Kids on the Belle, 110 years after it was first launched.

The first experience of the Belle for many people is as a child, on a field trip.

We love bringing school groups aboard every spring, and watching them look around in wonder. It’s some of their first experience on a boat, and for some, it’s the closest they’ve ever been to the river that they’ve only seen from a distance.

Every single time we welcome kids onboard, we can guarantee that we’ll hear references to another famous steamer: the R.M.S. Titanic. With that in mind, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about what these two boats have in common… and maybe more importantly, what they don’t have in common! 

A Common Era

The Idlewild and the Titanic were built within two years of each other. The Titanic was completed, famously, in 1912. The Idlewild launched in 1914. We could therefore say that one of the big things that the Belle and the Titanic have in common with each other is time period. In the 1910s, water was still one of the primary and fastest modes of transportation, whether it was for travel or to move cargo… and often, both. 

While steam travel on the river system in America was mostly outdated by the 1920s, steamships were a common way to travel across the oceans until World War II. One key difference is the kind of transportation both were replaced with: riverboats were largely replaced by the interstate system, and steamships were made obsolete by air travel. 

The Biggest Similarity: Technology

Both boats operated by steam. This means that they had boiler rooms fueled by coal. Each vessel had someone constantly adjusting the levels of coal and steam pressure in the boiler room. Of course, the Belle only has one boiler room, while the Titanic had six. Where the Belle only has one fireman (at least in the modern day!) the Titanic had over 160.

The Titanic at Southampton.

On both boats, this steam powers an engine. It would travel from the boiler room to the engine via cylinders on each boat, but that is where the similarities end. For the Belle, this steam propels a paddlewheel, whereas for the Titanic, the steam would have gone directly toward multiple propellers. 

Similarities in Navigation 

The way both boats navigated their respective waterways is always interesting, as they lacked the most modern technology we have now, like GPS systems. (Fun fact: the Belle now has both GPS and Wi-Fi… it’s really startling to realize that!) 

The Titanic’s navigation system was on a much larger scale, like everything else on the boat. In order for the engine room, boiler room, and navigation deck to all communicate with each other, the boat used a telegraph system, much like the Belle has since the middle of the 20th century. However, in 1914, the Idlewild did not use this same technology… our boat actually relied on a bell system in the beginning, which you can still see in our boiler room and pilot house. So, is this a difference or a similarity? That’s up for you to decide! 

Jobs on the Boats

The jobs on both boats were similar: the Captain is ultimately in charge of the boat. The Engineers were in charge of the engines. The Firemen were in charge of the boiler. Obviously, the Idlewild/Belle crew is much more scaled down, and there were lots of jobs in between on the Titanic. Whereas the Captain would rely on a pilot to be a lookout on the Belle, the Titanic had crew whose main job was to look out for icebergs. 

The Belle’s wheel, with the telegraph in the middle. To the far left, you can see the bell which was originally used to communicate with lower decks.

More Differences than Similarities? 

The biggest steamship of its time versus the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat in the world. Although it might seem like they have nothing in common, there are some key similarities! 

Perhaps the most striking similarity for both boats is the way each transports us back to a different time, an era that is not entirely forgotten thanks to research and preservation!