History of the SS Great Eastern

[@V-oe9zr]

She’s still there, stuck in the mud in New Ferry. Waiting for someone to fund a rescue, but only the base of the hull remains

[@paulagee7640]

Thank you so much for this Posting! It’s a fascinating story of an amazing ship and it’s designer & engineer! Brunel was a true genius! A man ahead of his time. Just imagine if the designers of the Titanic had taken a leaf out of Brunel’s.

[@doolar]

Thank you! People like you make KZbin great.

[@ing4trainz]

You're very welcome!

[@samanli-tw3id]

Too bad they didn’t preserve her as a museum ship. She was more innovative than Titanic.

[@whitecompany18]

Great vid buddy 👍 iv got a few bits of the ship in my bedroom , two small planks of wood as shelves and ive got a few rivets . The ship was broken up outside my house on shorefields New ferry . At low tide you can go down and still see a few huge sheets of metal with rivets in them. Some of the wood from the ship went into making the pub the great Eastern on the corner of shorefields and new ferry road but was sadly illegally demolished a decade ago. My mate Wayne was the last owner and that's how I got hold of my planks from the old bar. One day I plan to make a knife from the rivets I have and using a small piece of the wood for the scales on the handle .

[@ing4trainz]

Brunel's masterpiece lives on!

[@adrianace1725]

Hi mate. Just been reading your reply to this video and wondered if you would consider selling a piece of the ship? I would be more than willing to pay a decent price to obtain something from the great ship. How easy is it to find sheets of metal with rivets in them at low tide? Never been to Rockferry but next time I'm visiting Liverpool I want to pay it a visit. Is it safe to walk on the shore at low tide? I would love to know more.

[@whitecompany18]

Hello mate sorry for very late reply , if I can get out to it again on a low tide I'm after a couple more bits ,rivets and such , if and when I can I'd be happy to give you a piece , if I can I will contact you here then sort out an email to forward it to you. 👍

[@whitecompany18]

Hello again mate , right now on Facebook "items for sale and wanted wirral" there are several massive beams from the ship for sale £50

[@CrazyPetez]

I enjoyed your video immensely. My first exposure to the Great Eastern was from the book, The GREAT IRON SHIP, by James Dugan. I received the book at Christmas, 1956, have read it several times, and still have it.

[@ing4trainz]

I think the Great Eastern demonstrated Brunel's genius as it had so many innovations which were only incorporated into shipping many decades later. As with a number of his projects, the commercial pressures meant they could not be fully implemented in their day. Definitely the 'little giant' of engineers!

[@darlac10155]

My Great Great Grand Uncle Captain Clooney as a young man was employed on the SS Great Eastern . He later had his own Ship building Company in which he built Ships to serve the Gulf & Atlantic Ocean . Many years later he was presented with a piece of the Cable as a Souvenir which he Cherished the rest of his Life . He has an Island & a Street named in his Honor in Cajun Country ~

[@ing4trainz]

Wow! It's often forgotten that it was the Great Eastern that laid the first successful trans-Atlantic cable after the first one had burnt out within a few days due to a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the electric current. And of course, having laid one cable, the ship then went back, found the earlier broken one, spliced a repair and took that to Canada as well. Brunel would have been proud, and rightly so.

[@PeterWTaylor]

Fascinating presentation with great photos. Thanks.

[@redfire20003]

I can hear bacon frying in the background.

[@ing4trainz]

If only! I think it may be noise outside my window :-)

[@bradwalton3977]

Great historical account of the Great Eastern. Thanks!

[@ing4trainz]

You're very welcome. A truly great ship and one that deserved a better fate, and to be remembered for its final career as a cable layer. Ironic that 95% internet traffic goes by (modern) marine cables, their direct successors - Brunel would have loved that!

[@osirisandilio]

Something tells me that this was suggested to me because I watched a documentary on the Great Britain last night. Glad I watched them both. Brunel was awesome and so were his ships

[@ing4trainz]

Yes, he was a brilliant and innovative engineer.

[@bar10ml44]

Excellent thoroughly enjoyed this and many thanks for such hard work putting this together

[@steveknight878]

One innovation that the Great Eastern have, which I have not seen mentioned here or in any other web source, is that the Great Saloon (I'm pretty sure that is was this saloon, but it may have been another) was mounted on gimbals so that as the ship rolled from side to side, the saloon would stay steady. Unfortunately the gimbal mechanism seized with the saloon canted to one side. There was some good information in the London Illustrated News about this ship, with plans and cutaway drawings, at the time it was built. Brunel has always been one of me heroes - along with Darwin, Feynman and one or two others.

[@ing4trainz]

I seem to recall there was an experimental cross-Channel steamer in the later 19th C that tried the same thing. I'm not sure the Grand Saloon was fitted like this, but IKB did take the steam exhaust pipes up through it to provide heating. They were behind the large mirrors in the centre of the saloon. And I could well be wrong about the gimbals!

[@steveknight878]

@@ing4trainz It may have been a different saloon - my memory was that it was a first class saloon, but I con't remember more detail than that. I was researching the GE for a history project in about 1965.

[@ing4trainz]

Hi, the one on the Great Eastern was certainly first class. I have a picture in a book (somewhere!) showing everyone being thrown about in it while in mid-Atlantic :-)

[@jamesbuchanan9749]

My cousins, the Robinson brothers brought William Fairbairns Millwall yard c1847. Fairbairn had been trying to leave Millwall for sometime, as the losses accumulated there, used up all the profit he made in Manchester. John Scott Russell joined the Robinsons at Millwall, where they had prosecuted an employee for theft. In 1853, 1854 and 1856 there were three devastating games fires that are described in Grace’s Guide - John Scott Russell and Co.

[@kurtwagner350]

It’s such a beautiful ship that I’ve just recently commissioned a painting of it

[@simmo858]

Very detailed indeed. Good video. Fascinating ship and its story. Just a slight detail, it was the RMS Oceanic (1899) that surpassed the size of the GE for the first time, and not the Lusitania.

[@ing4trainz]

Fair enough. I find it still impressive that a mid-19th C steamship remained the biggest for well over 40 years, quite a tribute to IKB in an era of constant innovation, development and enlargement.

[@simmo858]

@@ing4trainz couldn't agree more

[@carlosiiideespana3712]

simmo858 True, but, not to be nitpicky, but you are both wrong. Ships are measured by size in gross tonnage. While Oceanic was longer than GE, she was not bigger. The first ship to be bigger was the Celtic in 1901.

[@simmo858]

@@carlosiiideespana3712 you can nitpick all you want when you are correct and corrected I stand, sir.

[@carlosiiideespana3712]

simmo858 Haha, well, we can always learn!

[@john24109]

This was fantastic, subscribed immediately

[@will8026]

.....in fact t was the White Star liner OCEANIC of 1900 which was the first ship to exceed the GREAT EASTERN in length and well as size in general

[@ing4trainz]

Fair enough. Still quite a few years with the Big Ship as the world's biggest though :-)

[@rolfjohansen5376]

I first pushed the like button before listening because I felt this would become a good story and I was right

[@hauk65000]

Editor: when the ship had such a serious number of dramatic mishaps and accidents, could the reason be that the captains, officers and crew simply lacked competence and knowledge of such a large and advanced ship at this time ..? What is your opinion? A question is also: what was it in the construction that made the Great Eastern roll so much?

[@doomguydude]

Thanks for sharing such a awesome video.

[@ing4trainz]

You're welcome, she was a great ship.

[@anormalcommentor9452]

I keep hearing this "sister ship" being mentioned. What was it's name (if known) and was it just cancelled since they nearly went bankrupt building the SS GE?

[@ing4trainz]

Brunel's original scheme was for a virtually non-stop service to Australia operated by a pair of giant ships, each of which would carry their own small ships for transfer to the shore where harbours were too small to accommodate them. Yes, building the Great Eastern (hence the name btw) virtually bankrupted the Great Ship Co., so plans for the second one never got beyond the drawing board. Unfortunately, the cost also prevented the lighters from being built which meant transferring passengers ashore at any port apart from Liverpool and New York fell into the hands of local shipping companies. Also, of course, Brunel never planned for the ship(s) to be used on the Trans-Atlantic run, instead conceiving them as reaching halfway round the world. I think the scheme was extraordinary and far-sighted, but completely undermined by very short-sighted business interests. Nevertheless, despite all her misfortunes, Great Eastern was exactly the right ship in the right place at the right time to create the backbone of the Victorian internet: the cable telegraph network. It's worth noting that despite all the satellites and microwave transmissions, the overwhelming majority of modern internet traffic is still carried by undersea cables pioneered during Gooch's lifetime and initially laid almost exclusively by the Great Eastern. It's a tragedy that she was broken up, but she remains a remarkable example of IKB's genius!

[@WaverleyWanderer]

excellent video

[@ing4trainz]

Thanks!

[@dataphool]

No question; she was Brunel's crowning achievement. A cap for a career starting with the tunnel under the Thames, through several railroads, culminating with three great steamships. The scoffers and second guessers who laughed at Brunel unfortunately cannot be appropriately shamed by history's judgement.

[@ing4trainz]

I agree! She was way ahead of her time and set a standard that was not achieved again for at least fifty years.

[@carlosiiideespana3712]

I wonder if the Great Eastern Steam Navigation Company had raised enough funds, how the career of the Great Eastern could have drastically changed. She could have been on the Australia run with a possible sister for god-knows how many years. If she survived long enough she could have been preserved. If only...

[@camau79]

what about the ghosts and the curse

[@ing4trainz]

Well, legend has it that when they were breaking her up they found a skeleton between the inner and outer hulls - allegedly a riveter got sealed in by mistake. I know life was cheap back then but it seems a bit unlikely. I think the only curse was that the owners used it for the wrong traffic. It was intended for the Australia run but they used it on the Atlantic voyages and it couldn't compete with smaller ships.

[@benlahrman4149]

Could the Great Western Railway have built or purchased raillines in Britiain's colonies? such as Canada and Australia? and Built 7ft gauge lines? P. S I work for Norfolk Southern Railway in America. Practical Railway experience.

[@ing4trainz]

Individual directors and shareholders might have invested in companies elsewhere but the GWR itself never had sufficient disposable capital to do so. Also, they were keen to keep the share dividends relatively high, even during the lean years of the 1870s-1880s. I am not sure of the patent situation, perhaps they could have licensed the 7ft to others. Finally, despite rapid development and possible heavy freight in the colonies, there weren't the same traffic possibilities as southern England in the 19th C.

[@benlahrman4149]

@@ing4trainz So how come India uses 5ft 6inch and Ireland uses 5ft 3inch? No reason to promote rolling stock interchange? or perhaps how come Russia uses 5ft and not 5ft 6inch gauge?

[@ing4trainz]

Much depended on arbitrary decisions. Ireland's standard gauge, for example, was fixed by a government committee and suited none of the companies, most had to regauge. Not sure about India but I suspect the Colonial Office. Tsarist Russia's gauge was deliberately chosen in the 19th C to be incompatible with bordering European states, especially Imperial Germany, so that invaders would have problems at the border. Also, while track gauge varies, those using 'standard gauge' have different loading gauges i.e. compare that of the UK with Europe and the US. btw rolling stock manufacturers were and are prepared to build to any gauge ...

[@benlahrman4149]

@@ing4trainz True take a Norfolk Southern 89FT auto rake car compared with a BR 10ton Goods Van..... yes in America we have a large loading gauge a Amtrak Superliner car is 16ft tall.

[@jimtalbott9535]

SS Great Eastern - Laying the foundations of the modern internet. (no really).

[@ing4trainz]

I read somewhere that 95% of the internet is carried by submarine cables rather than satellites etc. Great Eastern was certainly the pioneer ship laying the first generation now, of course, replaced many times.

[@Halfstar3]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@JayVolatileOfficial]

Awesome video!!!

[@ing4trainz]

Thanks!

[@TheHangingWood]

Great vid! My favourite ship ever. I live not far from where it was built, part of the supports are still in tact. well worth a visit. However you do realise you've stolen one of the vids I planned to make for my channel.... LOL

[@ing4trainz]

When I made a virtual model of her for Trainz railsim I just had to do her story as well. Such a great ship and such a sad end.

[@alexiusvanderchaos7433]

Awe.. Awesome... Wonderful... Only british could have built such a masterpiece... Uhu uhu uhu. Hey you supereffingcleversmartest tell me ONE thing pls... 8:56 wtf is prop shaft for?

[@ing4trainz]

The SS Great Eastern was powered by twin engines for the paddle wheels and a third engine for a convenional propeller at the rear. All three would be used in normal sailing. The sails themselves could also be used but their main purpose was to limit the ship rolling from side to side from the actions of the paddlewheels. Otherwise they produced a rather snake-like movement through the sea. The ship was very manouverable. Once the propeller was stopped and the paddle wheels put into opposite direction it could turn on the spot. A brilliant design which was both contemporary for the period and yet so far ahead of everything else afloat for the next 50 years - and the biggest by far! IKB was a genius.

[@vegasspaceprogram6623]

Fun fact: upon breaking up they found two mummified body's of child riveters trapped between the two hulls.....

[@ing4trainz]

I think that was more fun than fact.

[@vegasspaceprogram6623]

@@ing4trainz 😂

[@guardogh9634]

Fell asleep after 5 minutes, fantastic subject, boring voice!

[@ing4trainz]

So reassuring to know my voice is a brilliant cure for insomnia. Thanks!

[@guardogh9634]

Your welcome

[@netradeepvaidya6440]

Came here from the book based on Bermuda triangle ❤

[@ing4trainz]

Whatever it takes! Unfortunately the Great Eastern was definitely broken up in Liverpool.It would have been brilliant if it had mysteriously disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, maybe to reappear one day. It reminds me of the story of the locomotive 'lost in the bog' in Donegal, NW Ireland just waiting to be dug out. Again, a shame, I have photos showing it being cut up by the scrappers. Nice thought though.....

[@amascia8327]

👍🏼