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Automatic mechanical stokers replaced people with shovels long ago. Nobody has shoveled coal in a boiler room since the era of the Titanic. Oil is still easier to handle in ships (or really any transport) though.


Even with mechanical stokers you still needed a dedicated fireman making sure the proper amount of coal was making it in.

Nothing like a modern liquid fuel engine where you can just drive yourself without manually adjusting the amount of fuel burn by hand.


Were these ever particularly common on steam ships? They were definitely a thing on trains, but I thought they more or less only showed up as the transition to oil fired boilers was getting going anyway.




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