Our last resort

Dad, I believe had to use it once during all those weekends that he worked on the boat. He referred to it as an "injector."

Apparently there is some difference between an "inspirator" and an "injector", but I forget the details; they both accomplish the same thing. The injector is usually the primary way to put water into a steam locomotive boiler, although some do have feedwater pumps. It often baffles folks how you can use steam pressure from a boiler to push water into the same boiler. It has to do with temperature differentiation, steam expansion, venturi effect, and velocity--and some will add "black magic." If the supply water is too warm, an injector does not like to "catch." You can tell by the sound and vibration if it's doing its thing. I have a small one just like that drawing that I found in a local scrap yard some 30 years ago. What was something like that doing in a scrap yard down here in the Central California Valley? I dunno, but I was picking a lot of small steam stuff out of that yard at the time; valves, sight glasses, lubircators, etc. Nowadays, nada.

Yeah, Frank, we've always called it a steam injector, but I was just reading off the tag on the side. In fact, I don't recall anyone ever calling it an inspirator. Yes, David, you do have to be careful not to overheat this or the other steam siphons we still use. I would describe the "black magic" as developing the right technique and practice with a piece of equipment like this. In other words, equipment this old has a "personality" beyond the objective procedures to operate it, and you have to become familiar with that personality over time. That is why we are reluctant to let a stranger, even though they possess the mechanical aptitude, to operate the main engines in a simple maneuver as turning the boat around. There is an operations manual still available for this injector (thanks to Google digital books), but that is only a foundation from which to start.
Without going into a long diatribe, there is another example of learning older equipment's "personality" that comes to my mind, and I'll quickly share. When I was on the American Queen I spent most of my time in the engine room behind the throttle. While many of the younger engineering officers were much more comfortable with the boiler room's technology, the engine room was my comfort zone. It was often my responsibility to familiarize other engineers with the "personality" of the AQ's propulsion system. One of the personality "traits" of the AQ's engines is what I would describe as being "cold-natured." In other words, when the engines are being operated from a stop, even after operating for several hours and the cylinder drains being wide open, the engineer at the throttle has to open it very gingerly. This is not easy with this system because the throttle linkage has some "sticky" points in it (which would make me long for the ease of the DQ's and Belle's throttle design).
At the end of one of my watches I was relieved by a new engineer. Our watch change also happened very near our departure time, so I decided to stay on and help this engineer get the plant ready. While everything was warming up as it should I was in the aft area of the engine checking something, the pilot gave a bell to start backing the engines at a half for departure. I looked over to the throttle stand to see this new engineer grab the throttle and give it a healthy pull to open it. When the steam hit the cylinders it gave a hammering noise that nearly sent me and the port engineer to the deck, thinking something had just exploded. I had never, nor since, heard such a violent water hammer!

Dan,
Amen to that, equipment does have its own personality, especially so steam. The nice thing though, is that if you watch & listen to it, it will usually tell you what it likes & doesn't like! My tech books are still boxed up somewhere, or I'd look up the difference between the Inspirator & the Injector. It seems to me the dual tubes is one defining feature.
It's neat reading about folks' experience running the boats. While a passenger, I spent more than the usual amount of time in the engine room (despite the "Homeland Security rules," but the chief said," It's my engine room, you can be here if I say so!"); there's something relaxing about watching the pitman arms move to & fro & the Valve cam rods walking about, and of course the smell of cylinder oil! Of course, while watching all that, one is always listening for that out-of-place sound that warns of something that's not quite right!

*Last resort/Homeland Security Rules*
Steamboating colleagues:
Great postings on this thread for sure. David, you Dan and Frank make great points. In all do respect, I must correct the thinking that has long circulated about "Homeland Security Rules" above. Many don't know--and I have one from Homeland Security in this family--that Homeland Security didn't make hard fast rules RE: the DELTA QUEEN. Homeland only gave guide lines on how, what to do for protection. Just look at what has happened since then. It fell to the owners/officers, operators of the DELTA QUEEN to institute, implement their own method for security. I recall having to present my driver license and even my U.S. Passport at the landing stage with a lot of anger over the years especially from many of we old timers who remember free access to the boat. The issue really started long before Homeland when the DQ company was faced with new guide lines from the insurance underwriters. Once easy access to visit the DQ pilothouse was curtailed long ago. People were allowed up to the pilothouse but it was a pretty hush hush thing. Again, been there and done that. This also brought a lot of hard feelings from more than a few. Betty Blake heard a lot in the office. She just said, "Look, if you want to board the boat at the proper times during turn around, then you just walk up the stage and that's it." Then people wrote to the company suggesting a kind of past passenger--or gold card--so people could board the boat wherever, whenerver they wished. For a time there was also the spectre of some passenger cabins being entered with items stolen with large visiting crowds aboard. It was a whole different story then.

Then I had to laugh when the AMERICAN QUEEN was here in town with all the big blow and show. We went aboard with minimal inspection or papers for dinner. After the boat pulled out I started my SUV only to have my wheels bumb and bang over 'something.'
I got out, looked. The crew had left a big steel landing component on the wharf. I just loaded it in my van until the AQ returned. "Ummm, I think you all left this by accident last time you were in town," I said. Eyes looked at me with shock, then over their shoulders to see who 'higher on the ladder' may be on the bow. A quick "thank you" and that was that. Well, again, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Old Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Dale,
Still chuckling about your last paragraph! Yes, what you wrote is, AFAIK, 100% correct--that's why I put "Homeland Security Rules" in quotes. Most all of those rules were created by The Company, both for insurance reasons and others. I suppose I can tell this now; on the last trip of the DQ, the calliope whistles were looking pretty ragged, so I talked to the captain and the chief and got permission to go on the roof and clean them (with the proper cleaners; I used to restore antique automobiles for a living and I still do pianos, so know better than to polish off that gold plating (although most it has already been polished off)) Any way, I finished the job and came into the pilot house to get off the roof. Well, apparently there was a change of pilots while I was out there and my appearance caused a bit of a commotion; I heard that pilot read the captain the riot act. But it was the last trip, what were they going to do to anyone? Ban me from riding?? 🙂 I made apologies to the captain though!
I also remember buying honey for the morning grits, as the boat ran out & no budget to get anymore. Actually, during that trip we began calling the dinner menus the "Menus of Not Available," as they were running out of foodstuffs! Still, it was a great trip--I think there were about only 4 or so non-repeater passengers on the whole boat!
Oh, just remembered one more "Homeland Security" story! Our first trip was also Majestic's first one, and we boarded in New Orleans. As we passed through the check-in on the dock I said, "What no detector to walk through?" One of the check-in guys said, "wait a sec" and pulled out his cell phone and ran it up and down in front of me making beeping noises, "There, satisfied now?" 🙂
One of the nice things about the DQ, is most folks soon get to know each other, saved my day once when we were ashore. We came up the stage, and I presented my boarding pass card, they swiped it, and again, then they said, "Hmm David your pass isn't registering, better take it to the purser's office." You know on those big blue water boats, I'd probably have been left ashore!
Well, I certainly have drifted the thread, didn't we start out talking about inspirators & Injectors?? 🙂

Homeland Security cover

This board goes back to 2006 I think, so you'd probably have to find it on the old board, but I wrote long ago that the DQ Company was using the Homeland Security as the excuse for not letting visitors onboard. The fact was the bigwigs didn't want the riffraff from shore (even though they were mega-bucks previous passengers) on board at stops, so they used this as their shield. During all that time I was given access here quietly without even showing ID. I would usually force them to take my passport and put it in their ID box in case some inspector would show up. While I read posting after posting complaining about not getting access, I kept silent about my situation, which was probably one reason the crew allowed me on board. Of course I also didn't call attention to myself on deck, and I never ate my way through the boat or went to the dining room for a meal, as I know some did on a regular basis. Being on board was all I wanted as I waited to run errands for various crew. At the same time visitors were allowed not only on the NATCHEZ, but in the pilothouse. As Dale said, HS put out guidelines, not absolutes, and each company could interpret them as they wished, and DQ took full advantage of this. This procedure holds true today - up to the company, not the government, regardless of what they say.

*HS Guidelines/Using as an excuse*
Steamboating colleagues:
Judy makes excellent points going back in the history of .org and her own experiences. Judy did legion work helping with this n' that when the boat was in. But in time I heard even those gestures were rebuffed by somebody, someplace with a computer on their desk calling the shots. It was so flagrantly transparent when the boat set up their so-called Homeland Security measures at the landing stage as to be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. More than once the individuals stuck with the job didn't really know the policy themselves with confusion, running back on the boat with driver licenses, U.S. Passports in hand whispering to 'somebody' supposed to know. A stamped, dated U.S. Passport up to date can get you admission to some pretty secure locations--but it was an 'issue' with the DELTA QUEEN operation. Look, we were talking the DELTA QUEEN here and not the Ark of Mt. Arat, royal yacht or a nuclear submarine. A number of us went for years not laying eyes on the DELTA QUEEN let alone goveling to be admitted aboard. Granted, there had to be some sense of security with the boat following those 'incidents' of passenger cabins being entered, items lifted by so-called visitors. But that happens even in land hotels, resorts, shopping malls etc. Nothing new. Again the insurance underwriters got in the act with all it entails. Even the big blue water ships in port have also now blocked visitors aboard on sailing days and only under the most extreme situations. As posted, the real kicker for me was when the AMERICAN QUEEN crew--and officers--left that big, heavy, vital piece of landing equipment component with me being the one to bump, bounce over it in my SUV on the dark landing here. Well, again, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Old Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati