The round black circle in the center of the room is the bottom of the turret that goes all the way up to the gun areas above main deck.
All five Handling Rooms have
---2 shell hoists (blue circle)
---1 powder hoist (red circle).
| Handling Room |
| Handling Room where 14inch shells and powder bags
are brought into for sending up to the gun. The round black circle in the center of the room is the bottom of the turret that goes all the way up to the gun areas above main deck. All five Handling Rooms have ---2 shell hoists (blue circle) ---1 powder hoist (red circle). |
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| SHELL HANDLING |
Moving shells from the Shell Magazines to the shell hoist in the Handling Room was done with an overhead system of I-beams on which a 4-wheeled dolly would traverse connected to a shell. TEXAS was unique in the shells were moved by attaching to the base of the shell Photo courtesy of Tom Scott - shell in a magazine ready for moving into the Handling Room along the overhead i-beam. Around the circumference of the turret are curved I-beams. When shells are being moved, the flow is always in a clockwise directions. With all the activity going on, a set flow pattern was needed. Accidents did happen and the results are still in the Handling Rooms today. While walking on the decks, you will feel some deep impressions in the deck from a shell crashing onto the deck. A section of "Hull 147 - Arrangement of Shell Trolley Tracks in 14inch Handling Rooms and Shell Rooms, for Turrets I, II, III, IV, & V", C&R20741, 21 June 1912.  |
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| POWDER BAG HANDLING |
| Powder bags are brought from the powder magazines (and sometimes back out of)
into the Handling Room
through the bulkhead Powder Scuttle. On TEXAS, the scuttle was a brass rotating
drum, which are the original 1914 items. During WWII gunfire sometimes became so
intense that to supply enough powder bags, the bulkhead doors were opened and
bags carried into the Handling Room. Replicas made in 2000 by volunteers Ed and Alita Morrison. RIP Ed. |
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| Powder Scuttle |
| A sailor in a powder magazine places one bag into the scuttle. When the bag is in the scuttle, the sailor would turn the round knob near the upper right scuttle to signal the sailors on the other side a bag is ready to be brought in. |
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When the bag is ready to be brought in, a sailor inside the Handling Room rotates downward the handle on the right side of the scuttle. The brass drum is rotated and brings the powder bag in to the Handling Room. Other sailors would take the bag to the powder hoist. |
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| Powder Hoist |
| Powder Hoist was in continuous motion with a bag placed into the hoist and carried up to the Powder Flat If a bag had a tear, it was immersed in a water tank in the Handling Room. |
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