Engine Room(s) on the TOS Enterprise (revisited)

[Mres_was_framed!]

I like the idea of one Season 1 Engine Control Room in the saucer.

The season 2-3 engine room is the one that should be in the saucer, precisely because the dilithium crystal access on the floor would be part of a power relay tie-in between the two hulls. More significantly, in at least two episodes, the Season 1 engine room is specifically referred to as being in the "lower levels" (presumably in the secondary hull), whereas the Season 2-3 version of the set is just called "Engineering," and based on Day of the Dove, is probably on Deck 7.

I'm okay with one Main Engineering Room in the Engineering Hull. It's purpose is to control the warp engines;

In Day of the Dove, a diagram of the Enterprise is shown with red, green and yellow areas. The main areas of the ship are red, the nacelles and struts are yellow, and outer areas are green. I'm assuming that green areas are the parts of the ship that are sealed off; many are low in the ship or along edges that may be crew quarters on Deck 6. Red areas could support engineering in the saucer. The could also support engineering in the secondary hull. I don't know how to add an image here, but I'm sure someone will oblige

I also think the big red-lined, yellow circle on the bottom of hull should be significant.

That was never seen clearly in TOS, because it is the location of the model mount. It is really only more obvious on TOS-R due to the virtual camera angles used. I'm not sure if the model had this feature until it was hung in the Smithsonian, which has since been changed to a stand again.

 

[Henoch]

Excellent, Mytran. You're 10 times better at this than me. It took me days to go through the older threads. The M5 forward room is new to me. Thanks.

This really fills up the hulls. I like that the high bay rooms like gym/theater should be on the engine room level in the saucer (on the life support side). At last count, you have 6 control rooms:

• Saucer Impulse Control
• Saucer Environmental (life support/waste recycling) Control
• Saucer Sensor (secondary deflector) Control
• Secondary Hull Warp Engine/M/AM Reactor Control x 2
• Secondary Hull Deflector/M/AM Reactor Control

I like the idea that the space around the three control rooms can be used as Engineering Department Offices, support equipment and maintenance shops. Maybe even some bunk rooms for engineering crewmen.

I've been thinking about taking the studio set "out one more degree". For example, extending corridors sideways at the "A" frames; we see people walking around these corners. I'm adding four foot wide corridors and see where they might connect. Another degree is per the discussions above, adding the "forth" wall to the sets like the EMM in the engine room and a big wall opening for the big GNDN transformers. Also, got to connect the EMM access ladder to a corridor per Mirror, Mirror set. Very Robert Comsol.

 

[Henoch]

That was never seen clearly in TOS, because it is the location of the model mount. It is really only more obvious on TOS-R due to the virtual camera angles used. I'm not sure if the model had this feature until it was hung in the Smithsonian, which has since been changed to a stand again.

The features on the bottom of the secondary hull were on the filming model during TOS. Matt Jeffries said "someone" added them after he turned over the model to the production staff.

In Day of the Dove, a diagram of the Enterprise is shown with red, green and yellow areas. The main areas of the ship are red, the nacelles and struts are yellow, and outer areas are green. I'm assuming that green areas are the parts of the ship that are sealed off; many are low in the ship or along edges that may be crew quarters on Deck 6. Red areas could support engineering in the saucer. The could also support engineering in the secondary hull.

Green is Blue, below.

I noticed you just joined before me. We're both newbies together. Adding photos from other sites is easy. Find a picture on some other site (not from your computer files), right click to "copy image address". Then in your reply text where you want to place the photo, hit the little image icon next to the smiley face above your text box, and "paste the copied image address" into the fillable slot that pops up, then hit "insert". Done. If you want to try one here in this thread as an experiment, please do and we'll help you if it don't work out on your first try. No teasing, no pressure, only honest help.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I noticed you just joined before me. We're both newbies together. Adding photos from other sites is easy. Find a picture on some other site (not from your computer files), right click to "copy image address". Then in your reply text where you want to place the photo, hit the little image icon next to the smiley face above your text box, and "paste the copied image address" into the fillable slot that pops up, then hit "insert". Done. If you want to try one here in this thread as an experiment, please do and we'll help you if it don't work out on your first try. No teasing, no pressure, only honest help.

Is the hotlinking thing that we are not supposed to do? I know sites like Ex Astris Scientia want you to give them credit for an image if you repost, but let's face it, anybody trying to prove a point on here would give credit to the image creator if they could anyway to support their position

 

[Henoch]

Is the hotlinking thing that we are not supposed to do? I know sites like Ex Astris Scientia want you to give them credit for an image if you repost, but let's face it, anybody trying to prove a point on here would give credit to the image creator if they could anyway to support their position

I don't post on Ex Astris... Using Star Trek Series photos and images for entertainment purposes and not for profit is okay. Artwork you make yourself is okay. If I "borrow" artwork, I usually say who did it, but that is very rare. If the artwork exists on this site, I just link to the post #.

 

[blssdwlf]

@Mytran - WOW, 9 years!

 

[Henoch]

@Mytran - WOW, 9 years!

I loved your 2010+ work on 3D modeling the impulse systems, warp engines, engineering spaces and shuttlebay on the TOS Enterprise. I think you ended up with 3 Engine Rooms, 2 in saucer and 1 in engineering hull. Loved your wireframe constructs overlaid on Trek photos. It was crazy, man! Thanks.
I'm so happy that TrekBBS doesn't delete old posts.

 

[Mytran]

@Mres_was_framed! and @Henoch - hotlinking is strictly banned on TrekBSS, but if you move any images you want to your own image hosting account (such as Imgur, Flickr etc) then you can use those copies on here without a problem.

Excellent, Mytran. You're 10 times better at this than me. It took me days to go through the older threads. The M5 forward room is new to me. Thanks.

That's just a bit of speculation on my part, mainly because I like to include the corridor types exactly as seen "on screen" and fitting a 51' radius circular corridor into the secondary hull of even a 1,080' long Enterprise is damn near impossible!

The season 2-3 engine room is the one that should be in the saucer, precisely because the dilithium crystal access on the floor would be part of a power relay tie-in between the two hulls. More significantly, in at least two episodes, the Season 1 engine room is specifically referred to as being in the "lower levels" (presumably in the secondary hull), whereas the Season 2-3 version of the set is just called "Engineering," and based on Day of the Dove, is probably on Deck 7.

The Season One Engine Room also features a long stretch of curved corridor (although depending on how literally you interpret what's on screen that might not be a problem). The reference to the Engine Room's location is only in The Enemy Within and is as follows:

SPOCK: Apparently, this double, however different in temperament, has your knowledge of the ship, its crew, its devices. This being the case, perhaps we can outguess him by determining his next move. Knowing how the ship is laid out, where would you go to elude a mass search?
KIRK: The lower levels. The Engineering deck.

Kirk might be saying that the Engineering Deck is on the lower levels, but he might also be saying (as far as his foggy brain can manage) that there are two places he might hide - the lower levels AND the Engineering Deck.

In addition, Court Martial puts the room on "B" Deck, further muddying the waters! Fortunately Robert_Comsol came up with good solution for this anomaly, interpreting "B-Deck" to mean "Berth-Deck" or the part of the ship where most of the accommodation is located...the widest part of the saucer would fit that description nicely!

 

[Timo]

...Or then it's the deck on which the bees are kept. Which in the Shane Johnson interpretation of the Probert ship would appear to be Q Deck.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

This really fills up the hulls. I like that the high bay rooms like gym/theater should be on the engine room level in the saucer (on the life support side). At last count, you have 6 control rooms:

• Saucer Impulse Control
• Saucer Environmental (life support/waste recycling) Control
• Saucer Sensor (secondary deflector) Control
• Secondary Hull Warp Engine/M/AM Reactor Control x 2
• Secondary Hull Deflector/M/AM Reactor Control

I like the idea that the space around the three control rooms can be used as Engineering Department Offices, support equipment and maintenance shops. Maybe even some bunk rooms for engineering crewmen.

I dug around in some of Robert_Comsol's thread because I seemed to remember that he incorporated some of the Animated Series rooms in his setup. Sure enough, he used this Engine Room with a lower ceiling level:

In his plans he has decks 6 & 7 as the widest part of the saucer, so this means that the lower height Engine Room can be situated on Deck 7 without protruding up into Deck 6:

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/kirks-television-enterprise-deck-plans-wip.195496/page-12

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/kirks-television-enterprise-deck-plans-wip.195496/page-14

I tend to give TAS sets a lot more latitude due to the limitations in 1970s animation, so this sat fairly well with me as a neat way to include an alternative engineering space.

 

[BK613]

Robert Comsol's stuff was cool in a whimsical kind of way but never seemed to allow that ships change over the course of time. Every ship I served on would have some maintenance or upgrade going on every time we were pier-side. Even had some equipment reps fly out to meet us in Diego Garcia, B.I.O.T, when we were deployed to the Indian Ocean.

 

[blssdwlf]

I loved your 2010+ work on 3D modeling the impulse systems, warp engines, engineering spaces and shuttlebay on the TOS Enterprise. I think you ended up with 3 Engine Rooms, 2 in saucer and 1 in engineering hull. Loved your wireframe constructs overlaid on Trek photos. It was crazy, man! Thanks.
I'm so happy that TrekBBS doesn't delete old posts.

Thanks @Henoch. It's still a work-in-progress so it could end up with more than 3 engine rooms. And yes, I'm glad TrekBBS doesn't delete old posts. I need to find a way to archive that thread

 

[Mytran]

Robert Comsol's stuff was cool in a whimsical kind of way but never seemed to allow that ships change over the course of time. Every ship I served on would have some maintenance or upgrade going on every time we were pier-side. Even had some equipment reps fly out to meet us in Diego Garcia, B.I.O.T, when we were deployed to the Indian Ocean.

There were a few instances where he supposed that changes had been made to room, stretches of corridors etc but they were certainly uncommon.

The problem with the Engine Room set is that the ceiling height changed from around 16' (in S1) to 20' (in S2&3), not to mention it was a completely different shape! This makes it hard to believe that they were in fact the same room, just with a makeover.

 

[BK613]

The problem with the Engine Room set is that the ceiling height changed from around 16' (in S1) to 20' (in S2&3), not to mention it was a completely different shape! This makes it hard to believe that they were in fact the same room, just with a makeover.

Shrug, so there was a four-foot machinery flat above the ER that had its equipment relocated or eliminated during a refit. The space wasn't going to be used for new equipment so the flat was removed to save weight.

 

[Mytran]

Shrug, so there was a four-foot machinery flat above the ER that had its equipment relocated or eliminated during a refit. The space wasn't going to be used for new equipment so the flat was removed to save weight.

Those are some pretty hefty support struts for a mere ceiling flat. And was there an identical set of struts 4 feet higher, holding the "real" ceiling up?

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tos-enterprise-wip.119751/page-2#post-4035511

The rest of the "walls" in Engineering would have to be made of flats as well, in order to explain the complete reshaping of the space. Again not impossible, just...unlikely

This all presupposes that we take what's on screen literally of course. Star Trek Magazine took a more general interpretation of the Engine Room changes (and it's original form), retconning the S1 version to bring it more into line with what came later:

 

[BK613]

I tend to filter my interpretations of Trekology through both what I've experienced in RL and in what I have read. The link below details the changes to USS Texas (BB-35) when she went from 14 coal-fired boilers to 6 oil-fired ones.
http://battleshiptexas.info/images/BoilerRoom/BoilerRoom.html
Please take the time to note not only the changes to the boiler rooms but to the surrounding spaces as "real estate" was reclaimed. The idea that the interiors of ships are somehow rigid and unchangeable is erroneous. Happens all the time in RL and I would expect Trek ships to be the same.

 

[Mytran]

I tend to filter my interpretations of Trekology through both what I've experienced in RL and in what I have read. The link below details the changes to USS Texas (BB-35) when she went from 14 coal-fired boilers to 6 oil-fired ones.
http://battleshiptexas.info/images/BoilerRoom/BoilerRoom.html
Please take the time to note not only the changes to the boiler rooms but to the surrounding spaces as "real estate" was reclaimed. The idea that the interiors of ships are somehow rigid and unchangeable is erroneous. Happens all the time in RL and I would expect Trek ships to be the same.

Thanks for sharing that link, it's great to have RL examples of what happens as technology improves and is implemented on vessels.

I have no problem with the Enterprise getting upgrades and changes in technology over the 3 years we see her on screen. Heck, Scotty and his team are probably tinkering so much in some areas of the ship I doubt it would look exactly the same from one week to the next!
I do think the S1 and S2 Engine Rooms are unique locations though, because they are so fundamentally different in a structural sense. However, this in itself not necessarily a problem as Naked Time and Omega Glory both indicate two or more Engine Rooms.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

One common thread among these images is the triangular shape to the yellow-orange structure behind the grating, that might be a warp core or impulse engine, for example. In reality, I thought that area was designed in forced-perspective and meant to be longer and not decrease in width as one worked back. In fact, this fact being revealed in some Star Trek sources year ago is what helped me learn what forced-perceptive was. Though I love the FJSTM, it does not take advantage of this, and depicts the structure as triangular.

Does anyone have a diagram or even just figures as the how long the orange structure would be if it was treated as a long rectangular space?

If we could answer this question, it could be very enlightening: Would that version of that structure actually fit into either hull or the nacelles? This might be right up your alley, @blssdwlf

 

[MAGolding]

Those are some pretty hefty support struts for a mere ceiling flat. And was there an identical set of struts 4 feet higher, holding the "real" ceiling up?

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tos-enterprise-wip.119751/page-2#post-4035511

The rest of the "walls" in Engineering would have to be made of flats as well, in order to explain the complete reshaping of the space. Again not impossible, just...unlikely

This all presupposes that we take what's on screen literally of course. Star Trek Magazine took a more general interpretation of the Engine Room changes (and it's original form), retconning the S1 version to bring it more into line with what came later:

I never knew the differences between the two versions of the engine room were that great. That reinforces my idea that beside changes made over time there should have been two or more different engine rooms at the same time.

 

[Mytran]

One common thread among these images is the triangular shape to the yellow-orange structure behind the grating, that might be a warp core or impulse engine, for example. In reality, I thought that area was designed in forced-perspective and meant to be longer and not decrease in width as one worked back. In fact, this fact being revealed in some Star Trek sources year ago is what helped me learn what forced-perceptive was. Though I love the FJSTM, it does not take advantage of this, and depicts the structure as triangular.

Does anyone have a diagram or even just figures as the how long the orange structure would be if it was treated as a long rectangular space?

If we could answer this question, it could be very enlightening: Would that version of that structure actually fit into either hull or the nacelles? This might be right up your alley, @blssdwlf

Depending on where the FP was designed to be viewed from, it could be up to 120 feet long - still easily contained within a 417' wide saucer (947' long ship). The trouble is, the FP unit was repeatedly filmed from angles that belied the optical illusion aspect of the set, which is why Bllsdwlf decided to represent it in the (as per real life) more triangular design.

Of course, you could always assume that the energies emitted by the tubes created a kind of foreshortening effect, thus explaining the discrepancy?