Titanic was equipped with four 400 kilowatt electrical generators, which meant that passengers could use electric lamps and heaters in their rooms. This was a luxury that very few of them would have in their own homes, and when we talk of the steerage passengers today, it must be remembered that their cabins and accommodation were exceptionally good for the time, as was their food. The gymnasium had an electric camel; electric lifts took passengers and crew between decks. The power was also used for the loading cranes, cooking in the galley, refrigerating the huge stores of fresh food down near the orlop deck, lighting and heating the public areas, the ventilation fans, operating the watertight doors, the telephone system and the Marconi 'wireless' equipment. Titanic's two radio operators manned a 5 kW rotary spark transmitter which, with the 4 wire antenna suspended 250 feet above sea level between the ship's masts, had a range of up to 400 miles during the day and up to 2000 miles at night. Many fascinating facts about the radio and its operators can be found at the Titanic Radio Page. The Titanic engineers were lost to a man whilst keeping the generators going, providing power for the lights and radio to help others escape, right up to within minutes of when she sank.

The Titanic was originally meant to sail in March 1911, but the collision between the Olympic and the cruiser, Hawke, and the need to repair the hull and replace one of the Olympic's propellor shafts delayed the completion of the Titanic because Harland and Wolff had to carry out the repairs. Titanic began her maiden voyage at noon on April the 10th, 1912. Even that date had been in doubt, because a coal strike meant that the White Star line had to appropriate coal from other ships to use on Titanic. Perhaps the rush for fuel contributed to the spontaneous coal fire that started in number 10 bunker, boiler room 6. The whole Titanic story seems to be strewn with "what if .." scenarios. There are many links along the "causality chain" which, if broken, might have saved the ship.

Though it was registered in Liverpool, Titanic began her maiden voyage from Southampton on that Wednesday Spring morning. As a result of the recently ended coal strike, much of her fuel had been taken from other White Star ships, whose passengers had been transferred to Titanic at no extra cost. Many of the passengers had taken the Boat Train from London's Waterloo station, down to Southampton, no doubt looking forward to being the first paying passengers on the grandest ship afloat. From Southampton, Titanic crossed to Cherbourg, France, and anchored a mile offshore so that the purpose-built tenders Nomadic and Traffic could bring more passengers on board, Cherbourg not having a pier large enough for the Olympic class liners. That evening Cherbourg was left behind as the ship headed for its next, and as it turned out, final port of call. By lunchtime on April 11th, Titanic was anchored off Queenstown (now known by its former name of Cobh) in Ireland. Fortunately for history and himself, it was here that Father Francis Brown, the Jesuit priest, got off the ship, taking his camera with him. The Odell family had similar good fortune, and from their album comes the picture seen in many books, simply captioned "The last known photograph of the Titanic".

That same afternoon, Titanic weighed anchor, steamed along the coast of Ireland and on out into the Atlantic, with Captain Smith's blue ensign on the rear flagpole, the White Star flag on the main mast, and the stars and stripes of her intended destination, New York, U.S.A., fluttering on the foremast.