In an attempt to build the most accurate Titanic model I possibly could I had to spend countless hours studying books and any other source of information I could find to get the slightest detail of the Titanic. I have accumulated a large amount of photographs taken from the original negatives in my collection. These photographs allow me to scan areas of the picture and super enlarge them in my computer without dealing with the little dots associated with the printing process. 
Many have spent thousands of dollars and have accumulated piles of books in hopes of achieving this goal. Even professional model builders and those who claim to have “the most accurate model in existence” have missed even the most visible details. I don't know if this is because they didn't care or if they just didn't take the time to study the pictures that are out there. You can buy as many plans as you possibly could and scale everything right to the mark but the final truth ends in the photographs. The obsession for many of us to achieve the most detail and accuracy in our models has taken on astronomical proportions. The search for the little details in the appearance and architecture of the Titanic is basically a treasure hunt, a fact finding mission that so entrances us like a young boy who dreams of being an archeologist. In fact this is archeology only in this instance the answers are not that far from our grasps. I often wonder what I'm going to do with this extra room full of Titanic materials when the model is done.
There seems to be, for the most part, three areas of the boat deck that illude photographs. In many cases even pictures of the Olympic can not answer the questions because the two sisters had some subtle cosmetic differences but in some cases the clues are the same. In my quest for the search of the White Star Line “Grail”, I decided to write an article that would share my findings with modelers who have searched or are in the process of taking that leap into the questionable . I have titled the three areas of my research “ the cowls fore of the #4 funnel”, “ the water pipes at the #3 funnel and tank room” and last but not least, The elusive “ port cowl aft of the Grand Stair case Cover and the discovery of the lost defroster”. I have drawn diagrams of these areas that will give the modeler a sense of how the arrangements should look. These drawings are not to scale. They are a visual reference only. I would like to thank Ray Lepien for his diagrams from an old book describing the water systems of “the Olympic class liners” which helped in the water pipe article, Roy Mengot , who helped in a joint effort to research the elusive “ port cowl aft of the Grand Stair case Cover and the discovery of the lost defroster”, Roy’s access of previously unseen wreck footage was priceless, T. Kenneth Anderson from The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Alastair Arnott from the Southampton City Archives, Scott Andrews and Mark Darrah for their opinions and insight on my findings. 

THE COWLS FORE OF THE NUMBER FOUR FUNNEL 

It has been thought by many including the professionals that the two cowl vents seen just fore of the #4 funnel had no motor housings and attachments. It is common to see these two represented as rising right out of the roof only as a cowl tube. Some that did see the motor attachments would wrongly represent the motors as facing outboard and in one case, the motors actually towering over the rectangular ducts on either side. In the Cork Examiner photo and the Daily Mirror photo one can see without a doubt , a hump just outboard of the funnel. This hump starts at the funnel horizontal and then proceeds downward as it dives outboard. This illustrates a motor housing attached below the cowl. The angle of this hump illustrates that the motor housing was perpendicular to the centerline of the ship. To further this evidence, in the picture seen in Walter Lords “The Night Lives On” one can plainly see the coupler that joins the cowl to the top of the motor housing. By studying the lines of the coupler, one can see which way the flat top side extends on the housing giving credence to the Cork and Mirror pictures listed above. Cross referencing this configuration with the lines of the 20 inch cowl and motor combination seen on the fore end of the port side of the raised roof over the reading and writing room from “Illustrated History”, my theory is further reconfirmed. In many of the near profile starboard views of the Titanic seen in numerous books around, one can see the elevation of the top of the motor housing on the starboard cowl vent. I have noticed this in books but even better is the poster I bought of the Titanic passing the Isle of Wight ( Beken of Cowes photo ) from the Titanic Historical Society. The Olympic did not have the same configuration with the exception of the starboard cowl/motor arrangement. The Olympic went through two stages of refit in this area. First, at the time of her maiden voyage, the Olympic sported a rectangular horizontal duct on the starboard side just like Titanic’s only Olympic’s proceeded forward and ended into the roof of the fan room at a different position then Titanic’s. Second, instead of a 20 inch cowl assembly, the early Olympic sported a rectangular vent that sat high like the vent seen on the port side. The protective grills sat on the top of this vent. Third, Olympic’s center vent was not a square curl vent like seen on the Titanic, it was a 30 inch cowl assembly with the low pressure intake coming out of the fan room roof as a huge curved rectangular duct. The huge intake duct was the same as Titanic only the apparatus venting the air was different. In this case a cowl versus a curl vent. Fourth , The Olympic’s port vent was a carbon copy of the tall vent seen on the starboard side. The Olympic had her starboard tall vent inboard of the rectangular duct changed to the 20 inch cowl/motor arrangement that would later be seen on the Titanic. This vent was changed to the 20 inch cowl early in the Olympic’s career. The Olympic did not have the horizontal rectangular duct on the port side of the fan room roof. The arrangement of the Titanic can be seen in drawings #4profile and #4overhead. 

Photo references: overh.jpg, profile.jpg

“The Night Lives On” by Walter Lord, 1986 printing pg. 101 top
“Titanic” by Thomas E. Bonsall, pg. 63 (Olympic)
“Titanic Voices” by Hysop, Forsyth, Jemima pg. 117 ( copy of Cork Examiner photo, personal collection) 
“Titanic & Her Sisters Olympic & Britannic” by McCluskie, Sharpe, Marriott pg.230 (Olympic)
Titanic passing the Isle of Wight poster also seen on page 244 of Sisters book above 

the water pipes at the #3 funnel and tank room 

In order to figure out the placement of the water pipes of the Titanic one has to understand how the water systems worked. Ray Lepien was instrumental in providing a drawing and explanation of the water systems from an old book he owns. The fresh water on a “Olympic Class Liner” is filled somewhere on the side of the hull and then stored in tanks at the bottom of the ship. The water is then pumped up to the boat deck and then redistributed. It seems that at least one of the tanks was filled through a pipe running up from the keel tanks right into the bottom of one of the boat deck tanks. The other tanks were, for the most part, filled through a water main which came out of the #3 funnel casing , looped in the air on the aft end of the #3 funnel and then ran aft into their respective tanks. The bent pipes you see on the aft end of the funnel were used sort of like the village water tower. The water was pumped above the height of the tank where it ran down to the distributaries creating water pressure. The thinner pipes seen on most of the funnels that loop at the top and then run back down right along the upward pipes are for overflow. The liners did have the ability to filter salt water in to fresh water but it was not easy to do as the filters clogged easily. This procedure was avoided whenever possible. The hopes were that the fresh water would last the whole voyage.
There is large confusion in the minds of many modelers, professional and amateur alike. This confusion is created from taking to much information from the Olympic. I’ve seen representations of the Titanic’s water pipes in so many configurations it becomes confusing. Most of the time, You’ll see the water pipes run aft into the roof and end just over the edge. This is the problem. The configuration seen this way was the Olympic’s not Titanic’s. I will explain the Olympic’s water configuration first. At the time of Olympic’s maiden voyage. There was no engineers smoke room on the starboard side of the tank room. For this reason you can see in pictures that the water pipes run just aft of the roof line and then dive Down.  The Olympic sported a washing water tank, a fresh water tank and a salt water tank on the port side. It looks as though the Olympic sported a salt water tank and the filtration tank on the starboard side. The engineers smoke room was later added to the Olympic, when, I don’t know but it appears in the “Anatomy” plans on p. 43. The picture of Olympic’s aft #3 funnel viewed from the top of the #4 funnel in Bonsalls “Titanic” is the other source of confusion. This picture shows a later Olympic with numerous small pipes running aft to the port side tank room from the funnel. The reason for these extra pipes is because at this stage of her career, she was fitted with more washrooms hence the added pipes. The Titanic never saw these added pipes. In the Harland and Wolff pictures seen in the “Sisters” book, one can see just three pipes on each side running aft from the funnel to the roof. These would be a main, feed and overflow pipe per side. It’s the earliest version.
  The Titanic’s port tank room sported five pipes running from the funnel aft to the roof. The larger  pipes were probably the mains while the smaller pipes were probably the feeds. The first two pipes from the edge connected to the outboard port pipe loop on the funnel.  The third pipe from the edge was an overflow pipe that came off of the tall skinny loop that was starboard of the steam release pipe.  These three pipes were the same on the Olympic as well. The inner two pipes on the port roof fed from the port side loop sitting right next to the steam release tube, inboard.  Remember that in some cases the mains were pumped into tanks from below the deck.  The starboard tank room on the Titanic sported the same configuration as the Olympic as far as the outboard three pipes. In the Titanic’s case, the pipes were moved farther aft in order to clear the engineers smoke room. The starboard side shows two extra pipes not seen on the Olympic. These two pipes were actually the inboard two pipes on the loop seen just port of the center steam release pipe and mentioned above.  The diagrams included here are rough. There are no good pictures of this area and the same picture reprinted at better quality can be the ticket. You know how the quality of the same picture can vary from book to book. The two little pipes that intersect into the loop seen in my diagram must run into the casing. We know that the larger pipes they connect with already run aft to the tank room roof on the port side so why would the other unseen ends of the little pipes also run aft into the roof? This tells me that they were splices off a main or feed or a combination thereof running into the casing and probably overflows.