Pullman and American Passenger Trains – Social History – Photos – 1940s and 1950s – The Golden Age of American Passenger Trains… New York Central’s streamlined Mercury One of New York Central’s two Class K-5a Pacifics (Nos. 4915 and 4917) that the road streamlined in 1936 for the ... Read More »
The world’s first cruise ship… the Prinzessin Victoria Luise…
The S.S. Prinzessin Victoria Luise, surely one of the most beautiful ships ever launched, had an even shorter career of only 6 years. She was not a great transatlantic liner like the RMS Titanic, rather she was the world’s first cruise ship. It was on a West Indian Cruise in ... Read More »
THE NIGHT BOATS… NEW YORK TO BOSTON… THE FALL RIVER LINE…
Cruise History – The Old Fall River Line – Everyone from presidents to swindlers sailed the Sound on “Mammoth Palace Steamers” in the heyday of the side-wheelers and night boats. The Fall River Line was a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between ... Read More »
Newsreel footage of Holland-America Line – 1920s and 1930s
Cruising the Past: Newsreel footage of Holland-America Line’s TSS Rotterdam 1915 (seen above) and SS Nieuw Amsterdam 1938. These are great scenes of Holland-America Liner’s TSS ROTTERDAM and the SS NIEUW AMSTERDAM The ROTTERDAM IV – 1908 – 1940. – Built by Harland and Wolff, Belfast, the ROTTERDAM IV featured ... Read More »
Passenger Lists… the Bible for shipboard travel…
Cruise History: Passenger lists were the Bibles for shipboard travel. Here is an excellent article from Cruise Travel Magazine by ship-expert Theodore W. Scull that discusses the subject in depth. Cunard Line Passenger List Monaco’s Prince Rainier and his princess, the former Hollywood star Grace Kelly, would be found on ... Read More »
The RMS Empress of Ireland – 112 years ago – the other Titanic
Why has the RMS Empress of Ireland tragedy been forgotten? The sinking of the RMS Empress Of Ireland hit Canada hard and was the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history. Occurring just two years after the RMS Titanic disaster, and a year before the loss of the RMS Lusitania, it ... Read More »
THE DELTA LINE – CRUISING TO SOUTH AMERICA – MID-CENTURY
The Delta Line was cruising to South America from New Orleans in the 1950s. The steamship company introduced three revolutionary passenger-cargo ships to its South American services in the post-war years of the 1940s. In keeping with the trade name of the company, “Delta Line”, the three vessels were given ... Read More »
5 STAR ADONIA CRUISE SHIP REVIEW – FIRST CRUISE TO CUBA FROM U.S. IN DECADES…
May 2016 Cruise To Cuba and Review of Carnival Cruise Line’s new 704-passenger Adonia Some history… Before the 1959 Cuban revolution, cruise ships regularly traveled from the U.S. to Cuba, with elegant Caribbean excursions departing from New York and $42 overnight weekend jaunts leaving twice a week from Miami, said ... Read More »
The classic Italian liner SS REX in the movies…
There are three Atlantic crossings in the 1936 excellent film Dodsworth directed by William Wyler and starring Walter Huston & Ruth Chatterton. They were seen on board the RMS Queen Mary, the RMS RMS Aquitania, and the SS Rex. The film demonstrates how liners were used like today’s Jets to ... Read More »
The Sinking of the RMS Lusitania – 101st Anniversary
Saturday, May 7th marks the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania, the Liverpool-built passenger ship whose destruction sparked the United States’ decision to enter World War I in 1917. “Enlist” (mother and child drowning), by Fred Spear, June 1915. WWI recruitment poster published by the Boston Committee ... Read More »