British cross-channel railway passenger ships - John de S Winser

In their heyday, Britain's railway companies expanded into marine, hotel, port and airline activities. This book features the passenger ships which the railways introduced on their cross-Channel routes to the continent, Ireland and the Channel Islands. These are not the huge and invariably ugly car-carrying super ferries which cross the Channel today, but the frequently elegant, sometimes innovative, usually powerful and often superb, passenger only vessels of yesteryear.;Details the 53 cross-Channel passenger ships which joined the railway-owned fleets from 1920 to 1963, including the vessels of the Great Eastern, London and South Western, South Eastern and Chatham, London and North Western, Great Western, Southern, LMS and LNE railways and British Rail/Sealink.;The informative captions and introductory text for each ship include information on the vessel's sometimes varied and colourful career, in war as well as peace, accidents and notable voyages outside of routine railway operation.;All ships are illustrated with carefully selected, high quality photographs, many of which are published for the first time. Tabulated data provides information on: port of registry, owners, builders, tonnage, dates of railway fleet service, and ultimate fate. Additional sections outline railway ship operations prior to 1920 and other contemporary railway ships used on cargo only services, and on Isle of Wight and Clyde services, as well as some of the car and train ferries.