Titanic - The Ship Magnificent has its origins in 2000, shortly after the Hall - Beveridge Conspiracy book was published. At that time, the two authors discussed writing a comprehensive photographic book (title: Titanic Photographic Compendium) with some of the original text that was cut from the final proof of the Conspiracy book. But due to personal commitments and lack of time, the project was shelved.
  Then early in 2001, Bruce Beveridge was to be part of a research team headed by Steve Rigby of the British Titanic Society. Sponsored in part by a trust, a dive to Titanic was to generate information to be held within an archive that would be fully available to the general public to draw on with no restrictions, much like a research library. Beveridge wrote a detailed research proposition paper that outlined specific areas of the ship to be inspected and filmed. To provide a map of Titanic for use on the dive, he started creating the General Arrangement plan that is currently offered to the public through the Titanic Historical Society. Issues with the trust organizer and the subsequent events of September 11 summarily sunk the dive which would have taken place in 2002, and the Gen. Arrangement plan was also shelved for the time being.

  In late 2001 and early 2002, Beveridge decided to create a master collection of notes of Titanic’s specifications and fittings in order that a quick reference could be available to draw on when answering questions from the public and giving presentations. This project included taking all of the period information that was obtainable from publications such as The Engineer, Engineering, The Shipbuilder etc., and merging the information within them into a master data base. Bruce: “During the writing of these notes, I realized that I was

I was learning Titanic from a different angle - literally from the bottom up. My research had turned away from the mere exterior appearance of the ship and now dug into the intricacies of the engineering, the equipment and interior fittings.” Beveridge pulled the General Arrangement plan out of mothballs and started on it again, but this time in more detail then originally intended. “The GA plan was created as a learning tool, and an aid to better understand the ‘what’s and why’s’ of Titanic’s interior layouts and construction. The notes helped with creating the plan, while at the same time creating the plan helped with the detailed specification notes.”

  With the book taking shape, it was now expanding to 30-plus chapters, many of which had yet to be finalized. With the primary authors fully involved in their own research and writing, it was decided to bring on someone as an editor to oversee the text as a whole. For this job, Art Braunschweiger joined the team. Bruce: “Art actually volunteered for the job. I asked him to look into some technical details for part of a chapter, and when he came back with the answers he also suggested some changes to the way it was written and offered to take on the job of reviewing all the text. And who better to edit a technical book on Titanic but a Titanic enthusiast who’s a very persistent and detail-orientated researcher in his own right? In fact, Art actually wrote a good portion of the chapter on navigational equipment and several others, and took care of researching period information in several areas where I lacked the time needed.” [End Part 1 ]