USS REQUIN (SS-481/SSR-481) - Virtual Tour: Forward / After Engine Rooms and Maneuvering Room

Forward / After Engine Rooms and Maneuvering Room

The next stop on your virtual tour through REQUIN is the forward engine room. Unlike some post-war conversions, where one or two engines were removed, REQUIN retained all four of her Fairbanks-Morse diesels. (A modernized and updated version of the Fairbanks-Morse diesel is used as the auxiliary power plant on the Los Angeles-class attack submarines and Trident-class ballistic missile submarines).

REQUIN's forward engine room looking aft. The two white objects hanging down on the left and right-hand sides of this photograph are the ventilation fans for the snorkel system on REQUIN.

A view of REQUIN's after engine room, with a cover removed from one of the engines. At one point, I've heard rumours of attempts to get REQUIN's no. 3 engine going, but haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

The next to last stop on the virtual tour through REQUIN is the maneuvering room. At the forward end of the compartment are the massive levers which distributed the current created by the main diesels, generators, and batteries. Each bank of levers could be cross connected with the other so that if one bank went down due to malfunction, the other could be connected, thus directing the electrical current. Located on either side, as seen in this photograph, are the voltage regulator panels, air conditioning switchboards, and pump controls.