The rise and decline of Ocean Liners
The focus on the carriage of passengers really took off with the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 1800’s. Stopford [1] summaries the development such: “Between 1833 and 1914 every aspect of ship design changed. The hull grew from 176ft. to 901ft and gross tonnage from 137 tons to 45,647 tons. Hull construction switched from wood to iron in the 1850s, from iron to steel in the 1880s, paddle propulsion was replaced in the 1980’s by screws driven by steam engines. Triple expansion steam engines arrived in the 1880s and turbines from 1900. Speed increased from 7 knots per hour in 1833 to 25 knots per hour in 1907, and fuel consumption from around 20 tons a day to 1,000 tons a day.” So technology supplied the opportunity to build bigger and faster ships but without a demand for their services ocean liners would never have developed as they did. Two main drivers of demand were instrumental in promoting the rise of the ocean liner. First emigration, particularly from Europe continued ...