of pizza, although I would have used a plate so that the slice wouldn’t get the floor dirty. At this point, we are forward of the engine, looking down the port side.
Here’s a photo I took five years ago, same side of the engine. Chris . . . the 6′ engineer shows scale . . .
The next several photos show the starboard side of the engine. The camera was nearly on the deck. Upper left side of the photo shows the red grates of the engineer’s station and the chain attaching the controls to the engine.
This is almost the same shot taken with camera about three feet from the deck.
Here’s starboard side of the engine looking forward, and
ditto . .. taken at level with the catwalk the engineer walks on to manually lubricate the moving engine while under way.
This is looking forward from “behind” the flywheel.
The photo below shows the engine room controls to the engine. Click on the photo to hear and see the Atlas Imperial running. The sound here differs from the clip embedded in the following photo because here the generator is off.
The shot below shows the upper engine controls, just forward of the seat where the engineer sits. Click on the photo for a video of the engineer executing engine commands as the captain communicates them via bell and jingle. In the video–yes, I invert the camera after a few seconds–the constant roar in the Kohler engine/generator/compressor. The video starts with an air-start. At the 10-second mark, the bell commands the engineer to stop the engine. At the 18-second mark, the bell commands him to restart the engine in the opposite direction. The captain was doing a three-point turn in a narrow portion of the canal during this time.
Even though the post is called “internal” Urger, here’s a show from outside the wheelhouse. Click on it to see and hear the Atlas Imperial running; again, in this clip the generator is off. The video was done fairly early in the morning and shooting into the sun.
All photos and video by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to get better video of the AI once back on the boat.
tugster: a waterblog 
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August 30, 2014 at 11:46 am
William Lafferty
The Urger’s original power as the fish tug H. J. Dornbos was a high pressure single cylinder steam engine, very typical for the day (1901), 16″ x 16,” built by the Montague Iron Works at Montague, Michigan. The boiler was a fire box boiler, 6′ x 12,’ built by the vessel’s builder, Johnston Brothers of Ferrysburg, Michigan. This was all replaced in 1948 by the present plant as shown, a war surplus Atlas Imperial 6HM1558, six cylinders, 11.5″ x 15,” rated at a whopping 320-bhp at 325 rpm and weighing a mere nineteen tons.
August 30, 2014 at 3:59 pm
starbuck5250
Love, love, love these! Thank you so much for sharing, and thanks to the crew for their generosity!