Memories of ‘Titanic’ refreshed
by Dr. Nimal Sedera
The story of the Titanic is a
tragedy. The 882 ft. long most beautiful, strong passenger liner built
by “The White Starline” at a cost of 7.5 million dollars was owned by
American business tycoon J.P. Morgan. The ship was considered so strong
that it was called “The unsinkable” and 2,228 passengers were in the
Titanic. There were 337 in the first class, 285 in the second and 721 in
the third and a crew of 885.
In its maiden voyage from England to New York which commenced on
April 10, 1912, it collided with an iceberg on April 14 and was sunk to
the bottom of the Atlantic bringing death to 1,523 passengers. The
broken ship went as much as 2.3 miles under the sea.
 The “Titanic artifacts exhibition” displays 300 items recovered from
the Titanic.
The exhibition is housed in a space of 25,000 square feet. It is
arranged in the form of an interior of an actual passenger ship.
This arrangement makes the viewer feel that he is a passenger in the
ship. The entrance to the exhibition is exactly as a live situation of
boarding a ship. The ticket to the exhibition too is designed as the
original “Boarding Pass” which was issued to the “Titanic” passengers on
its maiden voyage.
The model rooms of the Titanic are a part of the exhibition. Such a
model of the third class passenger room is the first to be displayed.
They are very small rooms, may be about ten by ten feet with two and a
half feet width bunker beds with sleeping facilities for four people. It
is mostly the poor class of people who travelled in the third class.
It is said that many of the 721 third class passengers spent their
lifetime savings to travel on this ship. It is said the 3000 people
worked for two years on the construction of the “Titanic”. The second
category includes the recovered parts of the ship and the instruments
used in the ship. The third is the property of the ship such as the
cutlery, cups, plates, bottles and such other items.
Though they have remained for long years in sea water they still
appear new. The fourth category is the personal information recovered
from the passengers and of the crew. Such stories are stated briefly
along with their photographs. Then the fifth section consists of the
personal belongings recovered from the luggage from the seabed.
The “Titanic” tragedy resulted in many reforms being introduced for
the protection that take the route the Titanic sailed. These new
precautions ensured that between the Titanic disaster and now that no
such incident took place. |
