No Domers replied to this thread? Their training ship has a recip steam pump normally used in startup.
Steam plants are still around, they are just on land, LOL.
I always have felt that a steamship is organic in a way that a diesel plant isn’t. Anytime I boarded a steamship once I moved to being a Class surveyor, I could feel it through the deck as soon as I stepped off of the gangway. . . .
Yes, that is a good way to describe it. It always struck me as more poetry and art than than just science.
"Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o’ Steam! "
Rudyard Kipling nailed it with McAndrew’s Hymn.
McAndrew’s Hymn – The Kipling Society
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steam plant = woman
motor plant = loyal dog
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With these equations in hand, you aught to avoid all four of these entities. 
Both can love you, and will love you…one just takes a bit more attention and effort.
The comparisons are accurate but their reactions to lack of attention are a bit different.
One becomes a screaming banshee that will cast upon you the heat and fires of hell.
The other one will just go lay down.
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Right.
The steam plant
Whereas the motor plant
And neither one
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I see your point. A big high-horsepower thermodynamic system in a changing environment. A system that a single person could learn to control. Before the black boxes started to take over and we lost a sense of what was really happening in the complicated systems that we operate.
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Both steam and motor plants operate on the same fundamental theories of thermodynamics. However, the steam plant has many of the processes spread across various components of the system and the operator can adjust these.
On a diesel engine, most of these processes occur inside the cylinder (internal combustion engine) and are essentially set in stone by the design engineer that created the engine. There is less control for the operator, and thus less for the operator to screw up. Modern cam-less engines do allow much more control of variables, though.
Yeah, and they only play rap music. Except for the pre-1940s engines of course, they have a Calypso beat.
I enjoy the complexities and nuances of classical music, and also prefer the much more subtle/complex vibrations of a steam plant. Calypso or rap, the heavy beats grow tiresome after a while.
But a surging Coffin pump due to worn linkage is enough to drive any man insane.
Back in the day when the plant was warmed and it was time to start turning things I used to put Verdi’s Anvil Chorus on the speakers. It was like a time to go to work signal. As long as things went well the music didn’t stop. Great fun 
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Frigates I served in had a very limited amount of water in the system. The boiler room was manned by a petty officer and two ratings on the boiler front to put sprayers on or off. The petty officer had a hook to wake up the bailey board if necessary and the two throttles for the turbine driven forced air fans and the engine order repeats in front of him. All eyes on the water levels.
On steam tankers, the last one was UMS, no expense had been spared and it worked well.The computer was Japanese and started with “H” (Hokoshin ??). The older ones had no control room and when Full Away was rung the engine room was set up like a power station ashore. To go back to manoeuvring took at least 30 minutes at least before reducing revolutions.
Maybe not as classy but…
When I was the sole engineer on a no-one-ever-loved-her-right little ferry, I used to do my checks and then sing Lets Make Music Together from All Dogs Go to Heaven as I started the engines. The engines made up their own words, though. Something like: ca ca ca ca-ca-cata-tatacatacatacataPILAAAAAAAAR!
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