A geared fluid drive arrangement in which a constant speed motor is used to start a “full-size” boiler feed pump, and is able to operate the pump at a limited speed and correspondingly limited power adequate to fill, pressurize and feed water to a boiler such as would be used for an electrical generating plant to start-up and to operate stably at part load, but not necessarily full load. After the boiler is operating stably, steam from the boiler or from an extraction point of the main turbine is admitted to a mechanical drive steam turbine in order to drive the same “full-size” pump to the normal operating range.