Famous Cunard Liners To Be Replaced

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28866, 10 April 1959, Page 16

Famous Cunard Liners To Be Replaced

(N.Z. Pi ess Association—Copyright)

LONDON. April 9.! The 80.000-ton Cunard liners, the; Queen Mary and the Queen Eliza-: beth, are to be replaced by. modern super-liners. The Cunard line announced in London yester-| day that they had put the future of the Southampton-Cherbourg-New York service by these two great ships before the British Government. They had done so, a Cunard statement said, “owing particularly to the policy of heavy subsidies given to our North Atlantic competitors on the score of national prestige.” Talks had begun with the Scottish shipbuilding firm of John Brown on the question of replacing the ships. No details were given, but these replacements “would clearly be of the most modern, super-liner class.” Cunard said both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth still had some years of active life ahead. The first news that the British Government was considering the problem of replacing the two ships was given in Parliament today by the Minister of Transport (Mr Harold Watkinson). He said, in answer to questions, that the Government was discussing the problem with Cunard. “The position is that the Government is already a shareholder in the Cunard Company,” he said. “It is, therefore, quite natural that we should be very interested in their plans for replacing the ‘Queens’.” Plans for the new ships would have to be “modern and far-reach-ing” to compete with new types of jet aircraft.

He told questioners it was true that the United States Government had decided to subsidise) “very heavily” the construction j of a new Atlantic liner. Between them, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, the world's largest passenger liners, have carried more than 1.500.000 civilian passengers. In addition, they each carried about 800.000 when serving during the Second World Wai* as troop transports. Neither ship required a convoy. Because of their speed (both have a service speed of 29 knots) and armaments, they were safe from enemy submarines.