TRAVEL HISTORY

The SS Robert E. Lee was hit by one torpedo from Nazi Submarine U-166, steaming at 16 knots about 25 miles southeast of the entrance to the Mississippi River on July 30, 1942. Lookouts had spotted the torpedo wake about 200 yards away before it struck the former Eastern Steamship ... Read More »

The Santa Fe felt it needed its own streamliner serving the Bay Area and launched the San Francisco Chief in June 1954. The new express train joined Santa Fe’s other legacy trains: the Chief, Super Chief, and El Capitan. The San Franciso Chief offered First Class Pullman Sleeping Car and ... Read More »

Travel the past: The first SS Volendam served the trans-Atlantic route for Holland America Line HAL from the 1920s until the early 1950s. Travel the now: Peter Kengo, the travel critic, and historian take us on a tour of the third MS Volendam. We link to Peter’s article in USA ... Read More »

Over fifteen hundred passengers lost their lives on board the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic. She was one of three Olympic Class’ passenger liners commissioned by the White Star Shipping Line. Hailed as a wonder of luxury, power, and style she first rolled into the water from the slipway in ... Read More »

The SS LURLINE, flagship of Matson’s passenger fleet, emerged from a stunning $18-million makeover, following six years as a troop carrier with her white ship sisters, MARIPOSA, MONTEREY and MATSONIA. The Lurline was the Queen of the Pacific and her arrival in Honolulu was greeted with great fanfare. For her ... Read More »

MS Oranje, later known as MS Angelina Lauro, was a passenger liner, a wartime hospital ship and finally a cruise ship that was lost while being towed for scrap. She sank in a storm in the mid-Pacific, on September 24, 1979. The ship underwent 25 years’ service as MS Oranje, ... Read More »

In the late twenties and early thirties, American Airways was created through the acquisition of dozens of smaller airlines throughout the United States. Great video of American Airlines in the 1930s… Like most airlines, at the time the company profited by carrying United States mail. In 1934 American Airways Company ... Read More »

President Donald Trump’s “Mar-a-Lago” may be the closest proximity you might have to the illustrious society history of Post Cereals Heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post unless you charter her former private railway car. Originally christened Hussar, the car was built in 1922 for Post and her husband E.F. Hutton. The car ... Read More »

Have you wondered where the much-overused phrase “the red carpet treatment” originated? It all started with the 20th Century Limited. The train of tycoons and movie stars. The “Century” was an express all-Pullman passenger train operated by the New York Central nightly from New York to Chicago. From 1938 until ... Read More »