These Rare Titanic Photos Will Give You Goosebumps

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These Rare Titanic Photos Will Give You Goosebumps

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November 16, 2021
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She Was Called ‘Titanic’ for a Reason

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The RMS Titanic was the biggest passenger vessel in the world when it was unveiled in 1912. At 882 feet in length, 175 feet in height, and 46,328 tons in weight, there was simply nothing like it. The ship’s massive size added to its almost mythological aura, and made the ship’s sinking even more shocking.

It Could Have Been Even Worse

[object Object] The sinking of the Titanic was one of the greatest tragedies in modern history, with only 710 survivors out of the 2,224 on board. While the loss of life was widely mourned, and has gone down in history, the tragedy could have actually been much greater. However, as Titanic was well under capacity for her maiden voyage: Her maximum capacity was actually 3,327.

Third Class Died First

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Many of the passengers on the ship were third-class families, looking to start new lives in America. These passengers’ quarters were towards the bottom of the ship, and were among the first to be flooded. There were gates in the stairwells that were locked to keep third class separate from the others. Because the stewards didn’t have time to open all of the gates amidst the chaos, many of these passengers became trapped below decks and drowned.

Ticket Prices Were Unthinkably High

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As a luxury passenger vessel, the ticket price for Titanic was high. First-class tickets ranged from $30 to $4,350 ($775 to $112,000 today). Second-class tickets cost between $12 and $60 ($300-$1,500 today), and third-class tickets were between $8 and $40 ($200-$1,100 today). Even when taking inflation into account, those are some pricey tickets.

The Disaster Was Predicted

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Fourteen years before Titanic’s maiden voyage, author Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility, which was about the largest ship in the world meeting disaster. The ship in the fictional story was called the Titan. Its measurements were nearly identical to Titanic, as were the speeds they were going when they met disaster. Also, both struck an iceberg on the starboard side. They also both sank in April, at the exact same location, with as few lifeboats as the law allowed. Though people credited him with clairvoyance, Robertson claimed that he simply had an extensive knowledge of ships and sailing.

RMS Stands for Something You Wouldn’t Expect

At the time of Titanic’s voyage, all British ships carried the letters RMS, which stood for Royal Mail Ship. The term dates back to 1840, when only the fastest and most reliable ships were contracted by the British government to carry mail. The RMS prefix came to be known as a sign of distinction and quality.

The Crew Was Dutiful to a Fault

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There were 908 crew members on board Titanic. A higher percentage of the crew members died than any group aside from second- and third-class men. Many of them were lost as the boiler rooms flooded in the initial impact; others were killed trying to save passengers from below decks. All five postmen died trying to save the mail they had been charged to protect.

Many of the Men Knew They Would Not Survive

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Many More Almost Went Down

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The Ship Ran on Coal Fuel

Titanic needed over 600 tons of coal per day to keep the enormous engines powered, so it left Southampton with over 6,000 tons of coal. That coal was shoveled into large boilers that had three furnaces. The employees, called firemen, shoveled coal into the furnaces in extremely hot and dirty conditions. Many of these men were among the first to die, as the rooms they worked in flooded and watertight doors automatically sealed in an attempt to keep the rest of the ship from flooding.

Titanic Had Four Stacks

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Titanic had four large funnels, also known as stacks. The engines of the ship ventilated the smoke through these funnels. Three of them worked as smoke stacks, and one as an air vent. When the boiler rooms began to take on water, there was a huge worry that the cold seawater hitting the warm steam stored in the funnels would cause them to explode. In an attempt to prevent this, the firemen and engineers had to quickly vent as much steam as possible from the stacks.

Many of the Crew Weren’t Sailors

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Waiters, waitresses, and maids were called stewards on Titanic. Out of the 421 stewards on the ship, only 60 survived, and 48 of them were women. Pictured above is steward Thomas Whiteley, whose leg was broken by a piece of falling debris as he boarded a lifeboat. Another stewardess, Violet Jessop, had been on Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic, when she collided with a British warship the year before. She survived that, the Titanic disaster, and the sinking of their other sister ship, the Britannic, four years later. She became known as “Miss Unsinkable.”

The Mysterious Cancelled Lifeboat Drill

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A lifeboat drill was scheduled for the morning of April 14, the day the Titanic struck the iceberg. For unknown reasons, the drill was cancelled by Captain Smith. While it’s unlikely that many more lives would have been saved had the drill happened, its cancellation still feels like an ominous coincidence.