NEW PASSENGER VESSEL

Southland Times, Issue 23308, 18 September 1937, Page 8

NEW PASSENGER VESSEL

Trade With England and Dominion

MOTOR-LINER OF 26,000 TONS

At Wallsend-on-Tyne, work has already been begun on the new 26,000ton passenger liner ordered for the England-New Zealand trade by the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company. Alter Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Limited launched the Port Halifax for the Montreal-Australia-New Zealand Line’s service in July, they started to lay the keel of the new liner, the largest passenger ship to be built on the Tyne since the Mauretania. The vessel will be built on the berth that the famous Cunarder occupied 30 years ago. The new vessel is intended to open up an entirely new route for passenger traffic to New Zealand, as she will proceed by way of Cape Town, Durban, and the main Australian ports. The company’s steamers now travel between England and New Zealand by the Panama Canal. No advice has been received of the proposed name of the new vessel. At the time of the visit to Auckland in January of Mr J. MacMillan, managing director of the company and of the Aberdeen and Commonwealth Line, the name Dominion Queen was freely rumoured in shipping circles. A recent report in an Australian paper that her name may be Queen of the South is discounted. The ship is expected to make her

maiden voyage early in 1939. She will carry between 500 and 600 passengers, and in addition to ordinary cargo space she will have insulated capacity for refrigerated cargo of about 500,000 cubic feet, including 85,000 cubic feet specially adapted for the carriage of chilled beef.