Dream, Disaster, Legend

When I think of the Titanic Disaster, I immediately think of all the lives that were lost in that horrific event. But let us take a brief look at all the time, money, and planning that was lost as a result to this disaster!
The Titanic became a dream in 1907! Until March 31st 1908, she remained a dream, a dream that Bruce Ismay fervently hoped would come true. Sometimes I try to get a grasp of what Ismay was thinking that whole year, as he waited for things to come together. I can only imagine the untold joy he had in his heart, seems how it's not every day that your shipping line gets to own the biggest, and most luxurious ship in the world. He must have even been more excited when his dream was being put on blueprints, and models, and everything else that goes into building a ship. A dream that was his own idea, was slowly becoming a reality.
Words fail me when I ponder all the time that went into the Titanic. Thousands upon thousands of hours went into this marvelous project. There was someone somewhere that drew the blueprints, probably more than one person, and they devoted all their time to the project. Giving specific adjustments to little things here and there, how many staterooms can we fit on E-deck, how can we get the most power with three engines, what can we do to make the passengers have the time of their life? Then consider the years that were spent making this dream come true. The men that worked on the ship every day, men who worked 12 hour shifts, millions of man hours went into this ship. When you really think about all the hours, and years of thinking, working, planning, directing, and managing and then about the fact that the Titanic only had four days of active service, four days, 92 hours to prove herself on the boundless ocean, and then to sink on her maiden voyage......... no wonder people's lives were ruined by the disaster.
Then think of all the millions of dollars that went into this ship! The actual ship cost 7.5 million dollars in 1912 standards. But there is more than that, at this point for H&W their employee rate was higher that ever, their was over 14,000 men hired when the Olympic class ships were constructed. That means one thing, 14,000 men were drawing a paycheck every week. Then all of the priceless things that were on board, just things that made Titanic the Titanic.
Then consider all of the planning that went into the Titanic. There were some engineers somewhere planning out where everything would go. How to position the boilers so you can get as many as you can in, how big should the propellers be for a ship this size? Special planning had to go into this ship because a ship had never been made like this one before. So how big of a rudder do we need to be able to have the most control over the ship? How many funnels, and how big do they need to be? How much horsepower will we need to bring it up to average cruising speed? How high do the bulkheads need to go? How many lifeboats should we have? That is just a small part of all the planning and designing that had to go into one ship!
This kind of puts things into perspective when you think about it. There was more than lives lost that night, the dreams, planning, time, and money was lost when the Titanic foundered the night of April 14-15th!