RMS Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner operated by Cunard Line. Along with the Queen Mary, she provided a weekly transatlantic service between Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York City in the United States, via Cherbourg in France.
RMS Empress of Russia was a steam turbine ocean liner built in 1912–13 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific steamships (CP). She regularly worked the trans-Pacific route between Canada and the Far East.
RMS Aquitania was an ocean liner of the Cunard Line in service from 1914 to 1950. She was designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. She was launched on 21 April 1913 and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 30 May 1914. She was given the title of Royal Mail Ship (RMS) like many other Cunard ocean liners since she carried the royal mail on many of her voyages. Aquitania was the third in Cunard Line's grand trio of express liners, preceded by RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania, and was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner. Shortly after Aquitania entered service, the First World War broke out, during which she was first converted into an auxiliary cruiser before being used as a troop transport and a hospital ship, notably as part of the Dardanelles Campaign.
The Union-Castle Line was a British shipping line that operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line.
RMS Mauretania was a British ocean liner that was launched on 28 July 1938 at the Cammell Laird yard in Birkenhead, England, and was completed in May 1939. She was one of the first ships built for the newly formed Cunard-White Star company following the merger in April 1934 of the Cunard and White Star Line. On the withdrawal of the first Mauretania in 1935, to prevent a rival company using the name and to keep it available for the new liner, arrangements were made for the Red Funnel paddle steamer Queen to be renamed Mauretania in the interim.
RMS Windsor Castle was a passenger and cargo liner operated by the Union-Castle Line on its Cape Mail service between Britain and South Africa. Completed in 1960, she was the line’s largest Royal Mail Ship on that route.
RMS Transvaal Castle was a British ocean liner built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank for the Union-Castle Line for their mail service between Southampton and Durban. In 1966 she was sold to the South Africa-based Safmarine and renamed S.A. Vaal for further service on the same route. Following cessation of the service between the UK and South Africa in 1977 the ship was sold to Carnival Cruise Line and rebuilt in Japan as the cruise ship SS Festivale, re-entering service in 1978. In 1996 she was chartered to Dolphin Cruise Line and renamed IslandBreeze. In 1998 the ship was sold to Premier Cruise Line, which renamed her The Big Red Boat III. Following the bankruptcy of Premier Cruise Line in 2000, The Big Red Boat III was laid up until 2003 when she was sold to scrappers in Alang, India. She was renamed The Big Red Boat for her final voyage to the scrapyard.
The RMS Windsor Castle, along with her sister, RMS Arundel Castle, was an ocean liner laid down by the Union-Castle Line for service from the United Kingdom to South Africa. During World War II the Windsor Castle was requisitioned as a troopship and on 23 March 1943 was sunk by an aerial torpedo off the coast of Algeria.
MV Georgic was the last ship built for the White Star Line before its merger with the Cunard Line. Built at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, she was the running mate and younger sister of MV Britannic. Like Britannic, Georgic was a motorship, and not a steamer, fitted with a diesel powerplant. At the time of her launch in 1931, she was the largest British motorship.
RMS Dunottar Castle was a Royal Mail Ship that went into service with the Castle Line in 1890 on the passenger and mail service between Britain and South Africa. In 1913 the ship was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company as the Caribbean. After the outbreak of the First World War she served as HMS Caribbean, first as a troop ship and then as an armed merchant cruiser, until she sank in a storm off the Scottish coast on 27 September 1915.
Cameronia was a British ocean liner which was built in 1920 by William Beardmore & Co Ltd, Dalmuir for the Anchor Line. She was requisitioned for use as a troopship in the Second World War, surviving a torpedo attack. In 1953 she was requisitioned by the Ministry of Troop Transport (MoTT) and renamed Empire Clyde. She was scrapped in 1957.
TS Pretoria was a ship that had a long and varied career as first a German cargo liner, then a U-boat depot ship, hospital ship, British troop ship, Muslim pilgrim ship and finally an Indonesian naval accommodation ship.
TSS T/T Calshot was a tug tender built in 1929 by John I Thornycroft & Co, and completed in 1930 for the Red Funnel Line. Calshot was one of only three surviving classical tender ships which served the great ocean liners, another example is the SS Nomadic, which tendered the ill-fated RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage at Cherbourg, France. The third being the Manchester Ship Canal's Daniel Adamson. In her career, Calshot has tendered some of the most famous ocean liners ever built, such as the RMS Caronia, the Cunard Queens RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary, the SS United States, and the White Star Line ship RMS Olympic. During World War II she was requisitioned by the British Admiralty for servicing troop ships and took part in D-Day. She was a registered vessel of the National Historic Fleet of the United Kingdom, holding Certificate No. 1.
RMS Pendennis Castle was a Royal Mail Ship, passenger and cargo liner operated by the Union-Castle Line. The vessel served the Union-Castle Line from 1959-1976 on a regular route between the UK and South Africa for the Southampton to Las Palmas, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban "Cape Mail" service. After her withdrawal from service and subsequent sale by the Union-Castle Line in 1976, she was re-named consecutively Ocean Queen, Sinbad, then Sinbad I, however she never returned to commercial service after her Union-Castle Line service and was sold for scrap in 1980.
MV Carnarvon Castle was an ocean liner of the Union-Castle Line. She was requisitioned for service as an auxiliary cruiser by the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
SS Tyndareus was a British steamship that was built in 1914–15 as a cargo liner for the Blue Funnel Line of the Ocean Steamship Company. Completed during World War I, she served as a troop ship and was nearly sunk by a German naval mine, but without loss of life. Between the wars she operated commercially in the Pacific Ocean, before returning to military service in World War II. Her final civil role was to carry Islamic pilgrims from Indonesia to Mecca, before being scrapped in 1960.
The Jubilee class were a group of five passenger and cargo ocean liners built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast, for the White Star Line, specifically for the White Star Line's service from the UK to Australia on the Liverpool–Cape Town–Sydney route. The five ships in order of the dates they entered service were:
RMMV Athlone Castle was a British passenger liner built by Harland & Wolff for the Union-Castle Line's mail service from Southampton to Cape Town, South Africa route. After she was launched on 28 November 1935, she sailed on her maiden voyage on 22 May 1936. She served as a troopship during world war two and in 1965 was scrapped at Kaohsiung.
The RMS Saxon was a Royal Mail Ship that went into service with Castle Line in 1900 on the passenger and mail service run between Britain and South Africa. She was the 4th ship by this name, the first being a coal carrier dating back to the Crimean War. After the Boer War, the Saxon was one of nine ships that made up the Southampton-Cape Town Mail Run. In May 1901, the High Commissioner of South Africa, Lord Alfred Milner, traveled aboard the Saxon on his way back to Southampton, England. He traveled on the same route aboard the Saxon in 1925, shortly before his death.
The RMS Kildonan Castle was a Royal Mail Ship and passenger liner that went into service with Castle Line, and its successor, the Union-Castle Line. She was built to run the mail route from Southampton, England to Cape Town, South Africa starting in 1900. However, she began her life early, in December 1899, being requisitioned by the government to carry 3,000 troops to Cape Town at the start of the Boer War, and was temporarily used in South Africa to house POW's. She returned to England in 1901 for an outfitting to carry passengers and mail. She was one of nine ships on the England-South Africa run. At the outbreak of World War I, she replenished the South African Army with arms and ammunition. She also served as a hospital ship during the Dardanelles Campaign, outfitted with 603 beds, and converted in March 1916 to an armed merchant cruiser. In January 1917, she took Lord Milner and 51 VIP delegates from England, France and Italy to Murmansk, Russia, on the Petrograd Mission. She then undertook convoy duties in the North Atlantic, returning to her normal South African mail run after the war.
United Kingdom 
Union-Castle Line 
Southampton 
