TRUE NORTH to SOUTHERN CROSS: R.M.S. NIAGARA

 

Few liners have ever given such completely unbroken service on the route for which they were designed, and been so entirely trouble free. 

J.H. Isherwood, Sea Breezes, July 1952

Serving the same owners and plying the same  route throughout a career spanning 27 years,  she steamed 2,295,000 million nautical miles and completed 162 round voyages.  When introduced, she was the first British-flagged oil-burning passenger liner, the biggest trading "south of the line" and the largest vessel owned by a British  Dominion.  Trading between and figuring memorably in the commerce, overseas transportation and social history of New Zealand, Australia and Canada, she proudly plied the fabled All Red Route which reached a zenith just before the First World War when she, Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia were introduced just months apart. An exemplar of the enduring qualities of the Edwardian Ocean Liner with her perfect proportions and elegant interiors, she had, too, the irreproachable dignity of a Royal Mail Steamer. Her passenger lists were a veritable "who's who" of the era and even her ship's cat was a legend. Her name was R.M.S. Niagara, The Queen of the Pacific.   

R.M.S. Niagara by Australian artist, Charles Basil Norton (1887-1968), painted in 1917. Norton was commissioned by Union S.S. Co. for at least another painting of the ship, used for the title graphic and found later in larger size in this article. Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum. 

R.M.S. Niagara, 1913-1940, lies at Pier A, Vancouver, beckoning us aboard for a 21-day voyage from True North to Southern Cross. Credit: City of Vancouver Archives.

All Red Route poster c. 1925 by A.C. Leighton showing CPR's Empress of Scotland crossing the Atlantic, CPR's trans-continental railway and hotels spanning the Dominion "from east to western sea" and CPR's Empress of Canada crossing the North Pacific and Canadian-Australasian's Aorangi crossing the South Pacific. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

It is not Canada alone, but the whole Empire, that will be benefit by the All-Red Route. We are struggling in favor of the scheme, but it must not be thought that we are seeking it solely in order to benefit ourselves. Need I reiterate that the  projected improved steamship will bring distant parts of  the Empire nearer to the Mother Country.

Commercially and strategically, the All-Red Route has advantages over the Suez Canal route, and it must prove of enormous advantage to the Empire. Canada is, in a sense, prepared for the day when it will be an accomplished fact, and she will be linked up more effectively with New Zealand and Australia and the British Islands on the other.

Hon. L.P. Brodeur, Canadian Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 3 September 1907

Completion of the Suez Canal and Canadian Pacific's trans-Continental railway transformed imperial transportation. Both were arteries of steam, in liner and locomotive respectively, the former a creation of the Mother Country, the latter of one of her Dominions.  If the CPR unified and opened up Canada, almost from the onset it was viewed, too, as but one leg in an all encompassing transportation system that could link the Orient and the Antipodes both faster and "less foreign" than via the Suez Canal being entirely through British Dominions and territories, the "pink coloured bits" on the maps.  It was called  "The All Red Route" for that reason and was always conceived as two routes, one across the North Pacific to Hong Kong, China and Japan from Vancouver and from the same port into the South Pacific to the Antipodes. Whilst  Canada via the CPR led the way in spurring and developing the North Pacific route, the southern variant, quite rightly, was the inspiration of Australia and New Zealand.  

The second trans-Pacific service of  The All Red Route, the Canadian-Australian Line, was inaugurated by R.M.S. Miowera from Sydney on 18 May 1893 and arriving amid great acclaim (above) at Vancouver on 10 June. Credit: (photos) City of Vancouver Archives.

In 1893, Australian shipowner James Huddart whose own line serving domestic ports dated to 1876, founded the Canadian-Australian Steamship Co. to provide an "Imperial Route" from Vancouver and Victoria to Sydney via Brisbane, Fiji and Honolulu. Huddart's ambitions for his own trans-Atlantic link were not fulfilled with CPR and Allan already well maintaining that part of the route. Indeed, with a series of accidents and financially overextended, Huddart found maintaining Canadian-Australasian difficult enough on its own. Brisbane was dropped in 1893, but Suva (Fiji) was added two years later and most importantly, Auckland in 1897 under a mail contract with the New Zealand government. Finding suitable tonnage for the arduous long route was never easy and lacking the finances for newbuildings, Huddart chartered New Zealand Shipping Co.'s new Aorangi and paid for major alterations to complete her in 1897, the cost of which proved too much for the firm and resulting in New Zealand Shipping Co. essentially assuming the running of the Canadian-Australasian whilst searching for a new owner.

R.M.S. Aorangi arriving at Vancouver from the Antipodes, December 1897. The chartering of  this brand new New Zealand Shipping Co. vessel broke Huddart, Parker's finances and resulted in N.Z.S.Co.'s interim running of the Canadian-Australiasian Line. Credit: Major Matthews Collection, City of Vancouver Archives. 

It was perhaps inevitable that this would be Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand, founded in 1875 by James Mills and coming to dominate the island's extensive local shipping trade as well as the all-important trans-Tasman route to Australia in addition to routes extending north to the South Sea islands. With their similar funnel colours and presence, Union were the veritable "Cunard of New Zealand." In 1885, Union and the American Oceanic Steam Ship Co. were awarded a joint mail contract by New Zealand and Australia for a San Francisco-Hawaii-Samoa-Antipodes service.  This ended in 1900 upon the American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands as under U.S. shipping laws, foreign ships were excluded from carrying passengers and freight on the U.S. Mainland-Honolulu sectors.  

Sir James Mills, KCMG (1847-1936), founder of the Union Steam Ship Co.

So it was that was that at the right time and place, Union S.S. Co. stepped in and in October 1900 announced they had purchased almost all  of New Zealand Shipping Co.'s  shares in Canadian-Australasian and assumed effective control, management and operation of the line as well as providing its tonnage. Here, the exacting requirements of the trans-Tasman trade facilitated the regular shifting of Union ships to  the C-A route (as done on the San Francisco run as well) and all the ships wore full Union S.S. Co. livery with only the C-A houseflag to distinguish them although whilst on the Vancouver run, most of the crews were Australian. Union was one of the great innovators  in the  Pacific trade and among their claims to  fame was  operating the first turbine-powered liner on the Pacific, the handsome twin-funneled, triple-screw Maheno (1905/5,282 g.), when she ran on the C-A  route in 1906.

R.M.S. Makura of 1908 late in her long career. She was the very first ship specifically designed for the Canadian-Australasian Line. Credit: Auckland National Library.

In 1908, the Vancouver service was greatly improved with the addition of the 6,437 grt Marama (built the previous year for the trans-Tasman run) and finally, a purpose-built ship for the C-A route, the lovely Makura of 8,075 grt, capable of 17 knots and introducing new standards of accommodation.

The Edwardian Era witnessed both the apogee of the British Empire and the national and economic emergence of the so-called White Dominions to whom the long distance mail and passenger routes assumed greater, even strategic importance.  Indeed, almost all of the development and subsidy in the form of mail contracts that created and maintained The All Red Route came from Canada, Australia and New Zealand rather than Great Britain whose  governments often saw it as a means for Canadian Pacific to obtain too much control of the imperial lifelines.  Trade burgeoned between the Pacific  Dominions and North America  and in 1910 a new mail contract with New Zealand saw the revival of Union's San Francisco route to Wellington, via Tahiti and Raratonga instead of Hawaii, and extended to Sydney the following year.    By 1911, Union was uniquely maintaining two quite separate trans-Pacific routes, the "Red Route" from Vancouver to the Antipodes of Canadian-Australasian and their own Union Royal Mail Line, the "Blue Route" from San Francisco.

Wider and wider still... Union Steam Ship Co.'s two trans-Pacific routes c. 1911 showing The All Red Route via Canada and a Blue Route via San Francisco with the relevant trans-Continental and trans-Atlantic connections to each.

In 1910, a very busy Union S.S. Co. also completed their purchase of the Canadian-Australasian Line upon the purchase of all remaining New Zealand Shipping Co. shares and instituted a policy of fleet modernisation in anticipation of renegotiating the mail contract which was due to expire the next year.  To replace the 27-year-old Aorangi saw a return to the connection with Huddart, Parker Ltd. in the form of chartering their brand new Zealandia (6,683 grt) which upon arrival at Sydney from her builders, John Brown, directly entered the Vancouver service that August. 

Huddart, Parker's impressive Zealandia (1910/6,683 grt) spent the first three years of her long life under charter to Union S.S. Co. for the Canadian-Australasian Line. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-563-10 

On 9 May 1911 Union S.S. Co.'s Chairman Sir James Mills signed the new mail contract in Ottawa with the Dominion of Canada for the Canadian-Australasian Line. This paid  Union S.S. Co. $180,509 (£36,000) per annum for five years for a sailing in each direction every 28 days.   This came into effect with Marama from Auckland on 4 August and from Vancouver on 6 September.  It was possible for British mails to be landed at Auckland in 33 days versus 36 or 37 days via Suez.

R.M.S. Marama which undertook the first sailing from Auckland on 4 August 1911 under the new mail contract. Credit: NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Events moved quickly that summer and taking passage in Allan Line's Virginian, Sir James Mills, accompanied by his daughter, arrived in Liverpool on 17 June 1911, telling reporters "his visit to this country was in connection with his shipbuilding programme."  Already, it was being reported that Union were soon to order "a 10,000-ton liner for Canadian-New Zealand-Australia route" to be a larger version of Makura and capable of making the Auckland to Victoria passage in 18 days and replacing the the chartered Zealandia.  On 11 August it was prematurely reported that the company had contracted for two such vessels.    

After jumping the gun reporting that Union S.S. Co. had ordered two, 10,000-grt steamers (bottom left), the press got it right on 18 August 1911.

On 18 August 1911 it was announced by Union S.S. Co.'s General Manager Charles Holdsworth  that the line had placed a contract with John Brown, Clydebank, for one 14,000-15,000-grt, 522 ft. by 66 ft. vessel of 17 knots carrying 800 passengers and using the new combination type of machinery (reciprocating and turbine) with triple screws. It was anticipated she would be completed in 15 months. This was the first ship the line had contracted from John Brown and one surmises operating the very satisfactory Zealandia, also a Clydebank product, may have influenced the decision. 

Justifying this commitment was the subsequent inking on 11 November 1911 of a new mail contract with the Government of New Zealand paying £20,000 per annum with the proviso that the ships could proceed to Sydney if desired. In the end, Australia did not commit to a fixed price mail contract and paid a poundage rate on mails actually carried.  Fiji did, however, commit to a mail contract of its own.

This artist rendering of Niagara was used throughout  her career.  The first twin-funnelled Union S.S. ship since Maheno, she had the perfect ocean liner "presence" in portrait, painting or photograph. Credit: Museum of New Zealand.

The new 13,000-ton liner which the Union Steamship Company is having built for the Sydney-Auckland-Vancouver service is to be name the Sicamous. The name Sicamous is a Canadian one and the vessel  is one of the few of the U.S.S. Co.'s that has not been given a New Zealand name

Daily Post, 24 June 1912

Finding a suitable name for new ship proved surprisingly difficult, especially given all of the rather wonderful Maori names traditionally given to Union S.S. Co. vessels, usually beginning with "M" for liners.  Here, the owners  laudably wished to honour Canada instead, but for some reason could not find a suitable Canadian name beginning with "M"--rather easily accomplished as CPR proved a year later with Missanabie and Metagama, indeed the former would have been ideal.  Forgoing the "M" convention, the floodgates were opened with Calgary and Ottawa proposed and then, rather oddly, Sicamous which was announced in June 1912.  Given the notorious Australian habit of nicknaming ships, a "Sicamous" would have been rich fodder  indeed and was quietly dropped.  Kootenay was briefly floated until finally, Union S.S.'s agent in Vancouver, J.C. Irons, came up  with an  entirely appropriate substitute: Niagara (a Huron Indian word meaning "Thunderer of Waters") and on 31 July this was formally adopted.  It was also announced that the vessel would be christened on 17 August by Mrs. Laura Borden, wife of Canadian Prime  Minister Robert Borden, who was on a visit to Britain for an imperial naval conference having come over in Royal George. 

Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden and Laura Borden, Godmother of Niagara, aboard Royal George on arrival at Avonmouth on 4 July 1912. 

Dwarfed by the bulk of Aquitania but standing out proudly in her distinctive green hull and pink boot topping, Niagara ready for  launching at John Brown's, Clydebank, August 1912. The light cruiser H.M.S. Southampton in the foreground. Credit: Engineering, 18 April 1913.

Few launches were afforded more  of  an imperial  connotation than that of Niagara and her importance in the All Red Route scheme was  manifested in the presence of the Prime Minister of Canada who, the previous day, had been afforded the Freedom of the City of Glasgow and addressed the city  council. Rt. Hon. and  Mrs. Borden were the guests overnight of Lord Inverclyde, and with their hosts and other guests, motored to Loch Lomond, sailed up the Loch before returning to Clydebank for the launching.

Left: Laura Borden, wife of the Canadian Prime Minister, Robert Borden (right) on the launching platform at John Brown's. Credit: Daily Mirror, 19 August 1912. 

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The launching platform and  guests just before christening Niagara, the first and only Union S.S. Co. ship not to have a Maori name. Credit: Illustrated London News, 24 August 1912. 

Shortly after three o'clock they were taken by motor car down the yard to the building berth on which the Niagara was lying. By that time the  heavy drizzle of rain, which had prevailed all forenoon and during the early hours of the afternoon, had ceased, and although the sky was overcast the atmospheric conditions were quite pleasant for such an outdoor ceremony as a launch. A large platform, decorated in blue and sheltered by an awning, had been erected at the bow of the new vessel. On this a large party of guests of the builders had assembled previous to the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Borden. Owing to the prevailing east wind the tide rose slowly, and it was therefore somewhat past the half-hour before the vessel could be released. The large hull, painted dark green above the waterline and chocolate before, with a broad band of pink between, looked magnificent as it lay on the ways ready for launching, but it was dwarfed to the east by the huge form of the new Cunard liner Aquitania, the plating of which is now far advanced, and which is easily the most striking feature of the yards. Shortly before  four o'clock Mrs. Borden released the suspended bottle of wine, which broke on the port bow of the vessel, and named the new steamer Niagara, saying as she did so-- 'I wish every success to this beautiful ship.' The launch was in every way successful, and was cheered heartily by the spectators.

Glasgow Herald 19 August 1912

Niagara slides down the ways, as close to the looming hull of Aquitania (left) as one could get. Credit Daily Mirror, 19 August 1912. 

With her distinctive livery and beautiful lines, Niagara makes a fine sight clearing the ways. Credit: National Library of New Zealand. 

Niagara afloat after her launching. Credit: Syren & Shipping, 21 August 1912.

At the launching luncheon, Prime Minister Borden delivered an impressive speech, summoning up the pro imperial sentiments prevailing in Canada and the other Dominions at the time:

We of the Overseas Dominions are thoroughly conscious of the great problems which even now await statesmen of the Empire-- problems regarding the bringing about a more thorough and more effective organization between the Motherland and the vast Overseas possessions. We are conscious of these problems and responsibilities which that connection laid upon us, as upon you in these islands, but I venture to say that British statesmen have never been unequal to any task in this regard which has been placed before them in the past. I am convinced that British statesmen-- and I use the word British in the widest sense-- will be equal to the magnitude of that task whatever it may be.

Its greatness or development in long years to come is not so much in extent of territory. The Empire is already large enough, not so much in resources, because they are all any one of us desire, but in influences of the Empire for the welfare of humanity, for the advancement of civilisation, for peace of the world, so that as the poet says:

Wider still and wider

May her bounds be set,

God who made us mighty,

Make us mightier yet.

'Success to the Niagara' was proposed by Mr. Charles Ellis, who described the vessel, amid applause, as the last  link in the 'All Red Route' about which so much had been heard in recently years.'Sir James Mills, Chairman of the Union Steamship Company, replied and said in part: "Rt. Hon. Mr. Borden and his colleagues have done so much to educate the people of this country to the relationship which exists between the Motherland and the Dominions, which are no longer to be looked upon as naughty children or poor relations, but partners in the firm.'

Niagara was towed to the fitting-out basin and was finally literally out of the shadow of the looming bulk of Aquitania. On 22 August 1912 it was announced that Captain John Gibb, master of the Makura, would leave ship after her next voyage and  proceed to the Clyde to supervise Niagara's fitting out before assuming command. Niagara was to take the May 1913 sailing from Sydney to Vancouver and Zealandia would, after her March sailing, revert to the Australian coast service.

On 1 March 1913 Niagara left John Browns and ran her trials on the 5th and with a deadweight of 5,000 tons, she had averaged nearly 18 knots. 

R.M.S. Niagara on trials on the Skelmorie measured mile course showing her speed and flawless, perfectly proportioned lines. Credit: The Shipbuilder

With her dark green hull, red boot-topping, yellow riband, white superstructure and black-banded red funnels, she was a magnificent looking ship, as trim and a neat a model as John Brown's ever turned out. The years before the First World War formed one of the finest periods of British shipbuilding. Shipyards took the most intense pride in the ships they turned out, money was not so 'tight,' and there was no skimping; a new liner was a 'finished' product in the true sense, with every fitting first-class and workmanship of the best. 

When the Niagara left the Clyde she was an aristocrat among aristocrats...

J.H. Isherwood, Sea Breezes, July 1952

She is a 'thing of beauty' from bulkhead to bulkhead, without and within, equipped with every safeguard to withstands the moods of ocean and ride triumphantly through storm or sunshine, the emblem of a Nation's prosperity, a demonstration of man's latest achievement in scientific enterprise, and a living link in the bond of Empire.

Manilla Express, 28 May 1913

Quite possibly the most long-lived and exemplary pair of liners ever built alongside one another, for very different services, Aquitania and Niagara capped the extraordinary output of British shipbuilding in the late Edwardian Era.  Between them, they steamed more than 600,000 ocean miles, served the same owners throughout and became beloved to two generations of passengers and crews as well to the countries they linked.  

Yet, Niagara lived in relative  obscurity both in construction and service, indeed so many were the great liners introduced in 1913-14, she was not even afforded much more than a few paragraphs in the storied shipbuilding publications of the age. Yet, Niagara, when new, could claim to be the largest liner trading "south of the line" in the Pacific, the biggest ship owned by a New Zealand line and perhaps most famously, the very first British-registered oil-burning liner.

R.M.S. Niagara: "...as trim and as a neat a model as John Brown's ever turned out."

Niagara was firmly in the progressive traditions of the Union Steamship Co. even if her specification more reflected the exacting  requirements of a unique route that traversed two hemispheres and climates in the course of a 21-day, 7,775-mile one-way voyage with as varied a mix of passengers and cargoes as any on the ocean highway.  Much of her specification and design was the creation of one of the legends of New Zealand seamanship and nautical expertise, Capt. Coll McDonald (1863-1944) who, after a long and distinguished career at sea, became Union S.S. Co.'s Marine Superintendent and went to Britain in 1910 to help design Maunganui (1911), Wahine, Niagara and Aoateroa (1915). 

Capt. Coll McDonald (1863-1944). Credit: www.albury.net 

With principal dimensions of 13,415 tons (gross) and 18,615 tons (displacement), length of 524.7 ft. (overall) and 66.3 ft. (beam), Niagara could, at time of her completion, claim to be the largest liner trading to the Antipodes. Such, however, was the rapid advance in liner development of the time that she was quickly eclipsed by Blue Funnel's Nestor (14,501 grt) and then White Star's massive 18,481-grt Ceramic within a few months. Describing Niagara, J.H. Isherwood wrote: "She was very strongly built on the web frame design, and had a beautiful shapely hull, with fine lines and large overhang to her counter stern."

The first twin-funnelled Union liner since the lovely Maheno (1905), Niagara emulated and improved on her graceful lines while more than  doubling her size.  In an era when British yards seemed incapable of turning  out anything but perfectly proportioned vessels, Niagara was not an exception but an exemplar.  Her lines abetted, of course, by Union's distinctive and simply perfect livery which throughout her almost four decades was meticulously maintained as was the custom of her owners and crews. With her bronze green hull, ringed with a thin yellow-gold  sheer line, pink boot-topping, white superstructure, red and black-banded funnels and buff masts, she was simply a beautiful vessel. Niagara was flagship both of line and island nation and always looked the part. 

Isn't she... lovely? Only the most handsome vessel is best appreciated from a three-quarter stern perspective and here Niagara proves it. She's seen here at Melbourne on her delivery voyage with a fulsome and fulfilling 27-year life in the offing. Credit: Allan C. Green photograph, State Library of Australia.

Another superb photo showing Niagara's  pleasing profile. Credit: Shipspotting.com

Cargo, bulk and reefer, and mails, figured prominently in Niagara's  purpose and in her plans. This was a ship that carried in the course of every voyage some 4,500 tons of cargo "out" and another 4,500 tons "back" as varied as any ship: southbound there was paper, lumber, tinned salmon, grain, crated motorcars, aeroplanes, machine goods, machines, fruit and northbound; frozen beef, lamb, butter, sugar, wool, flax and hides.  Her overall cargo capacity worked out to 129,130 cu. ft. non-insulated and 80,400 cu.ft.insulated carried in five holds, nos. 1 and 2 forward, no. 3 trunked aft of the bridge (worked by a pair of king posts abreast of the  forward funnel) and nos. 4 and 5 aft. Reefer space was in nos. 1, 4 and 5. 

When a stokehold without stokers, trimmers and coal being shoveled into open furnaces was newsworthy. Credit: Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 7 July 1913. 

This was the heyday of the triple-screw passenger liner, both in the early direct-drive turbine-powered ships and the so-called "combination" system that employed a conventional twin-screw reciprocating  installation with a direct-drive low-pressure turbine powered by exhaust steam and driving a centre screw, a precursor of the Bauer-Wach system of the 1930s.  The combination system was adopted for Niagara and it's worth noting was  first introduced by another New Zealand liner, Otaki of 1907.

Niagara was powered by a twin-set of quadruple-expansion reciprocating engines driving twin four-bladed wing screws at 85-88 rpms and the low-pressure direct drive turbine propelling a small centre screw at 210-220 rpms.   Steam was generated by 10 cylindrical boilers, each with four furnaces,  and working under the Howden system of forced draught at 220 psi. Such was the efficiency of this plant, that Niagara could be steamed 17 knots, her normal service speed, with only eight boilers on line, materially saving on fuel and allowing rotation of boilers for maintenance underway. 

Of course, Niagara was notable for one thing, being the very first British liner with a  Board of Trade certificate to burn oil, although her furnaces could (and did on her delivery voyage) burn coal, too. Here, Union S.S. Co.'s bold choice was based on the comparative cheapness of oil fuel on the U.S. Pacific coast, savings in stokehold labour (72 men when burning coal and 27 burning oil) and refuelling times and the advantages of consistent steaming over such a long voyage that oil burning offered. Economics played a big role and Union were consistently trying to avoid coaling on the North American Pacific Coast where the fuel was far more expensive than in Australia to the point of sailing their ships with enough coal loaded in Sydney for a round voyage even it meant using income earning cargo space to bunker it. Then there were the efficiencies of oil firing. With Niagara burning coal, the steam pressure varied from 210 to  160 psi whilst as an oil-burner, a steady  pressure of 220 psi was maintained.  When she was introduced, oil cost 19 s. a ton in Vancouver vs. 16 s. for  a ton of coal but she burned 90 tons of oil every 24 hours compared to 160 tons of coal, working out to savings of 27 per cent. 

Oil burning did initially pose considerable operational constraints at a time when oil fuel was  unobtainable in many ports.  Indeed, until 1920, Niagara could only bunker at Vancouver (with oil shipped up by tanker from San Francisco) and Honolulu where Matson had been a pioneer supplying and using the fuel for their own ships since 1902. With this in mind, Niagara was given substantial bunker capacity, totalling some 4,700 tons or, with a "top-up" in both directions in Honolulu, sufficient do the whole 15,000-mile roundtrip on one "fill-up".  The whole  of the bunkers and nos. 1 and 2 holds were made air and oil tight up to the main deck.  When Makura and the Union S.S. San Francisco boats were converted to oil in 1920, oil bunkering stations were established in Sydney and Suva and considerably eased voyage logistics. 

In service, Niagara proved exceptionally reliable and capable, in the right conditions and with all boilers  on line, of steaming for long periods at 18.5 knots or even faster.  This enabled her to make up time in the course of a trip.  If anything, the turbine installation was the only cause  of  concern early on, losing a blade twice in succession in 1915 and again in 1937, and some vibration issues, the later almost entirely eliminated by dynamically balancing the centre screw in 1918. Niagara, of course, was also a record breaker on many occasions, both trans-Tasman and  "on the other end", between Victoria and Vancouver. Indeed, it was not until 1931 that her trans-Tasman record was eclipsed by the new Oceanic S.S. Co. Mariposa and Monterey. 

Lifeboat drill aboard Niagara, part of an album of photos dating from her delivery/maiden voyage showing her classic clinker-built wooden boats and Welin double-acting davits as well as the kingposts on either side of the forward funnel. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Niagara was one of the first new ships to appear post-Titanic so her lifesaving equipment was naturally emphasized.  In doing so, Union S.S. pointed out that she, like all of the company's vessels had adequate lifeboat capacity for all passengers and crew.  Her 18 lifeboats, including two emergency boats and a steam launch, were all carried at Welin "double acting" davits, Mills' disengaging gear and Welin patent chocks.

In a three-week-long voyage encompassing the North and South Pacific, the Tasman Sea and the coastal waters of Australia, New Zealand and British Columbia in all their seasons and  moods, the most desirable and memorable quality of Niagara was being a superb "sea-boat" in all conditions.  Indeed, she was consistently lauded by her passengers, officers and crew for her seakeeping even after more than her fair share of the  worst gales and cyclones the Pacific can muster. 

Early advertising framed print of R.M.S. Niagara by the Canadian artist Arthur H. Hider (1870-1952).

R.M.S. NIAGARA

Deck Plans

courtesy: William T. Tilley

(LEFT CLICK on image to view full size scan)

Profile and Cutaway

Promenade Deck B

Shelter Deck C

Upper Deck D

Main Deck E

Lower Deck F

In the planning of the mammoth vessel neither money nor effort seems to have been spared to make her in all respects equal to anything in her class afloat. 

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 24 April 1913

Niagara introduced new standards of  luxury and  a measure of Edwardian  "floating palace" style and luxe on the Vancouver-Antipodes route.  Indeed, her accommodation and decor was sufficiently well-planned and executed to serve her for almost three decades with but one  significant change late in her career. 

The New Zealand Graphic featured an excellent section of interior photos of the new liner upon her maiden arrival at Auckland: top left library, top right music room and bottom, the lounge. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19130514-21-1

Her interiors were especially attractive and whilst no single architect or decorator appears to have been credited, her interior design and fit was most likely designed and executed by well-known firm of Wylie & Lockhead of Glasgow which had been outfitting Clyde-built passenger vessels since the 1870s and indeed pioneered this specialised trade.  Traditional period styles-- Louis XVI, Georgian and Adam-- were, as the custom then, adopted to the unique requirements of her route which offered extremes  of climate, but was  largely tropical.  Dark panelling, heavy drapery and overstuffed furnishings were eschewed in favour of, except for  the First Class smoking room, white enamel, large casement windows shaded by the covered promenades and almost all wicker furniture with  loose cushions.  Most of the public rooms had glass domes or skylights so the interiors were pleasantly light and airy and in First Class, remarkably ample in the provision of a proper library, music room, lounge and smoking room to  provide the variety of venues appreciated on a three-week voyage.

With six decks: Boat (A), Promenade (B), Shelter C, Upper (D) Main E and Lower F, the arrangement of Niagara's accommodation was straightforward and took full use of space in the very ample two-decks of superstructure, all designed to provide maximum shade, light and ventilation on her mostly tropical route.  Boat Deck was indeed devoted to the lifeboats with no extra tophamper in the way of deckhouses other than the bridge.

Niagara was laid out, as was Makura, on the traditional Edwardian arrangement of the principal First Class public rooms vertically amidships, built around a central open well, surmounted by a very  large domed glass dome.  This facilitated maximum light and ventilation in the central core.  

Promenade Deck had  four substantial deck houses, one very large one housing the First Class music room, 12 outside staterooms and smoking room, the second one containing the smoking room, the third housing the Second class music room and smoking and the  fourth the hospital.  The first three houses were decked over to afford an exceptionally wide covered promenade deck with high enough deckheads to also serve as a sports deck shaded from the sun.  Amidships there was ample space for  outdoor dancing and the whole arrangement designed for what was a largely outdoor daily and early evening routine for passengers in those pre "conditioned air" days. When Niagara worked cargo  in ports, canvas awnings were rolled down to  keep out the heat and dust and were also used to screen the forward superstructure on blustery sea days. 

Deck cricket played on Niagara's Promenade Deck during her maiden voyage showing the expansive quality of her deck space that was still shaded from the tropical sun.  Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Shelter Deck, living up its name, was entirely covered with full and wide  shaded promenades. Forward was the First Class Library and de luxe cabins and here the deck was screened by handsome framed square sidelights.  The rest of the deck was devoted to First and Second Class accommodation with the pursers square arranged around the forward staircase and lift. All the cabins on this deck had windows not portholes. 

Upper Deck, the first hull deck, had First Class cabins (all outside  although every other one was on the "Bibby"  principal), First Class dining saloon and then the galleys amidships to  aft,  Second Class dining saloon and cabins.

Main Deck introduced Third Class cabins and dining saloon forward then First Class cabins (outside and Bibby) with crew space amidships and Second Class cabins (all  outside or Bibby).

Lower Deck had a block of Third Class cabins right forward.

First Class Music Room.  Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Forward on Promenade Deck, the music room was in Adams style with white enamelling and mahogany furniture and capped by a circular glass dome. 

First Class Lounge. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The lounge, amidships on Promenade Deck, with its  open well to the dining saloon two decks below and topped by a magnificent  glass dome was decorated in Louis XVI in white with gilt decorations and ornate plaster work ceilings.  As with the smoking room, most of the chairs were rattan but with comfortable cushions.

First Class Lounge. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

First Class Smoking Room. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London  

The Smoking Room, aft on Promenade Deck, was in Georgian and panelled throughout in fine harewood with contrasting panels and marquetry work. 

Corner of the First Class Smoking Room. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

First Class Library. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

First Class Dining Saloon. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The 190-seat dining saloon was amidships on Upper Deck with a large central well.  Decorated in the prevailing Louis XVI style with white the prevailing colour, relieved in gold, it had a mix of table sizes with the traditional swivel chairs. 

First Class Dining Saloon. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

The 281 First Class passengers were accommodated in one-, two-, three-, or four-berth cabins on main, upper, shelter and promenade decks. On Shelter and Promenade Decks were a number of cabins for one or two passengers were brass bedsteads instead of berths. Two cabines de luxe "in every way worthy of the name" were on Shelter Deck near the main foyer. One was finished in white, in Adams style, with brass bedsteads, and the other in Louis XIV with walnut furniture. Both had private bathrooms. 

First Class de luxe stateroom. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

First Class stateroom. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

First Class stateroom. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

First Class Promenade Deck. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Second Class was traditionally situated aft.  Its dining saloon on Upper Deck, with 188 seats, was in Georgian with white enamelling and mahogany furniture and sideboards. The music room and smoking room were styled along Louis XVI themes, the former in white with mahogany  furniture whilst the latter was  panelled in oak. Second Class cabins, with 210 berths, were  two or four berths. 

Second Class Music Room. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Second Class Smoking Room. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Second Class Dining Saloon. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Second Class cabin. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Second Class cabin. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Third Class accommodated 176 in four and six berth cabins forward and had a dining saloon, smoking room and ladies room. 

Third Class Dining Saloon. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Third Class eight-berth cabin. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Third Class four-berth cabin. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

It was no surprise that Union S.S. Co. always considered Niagara to be their "perfect ship," a true credit to her designers and her builders, and much loved by all who sailed in her.  R.M.S. Niagara would now begin her fulsome and fortunate reign as the Queen of the Pacific and prove more than worthy of the title. 

Superb artwork by Charles Basil Norton on the cover of Niagara's pioneering printed aboard 'Niagara News'. 

Dawn of a New Era: R.M.S. Niagara at Vancouver taking on bunkers from the tanker Trinculo on 2 June 1913 prior to undertaking the first overseas liner voyage by a British oil-burning passenger ship. Credit: Richard Broadbridge photograph, City of Vancouver Archives.

What a time it was. The year or so before the outbreak of the Great War was truly a halcyon period of The Ocean Liner and in particular for the Royal Mail Ship on the globe girding trans-Imperial routes.  Summer 1913 saw the All Red Route achieve a remarkable apogee with the unique, almost simultaneous introduction of Niagara, Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia. In a stroke, Vancouver and Victoria were home to the largest and finest British ocean liners outside of the North Atlantic and, as events proved, among the most longlived.  Uniquely, all three survived the war and Niagara was doubly unusual in never deviating from her peacetime route.  There were fast, furtive runs blacked out, scares and close calls with German raiders, grey paint and 3-inch guns and Spanish Influenza outbreaks. But before the decade was out, R.M.S. Niagara had well established her enduring reputation as a good seaboat, a well found and popular ship which she would maintain for almost three decades of unbroken service. 

1913

As with all the Union Steamship Co. vessels, Niagara's delivery voyage was the longest and most arduous she would make, taking her three quarters around the world. And like most, she would never return to the country where she was built. For Niagara, the logistics were  complicated by the decision that she would ply her regular Vancouver-Sydney  run as an oil burner, bunkering at Vancouver and Honolulu, but for her delivery voyage, in consideration of the comparative scarcity of oil  fuel en route, she would burn coal as far as Vancouver where her furnaces would be converted before her maiden southbound  voyage. Moreover, her owners desired her to steam all the way through without bunkering along the way (especially avoiding the notoriously inferior Natal coal Durban offered) so her nos. 1, 3 and 5 holds were filled with coal and she carried almost no cargo on the trip. 

Niagara's delivery voyage would take her from Glasgow to Plymouth, then to straight to Durban and across the Indian Ocean to Melbourne and Sydney.  From there, she would make her maiden voyage on her intended route on 5 May 1913.

With 365 passengers, Niagara left Glasgow on 12 March 1913 and called at Plymouth on the  14th and  then begin the "long haul"  to Durban where she docked on 2 April.  Then it was across the Indian Ocean, to Melbourne where, on the 21st, "during the afternoon the Union company's R.M.S. Niagara came alongside the Town Pier and was soon the centre of attraction, her stately appearance being greatly admired." (The Age, 22 April 1913). It's worth noting that at the time, she was, in fact, the largest passenger ship seen in Australasian waters, although  overtaken before the year was out by Ceramic. 

Niagara at Melbourne on 21 April 1913 with H.M.A.S. Melbourne (left). Credit: Allan C. Green photo, State Library of Victoria.

Sydney was reached at 11:00 a.m. on 23 April 1913. On the occasion, the Sydney Morning Herald noted that "nothing happened to disturb the peaceful nature of the voyage, while an average speed of 11 knots was  maintained throughout, the machinery working well." Docking at the NDL wharf at West Circular Quay, she was  shifted to Athol Bight two days later to coal,  repainted afterwards and then moved the M'llwraith, M'Eacharn wharf to load for her maiden voyage to Vancouver. Niagara was  opened to public inspection 3-4 May  and was "thronged with visitors and was greatly admired. The main saloon, running the full width of the ship, with its  handsome appointments, and the general arrangemens on board for  the well being of passenger called  forth favorable comment. Capt. John Gibb, the genial commandeer of the Niagara, is proud of his command, and well he might be, for she is regarded as a triumph of naval architecture." (Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1913).

Sendoff for Niagara's maiden sailing from Sydney, one of the most memorable in the port's history. Credit: Sydney Mail, 14 May 1913.

The departure of the mammoth liner Niagara on her maiden run to Vancouver yesterday, was one of the prettiest sights every witnessed at the port. With her decks thronged with passengers, the liner swung clear of M'Ilwraith's wharf shortly after noon, ringing cheers being given by the immense crowd on the wharf as a send-off. Captain John  John Gibb handled the big liner like a yacht, and she smartly heard away on he voyage, amidst a most animated scene, both afloat and ashore. The Niagara calls at Auckland, Suva, and Honolulu, en route to Canada, and she is expected to put in a fine steaming  performance on the run.

Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1913

On 5 May 1913 Niagara sailed with "every berth taken" and it was reckoned it was a record crowd to see her off shortly after noon.  Among those aboard was a party of 12-cricketers en route for a 25-match tour of North America. and, as far as Auckland, Union S.S. Co. Chairman Sir James Mills. 

Niagara sailing from Sydney's Darling Harbour. Credit: The Sun, 5 May 1913

New Zealanders are interested in the Niagara as a great ship flying the flag of a New Zealand company they are interested in the passengers she will draw to our shores and in the overseas trade her running will develop. They can, therefore, give her a hearty reception to Auckland and cordially wish her success.

New Zealand Herald, 9 May 1913

Niagara arrived at Auckland at dawn on 9 May 1913, docking at the new Queen Street Wharf. Sir James Mills "said the Niagara had made a very good passage from Sydney, proving herself to be a worthy sea boat. Running on coal fuel the vessel had made excellent progress; 'in fact, ' he said, 'it was necessary to slowdown somewhat in order to get her on scheduled time.'" (Auckland Star, 9 May).

R.M.S. Niagara at Queen Street Wharf on her maiden call at Auckland. Credit: NZ Ship & Marine Soc. at Auckland

Niagara's arrival was a huge event for New Zealand, of course, whose Union Steamship Co. now boasted the largest passenger liner "south of the line" (albeit only for a new months) and which further revitalised the All Red Route as summed up in an editorial in the Auckland Star the day of her arrival:

The arrival of the Niagara in our harbour marks the initiation of a. new epoch in the growth of New Zealand's transoceanic trade. It is a source of natural satisfaction to us that .this great steamer, the largest and best-appointed and most up-to-date passenger boat that has yet visited Australasian ports, has been built by a New Zealand company; and once more we have to congratulate Sir James Mills upon the energy and enterprise that has become a permanent feature of Union S.S. policy. The Niagara is a vessel that its owners and the people of New Zealand may well take pride in; and the very large complement of passengers that she is carrying on her first voyage indicates that she will do a great deal to popularise the Vancouver route as a speedy and comfortable road to England and Europe. 

But the Niagara, with her huge carrying capacity, is far more than a handsome and luxurious ocean ferry boat. She cannot fail to encourage trade between New Zealand and Canada, and we believe that there are very great possibilities of commercial expansion for us in this direction. We have frequently drawn attention to the magnitude of Canada's industrial development, and the rapidity of her progress, and it is manifestly to our interest to encourage in every way the growth of a close commercial connection between the two Dominions. The establishment of the Vancouver service was obviously an important step in this direction. And the Niagara, while promoting this closer association of material interests, will irretrievably aid in the great  work of consolidating the Empire, which all true Imperialists have at heart. It is no mere figure of speech to assert that the "All-Red" line, so often discussed, if it were realised in fact, in the form originally suggested by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir Joseph Ward, would be one of the greatest of all our Imperial assets; and the Niagara marks a further advance toward the point at which this "dream of 'Empire" will  become a reality. 

Niagara on her maiden call at Auckland. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19130514-21-2

Sir James Mills hosted a luncheon on board later that day, attended by 100 local businessmen. Owing to delays in loading cargo and coaling, her departure on the 10th was put forward from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Niagara at Suva, Fiji Islands. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19140305-48-3 

Suva, Fiji, was reached on 14 May 1913: "The first appearance of the R.M.S. Niagara was awaited with keen interest, and when she arrived last Wednesday morning (14 May) and slowly ranged up alongside the wharf she presented a magnificent spectacle. The day turned out beautifully fine, and although the vessel arrived before 8 a.m., the wharf was crowded with interested sightseers anxious to have a look at what is undoubtedly the  finest vessel south of  the line. Although the stay in port was an extremely limited one, most  residents paid  her a visit, while her passengers commissioned all available vehicles to  have a run around and see Suva's beautiful surroundings." (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 May 1913).

Credit: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 21 May 1913

Niagara arrived at Honolulu at daylight on 21 May 1913 with   8 First Class and 8 Second Class for Honolulu and 215 First, 176 Second and 215 Third Class for Vancouver and 2,500 tons of cargo, mostly frozen meat from New Zealand. Eight passengers transferred to Matson's Wilhelmina which sailed for San Francisco just an hour later  That same day, Niagara's running mate, Makura, arrived from Vancouver. 

The arrival of Niagara at  Honolulu was especially eagerly anticipated and afforded a tremendous amount of local news coverage and interest. It was reckoned that she came in with the largest number of passengers (622 in all) to come into the port to date. So well-booked was she that only 17 embarks from Hawaii could be accommodated on the last leg. 

Shortly after five o'clock yesterday morning just as dawn reddened the eastern sky the Niagara arrived, looking like  steam yacht. As it approached the ports its outlines became strong and some idea of  its size was obtainable. 

At six o'clock the vessel dropped anchored off port and awaited the quarantine official  who went aboard at a quarter to seven. Doctor Sinclair passed the eight hundred passengers and crew in two hours, and at nine o'clock the vessel was alongside the wharf.

The Niagara had a list to  port, owing to the bunkers on that side having been emptied…

The Niagara is one of the finest ships ever in Honolulu harbor. It represents the very latest in marine architecture and furnishings and equipment developed in Scotch shipyards. With its towering decks, with their long sweeping promenades, many stairways and easy access to the interior, the Niagara is one of the best acquisitions to the rapidly developing shipping of Honolulu. It will be a help in enlarging the tourist business between Canada and Honolulu.

Honolulu Advertiser, 23 May 1913

During her call, she took on about 2,000 barrels (250 tons) of oil fuel and two of her  10 boilers were  switched over to burn the fuel on the final leg of her voyage to Vancouver, the rest stayed coal-fired.

Maiden arrival at Victoria, B.C. 28 May 1913. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

With the Royal Hawaiian Band playing her off, Niagara sailed at 8:30 p.m. 21 May 1913 for Victoria and Vancouver.  She came into Victoria in the pre-dawn hours of the 28th:

Victoria was early awake to-day to give a royal welcome to the big Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara which arrived this morning at the outer wharf shortly before 9 o'clock. Long before the time crowds lined the eastern wharves, while the reception committee, police, those holding special permits, photographers, members of the press, and dock officials stood in small groups along the dock of arrival.

Glorious sunshine and dazzling clearness of air made the outlines and details of the approaching vessel distinct many minutes before the people on her decks could be seen, and the graceful green bows with the narrow riband of yellow, the gleaming white decks, and red funnels were duly admired before the passengers became visible. The first signs of mutual recognition were announced by an enthusiastic demonstration such is seldom afforded the arrival of any vessel on her maiden voyage, wild cheers, tossing  caps, and waving parasols expressing the note of welcome in no unstinted terms.

Again and again the Fifth Regiment Band played the National Anthem beloved by all British subjects, while the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner" were also heard as a compliment to the American passengers known to be aboard. The hundreds of voyageurs leaning from the taffrail returned the compliment by giving vent to cheers and hat-wavings which, owing to the very multitude aboard, bade fair to down the din of welcome from ashore, the band, however, keeping up  a succession of patriotic airs which have good support to the ever-growing number waiting to welcome the visitors.

Victoria Daily Times, 28 May 1913

Niagara's epic and triumphal delivery voyage concluded when she came into Vancouver just before 6:00  p.m. on 28 May 1913, 30 minutes earlier than expected and landed 558 passengers there. 

Dense crowds of early birds, amongst those interested in Vancouver's maritime affairs, packed themselves  tightly against the barriers at the shore end.  A new adventurous ones managed to  reach the extreme end of the wharf where the camera men were posing themselves.

Many were caged in the sheds peeping through the wooden lattice work. Expecting the Niagara to arrive at 6:30 p.m. a thousands or so arrived just after the vessel had tied up, impressed into silence by the majesty of the great steamship's gradual  approach to the wharf, the crowd gave vent to no burst of cheering as the first lines came whizzing ashore and Vancouver gave her first mighty waterfront handgrasp to a new visitors fresh from the seven seas.

Vancouver Sun, 29 May 1913

Capt. Gibb told reporters the whole voyage, save for some rough seas off New Zealand, was accomplished in fine weather, it being related by the press that:  "Of the seaworthy behavior of the Niagara the captain's praise was high indeed. She is a magnificently good seaboat, steady in rough weather, and speedy." 

One of the offshoots of  having the new liner in service was expanding New Zealand's export trade of frozen meat as well as butter to new markets, including the United States. Credit: Victoria Daily Times,  4 June 1913.

During the ship's turnaround at Vancouver, Niagara was converted fully to oil burning. "On the voyage from Honolulu two of the boilers were tried with oil fuel and while there was some trouble on account of the fact that the test was something in the nature of an experiment, the officers were satisfied that the transfer will be beneficial in the long run." (Victoria Daily Times, 31 May 1913).  A team of workmen from British Columbia Marine Railways came over from the Esquilmalt (Victoria) dockyard  to effect the conversion, entailing changing all 32 coal fired furnaces to oil jets.  Some 400 tons of remaining coal was removed from her bunkers and being "good Australian coal, will have a ready sale."  Some coal was kept as her galley stoves were still fueled by it.  At the time, supplies of oil still had to come from the United States and on 2 June the British tanker Trinculo arrived at Vancouver from San Francisco with 28,000 barrels (4,000 tons) of oil and berthed directly alongside Niagara to bunker. On her normal run, Niagara would bunker at Vancouver and Honolulu and her ample capacity could enable her, if needed, to make the whole round voyage on one "tankful."

Niagara alongside at Vancouver upon her maiden arrival. Note the barge alongside heaped with coal, possibly her remaining bunkers unloaded during her conversion to oil during her turnaround there. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

"So far the public has been kept from the ship as the vessel has been in the hands of engineers who have completed the oil burning system in place of coal. By Friday she will be cleaned up and the public welcomed…" So the Province of 3 June 1913 reported that visitors, by invitation, would be permitted aboard Niagara for a few hours on the 6th. In all, about 1,000 came aboard, "The officers of the ship were kept more than busy showing the guests over the 543 feet length of the big liner. Expressions of wonderment were heard at every turn over the great size of the vessel, its spaciousness and evident comfort for voyagers. Luncheon was served in the dining saloon, which is as near the height of elegance as can be found any here. The Niagara is really a floating hotel." (Vancouver Sun, 6 June 1913). The luncheon, attended by many city and port officials, was also a farewell to Capt. Gibb who, after ten years on the Vancouver run, was retiring upon return to Australia on her first southbound voyage. 

Remarkably, Vancouver welcomed another new liner, another spoke in the hub of The All Red Route, when Canadian Pacific's magnificent Empress of Russia arrived for the first time on 7 June 1913 and she docked on the other side of Niagara at Pier A. 

Red Route Resurgent: R.M.S. Niagara (left) and R.M.S. Empress of Russia (right) share Pier A, Vancouver in 1913. Both ships made their maiden arrivals in British Columbia within nine days of one another and, with Empress of Asia, introduced a new era  in Canadian trans-Pacific services. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

All was in readiness for Niagara's maiden southbound voyage and on the eve of departure, it was stated she would go out with 100 First, 80 Second and 60 Third Class passengers and a full 3,200 tons of cargo including lumber, sewing machines, automobiles, canned goods and "a flying machine" going to Auckland. Live cargo included  four bears and two coyotes bound for a Sydney zoo while the passenger list numbered the Archbishop  of Sydney. R.M.S. Niagara sailed on schedule from Pier A at noon 11 June 1913 and after calling at Victoria late that evening, was off on her regular run south. She reached Honolulu on the 18th.

R.M.S. Niagara outward bound  c. 1913 from Vancouver, passing Brockton Point  Lighthouse. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

The new Canadian-Australian liner Niagara made a fine record in the passage from British Columbian ports to Honolulu, according to statement made this morning following arrival of the vessel from Vancouver. The Niagara has easily demonstrated that she is a fast class, if the bursts of speed during the past six days can be taken as a criterion…

The vessel is reported to have met with fine weather on the voyage. With steam supplied by but one-half her boiler capacity, the vessel maintained a high rate of speed, which is said gives promise of a marked increase in speed with a full equipment of boilers in service.

Honolulu Star Bulletin, 18 June 1913

Completing the first extended ocean crossing by a British passenger liner burning oil, Niagara arrived at Auckland at 2:35 a.m. on 1 July 1913, doing the 6,330-miles at an average of 15.5  knots. Mr. W. Smart, the Superintending Engineer for the Union Company, related to the Auckland Star that: "All the paraphernalia connected with coal-- the fire irons, the cumbersome furnace fittings, the wheelbarrows and shovels, the dust and cinders, that and a constant source of worry below and on deck, and coal itself, has been dispensed with." It was added that the ship could carry 5,000 tons of oil, on present voyage 4,000 tons taken on at Vancouver and 350 tons taken on a Honolulu.  "The stokehold of the Niagara has been white-washed, and is as clean and cool as any part of the big vessel. On the passage up to Vancouver and back again the engineers had an opportunity of testing the magnificent set of machinery with which the steamer. Everything worked smoothly, and those in charge of the various departments speak enthusiastically of the gear under their control. "  Of the 198 passengers aboard, 52  disembarked at Auckland and of her cargo, 525  tons was landed there and the remaining 2,180 tons at Sydney

Niagara concluded her maiden southbound voyage at Sydney on 7 July 1913, and all agreed it had been a perfect voyage with fine weather while Chief Engineer Dunlop told the press: "She has a lot of speed up her sleeve, but we only maintained our contract speed. It can be easily accelerated; we had two boilers that were not in use on this voyage."  On the the 10th she went into Woolwich dry dock for cleaning and painting, becoming the largest vessel every drydocked in Sydney.  "The Niagara presented a remarkably fine sight, towering over high over the dock, and visitors were much impress  with her stately appearance. Her beautiful lines excited favorable comment."  (Daily Telegraph, 11 July 1913). She spent but two days there and then shifted to her berth to load for her northbound voyage.

Now commanded by Capt. H.G. Morrisby, Niagara sailed from Sydney on 28 July 1913 in company with her rival as the largest vessel in the southern hemisphere, Blue Funnel's Nestor. "The Niagara was crowded with passengers and had an enthusiastic send-off." (Daily Telegraph, 29 July 1913). After calling at Suva and Honolulu (12 August), she berthed at Victoria early on the 19th and later that afternoon at Vancouver.   

Her second voyage commenced from Vancouver at 1:00 p.m. 3 September 1913, among her passengers were Lady Denman, the wife of the Governor General of Australia. Her 3,600-ton outbound cargo was the largest yet carried on the service.  When she called at Honolulu on the 10th, the Honolulu Advertiser reported "when the liner was moored it appeared as though the vessel was laden with residents of the famed Lilliput, for childlike beings were seen hurrying here and there on the decks. They proved to be midgets attached to the Tinytown Circus, en route to Australia to give performances… During the voyage the midgets participated in the deck sports with as much gusto as their taller fellow passengers and won two  or three prizes."

Niagara came into Auckland at 4:30 p.m. 22 September 1913, a good 12 hours ahead of schedule, with 442 passengers. The ship's speed, since conversion to oil, began to impress and on the passage from Suva (sailing 5:00 p.m. 19th) to Auckland, even with only eight of ten boilers fired, she easily maintained 17.5 knots, the 1,140-nautical mile passage taking 2 days 23 hours 15 minutes. With all boilers on, her speed was a potential 19  knots or two full knots over her contract speed. "On the voyage from Vancouver the weather conditions were beautiful, and the passengers in all classes had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Deck games and other entertainment were organised aboard and the short stays in Honolulu and Suva were much appreciated." (Auckland Star,  23 September 1913).  She arrived at Sydney at 1:30 p.m. on the 27th. 

Panoramic photo of Queen's Wharf, Auckland, with R.M.S. Niagara alongside published in Auckland Weekly News 27 November 1913. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19131127-56-2

Niagara sailed from Sydney at noon on 20 October 1913, called at Auckland 24-25th. Among the cargo unloaded there was an 18-ft. model of the P&O liner Maloja which was to be displayed during the upcoming Auckland Exhibition the next month.   Awaiting the arrival of mails from the South Island by Rarewa, her sailing was postponed 10 hours. She called at Honolulu on 4 November, only eight hours late but unable to make up more time owing to heavy fog off Fiji which had her reduced speed for 24 hours. She put on extra speed and made 403 nautical miles a day for five days en route to Hawaii. Rough weather on the final leg made it impossible to make up the delays and Niagara was a day  late docking at Victoria with 175 passengers on the 12th and Vancouver late the same day.

Niagara's next sailing, from Vancouver on 26 November 1913 was a record breaker on several counts: number of passengers (nearly 600, the most in a single vessel to the Antipodes from Canada) and in cargo (3,000 tons)  making her at 31 ft. draught, the biggest ship to sail from Victoria.  Her mail consignment, too, was the largest yet sent south.  However, by the time she left Victoria that evening at 9:00 p.m., a strong southeast gale off Cape  Flatterty came up and with winds rising to 75 mph,  Capt. Morrisby decided to anchor inside the straits for the night and continued on her way at 8:00 a.m. the following morning.  She embarked her 40 Victoria passengers by the pilot launch and was on her way.  

Alas, weather conditions were no better north and east of the Hawaiian islands. It gave the first real test of Niagara's seakeeping and for three days, near hurricane force southerlies pummeled her  and she finally had to hove to for 15 hours, shipping some big rollers over her decks but with no damage done. "During the gale the Niagara proved herself a remarkably steady ship, and the captain and officers express themselves as highly satisfied with her behaviour."  (Auckland Star, 17 December 1913).

Twenty-four hours late, Niagara docked at Honolulu at 2:00 p.m. on 4 December, 24 hours late. There, she took on 1,100 tons of fuel oil.    Still a day late, she docked at Auckland the morning of the 17th. There she landed 495 bags of Christmas mail and the All Black football squad back from a tour of America.  She docked at Sydney  on the 22nd. 

Coinciding with her arrival in Sydney, came the news on Christmas Eve that that Union S.S. Co. had ordered a slightly running mate for Niagara from Fairfields which would be 30 ft. longer and of 14,000 grt. "The company plan to have her completed within eighteen months, and she will be placed in services by the early part of 1915. Running with Niagara and Majura, she would replace Marama. 

The third magnificent new trans-Pacific liner to enter the Vancouver trade in summer 1913 was CPR's Empress of Asia  (right) which made her maiden arrival in the port on 31 August 1913. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

1914

"A gay scene was presented yesterday at no. 1 Wharf, Dawes Point, on the occasion of the departure of the R.M.S. Niagara for Vancouver. With her decks crowded with passengers, and looking spic and span, the liner cast off shortly after noon, and the passengers had an enthusiastic send-off from an immense crowd on the wharf." (Sydney Daily Telegraph, 13 January 1914).  Niagara started off the New Year in grand style indeed, sweeping into Auckland at 5:00 p.m. on the 15th after a record  trans-Tasman passage of 3 days 1 hour 48 minutes, averaging 17.5 knots and using all boilers. This in spite  of having to reduce speed for three hours on account of fog off the Three Kings.  Her daily runs were 383, 411 and 402 nautical miles.  This cut more than four hours off previous record set by Oceanic S.S. Co's Sonoma.

Niagara started the New Year with a trans-Tasman record. 

Since the Niagara entered the Canadian and Australasian service some months ago she had not been fully extended but when the steamer left the Sydney Heads at 1 o'clock on Monday afternoon last, Captain Morrisby decided to see what the fine vessel he commanded was really capable of under ordinary seagoing conditions.

Full speed ahead was given as soon as the Niagara was clear of the land and for the remainder of the passage the speed of the liner was within the vicinity of 17 knots. For the first 24 hours the conditions were not favourable. A strong wind blew from north east, and the Niagara was stayed a little in her progress as she cut her way through heavy seas. In spite of the adverse weather, however, a high speed was maintained throughout Monday, and in the early hours of Tuesday. For the remainder of the voyage beautiful weather was met with, and lost time was overtaken rapidly. The last wireless bulletin sent out by Captain Morrisby this morning stated that an average speed of 17½ knots had been kept, so that the Niagara must have been steaming at least 18 knots for a part of the passage. 

Auckland Star, 15 January 1914

Niagara outbound from Auckland.

After calling at Honolulu on 27 January 1914, Niagara arrived at Victoria the morning of 3 February. She landed what was said to be largest single shipment of New Zealand butter ever, 23,000 56-pound boxes in all.  When she came into Vancouver late on the 3rd, Capt. Morrisby told reporters that "Niagara met with exceptional weather on her run here. There was not a breeze and it was one of the finest trips made of vessels of the service."

With 250 passengers and 4,000 tons of cargo, Niagara left Vancouver on 18 February 1914, 24 hours late owing to a delay in receiving the London mails via CPR.  She came into Honolulu on the 27th, Suva on 6 March and reached Auckland on the evening of the 10th after battling strong winds and high seas.   Her most unusual cargo was discharged at Sydney on the 15th… the largest animal menagerie ever sent from North America to Australia, destined for various zoos there. There were 60 animals, 40 birds and a few snakes including 14 bears, eight wild boars, five coyotes, three lynx, three beavers, two elk, two bison, two deer and a minx.  They were all housed in special compartments on the boat deck and all but two owls and a minx survived the voyage in fine shape. 

Before setting off on her northbound crossing, Niagara went into the Woolwich dry dock on 20 March 1914. She sailed for Auckland on 6 April, docking there on the 9th and sailing with 11th with 533 aboard  five Maori chiefs en route to London to discuss aborigine treaty rights"… a tremendous crowd assembled to see the liner sail, and there were hundreds of Maoris present to say 'klaora' to the king, Maori dances were conducted on the wharf..." (The Province, 29 April 1914).  When she came into Honolulu on the 21st, it was said she brought in a record list of more than 600.  

She came into Vancouver at 2:00 p.m. on the 28 April 1914 with 652 passengers which was reported as being the largest number of "white", i.e. not Asiatics, to arrive in one ship at the port.   Niagara made good time, leaving Auckland on the 11th, a day late, but arrived  a day ahead of schedule.  From Auckland to Honolulu  she averaged 16.4 knots and 17 knots on the final leg, even with  only eight boilers fired.  Her best day's run (25th) was 408 nautical miles at 17.3 knots. 

Boat drill held aboard Niagara during her Vancouver turnaround.  Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Credit: The Province, 1 May 1914

"All Boats Away". Niagara, like all Union S.S. Co. ships long before Titanic, had boats for all passengers and crew, and used Welin davits. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

On 13 May 1914 Niagara, sailed from Vancouver… "she took out 275 passengers and a  big crowd assembled at Pier A to see her sail. Rolls of ribbons were held between ship and shore and the colored bands stretched over the rapidly widening interval at the liner… back out on her long voyage." (The Province, 13 May 1914).  Niagara arrived at Auckland on 1 June after a very smart passage, almost two days ahead of schedule, and reached Sydney at 6:30 a.m. on the  6th. 

Credit: Daily Telegraph, 3  July 1914

Setting another Trans-Tasman record, Niagara which left Sydney at noon on 29 June 1914, and docked at Auckland on 2 July, doing the passage in 2 days 23 hours 34 minutes, cutting 2 hours 23 minutes off her previous record.  The run from Sydney Heads to Cape Maria van Diemen was done in 2 days 12 hours 14 minutes at an average 17.9 knots and then on to Auckland, 213 miles distant, in 11 hours 20 minutes at 18.8 knots. To date, Niagara completed six  voyages from Sydney to Auckland and five in the reverse direction:

Sydney-Auckland

• 3 days 15 hours 5 mins (coal)
• 3 days 10 hours 1 mins. 
• 3 days 14 hours 49 mins.
• 3 days 2 hours 13 mins.
• 3 days 1 hour 57 mins.

Auckland-Sydney

• 3 days 11 hours 51 mins.
• 3 days 10 hours 38 mins.
• 3 days 12 hours 33 mins.
• 3 days 12 hours 35 mins
• 3 days 13 hours 43 mins.

Her other record, in May, was Suva-Auckland in  2 days 18 hours 44 mins.

Looking like a record breaker, Niagara sails from Auckland on 3 July 1914 after her fast trans-Tasman crossing. Credit:  Auckland Weekly News, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19140709-39-1

On this segment, she was commanded by her harbour pilot when Capt. Morrisby injured an eye whilst chopping wood in his home near Sydney, and forced to stayed ashore for treatment. At Auckland, Capt. J.T. Rolls assumed command.  Niagara left Auckland on 3 July 1914, bound for Suva where she was to load a 1,300-ton consignment of sugar. To  give more time there for loading, all speed was put  on and after reaching 18 knots, she arrived there on the afternoon of  6 July instead of the following morning. Niagara docked at Honolulu on the 14th and reached Victoria the morning of the 21st and Vancouver later that day. 

Capt. J.T. Rolls, who commanded Niagara throughout the First World War and well into the 1920s. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19070921-14-1

The day the British Empire declared war on Germany and Austro-Hungary, Niagara was scheduled to  sail from Vancouver with 300 passengers. After being delayed, she was allowed  to sail at 6:00 p.m. 5 August 1914, departing within hours of Empress of Russia.  Both ships would sail blacked out and at full speed.  Niagara reached Honolulu safely on the 13th despite fears the German cruiser Nurnberg was patrolling in the Pacific.  Capt. Rolls  took a different course and "drove her hard without lights".   

At the time, Germany was known to have two warships "at large" in the expanses of the Pacific, the cruisers S.M.S. Leipzig and S.M.S. Nurnberg.  Until their whereabouts could be ascertained, the Admiralty ordered both Niagara and the northbound Marama held at Honolulu.  In the end they were detained six full days, Niagara having to shift to an anchorage after one day alongside to clear the pier.  Finally, at 10:00 p.m. on 18 August 1914 she and her long suffering passengers were on their way. Skipping Suva, she reached Auckland on the afternoon of the 30th.  The protracted voyage was described as "A Thirty-One Days' Nightmare' with a zig-zag course via Fanning Island and blackout conditions. Niagara finally arrived at Sydney on 5 September and did not sail northwards until 8 October and skipped the calls at Suva and Honolulu. 

On 3 September 1914, Union S.S. Co. announced that their Vancouver-Auckland-Sydney service would henceforth be maintained on a monthly basis by Niagara and Makura only. 

Niagara left Vancouver on 28 October 1914 on her first sailing on the new wartime schedule and did the run to Victoria in  four and half hours.  She skipped the Honolulu call and thus also her essential "top-up" of oil there.  When the British tanker Esturia arrived at Honolulu on 24 November 1914 with only half her supply  (1,300 tons), the local  press reported she had loaded in British Borneo and sailed for Suva when it was believed she rendezvoused with Niagara for refuelling there.  Niagara  docked at Auckland on 15 November after a 19-day run and arrived at Sydney on the 20th. Northbound, she cleared Darling Harbour on the 26th. Rolling in a heavy beam sea across the the Tasman, she reached Auckland on the 30th.  Due to German warships "at large" in the Pacific, the calls at Suva and Honolulu were scrubbed and  Niagara's 87 passengers endured "a tedious and monotonous" 15½-day crossing with no breaks, arriving at Victoria on 16 December.

Niagara's 23 December 1914 sailing was delayed until the afternoon of the 24th to await the mails and she had more than 800 bags, transhipped from Seattle, aboard Princess Victoria to load. Much of it was destined for Suva which had been bypassed by the Australian liners with consequent backlog. It was, in fact, the largest consignment of mail for the Antipodes yet loaded at Victoria. She sailed with 195 passengers and 3,600 tons of cargo. including 511,000 bushels of Canadian wheat for New Zealand.  

Initial line-issued postcard for Niagara.  Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum.

1915

Into the New Year, the regular calls at Suva and Honolulu were reinstated and with the threat of German surface raiders diminished, a largely peacetime routine resumed although the ship was still blacked out at night.  Niagara's peacetime livery remained as well although the yellow-gold sheer line and her name and registry were blacked-out. 

It was early on her northbound crossing from Sydney on 18 March 1915, that Niagara suffered one of her few mishaps. En route from Sydney to Auckland, she dropped a blade of her centre screw (for her turbine)  on the 20th.  "The accident occurred about teatime, and the passengers were rather alarmed by a sudden and very severe vibration, which, however, soon ceased. The big steamer was then slowed downed until she was making about four knots, but after a few minutes she continued on her course, using the two remaining screws…" (Auckland Star, 22 March 1915). Working up to 15 knots on her twin screws and reciprocating engines, she docked at  Auckland at 10:00 a.m. the 22nd. 

Niagara in Calliope Graving Dock, Devonport Dock Yard, Auckland March 1915. Credit: Lyttelton Museum.

Although Capt. Rolls said she was quite capable of proceeding to Vancouver  on her twin screws, it was decided to dry dock the ship at Auckland and replace the damaged screw and shaft with the extra set providently carried aboard. On 23 March 1915 Niagara was towed from Queen's Wharf to Calliope Dock at Devonport Dockyard by the tugs Te Awhina and Young Bungaree and successfully  (and gingerly) floated into the dry dock with barely 5½ feet clearance on the sides and fitting her 524 ft. length into the 566 ft. dock.  Niagara was, in fact, the largest ship to be drydocked in Auckland and still holds the record for being the biggest ever enter the Calliope Graving Dock.  

One of a series of excellent photographs taken by the Auckland Harbour Board of Niagara in dry dock on 24 March 1915. Credit: New Zealand Maritime Museum. 

The largest ship dry docked in New Zealand at the time (and still the largest ever to use the Calliope Graving Dock), Niagara was a "tight fit" as this and other photos show. Credit: New Zealand Maritime Museum. 

Note that her yellow gold sheer line has been painted out "for the duration". Credit: New Zealand Maritime Museum. 

A "tight fit" indeed. Note, too, that her name has been painted out. The immaculate paintwork was typical of a Union S.S. Co. vessel. Credit: New Zealand Maritime Museum. 

The overhang of her counter stern showing just what a "tight squeeze" to get Niagara into the dock. Yet it took only about 20 minutes.  New Zealand Maritime Museum.

And the whole point of exercise: workmen of the United Repairing Co. replacing the centre screw and shaft. Owing to the tight confines, Niagara's rudder has been unshipped.  Credit: New Zealand Maritime Museum. 

The new shaft and screw  were fitted without difficulty thanks to 40 hours continuous work by the staff of the United Repairing Co.'s and the ship's engineers under the supervision of D.M. Gilles of Union and Chief Engineer W. Peterson.  The original  shaft was found to be damaged along with the lining of the stern bearing. On the 25 March 1915 she was undocked in just 20 minutes with Te Awhina assisting and getting her to Queen Wharf's to load for her northbound voyage.  Niagara sailed at 10:00 a.m. the next day, three days late. 

Again showing her speed, Niagara made up a day and half with a smart run up to Honolulu where she docked on 4 April 1915 and was off again by 3:00 p.m.   Capt. Rolls again put his foot down on the final run to Victoria, accomplished it in 5 days 14 hours instead of 7 days and Niagara averaged 18 knots for the whole northbound passage.  She arrived at Victoria at 10:00 a.m. on the 10th and at Vancouver later that day. 

Niagara's northbound April 1915 crossing had it all: fast and from all accounts... fun. 

It was fast work to get Niagara turned around and off again. She discharged 4,000 tons of cargo and took on 3,327 tons, 600 bags of mail, refuelled and embarked 100 passengers, sailing on 14 April 1915. She came into Auckland on 2 May after another fast 17-knot overall passage. But she was just getting started and make quick work of the Tasman, sweeping  past Sydney  Heads on the afternoon of the 6th and docking at Sydney at 2:00 p.m.  It was a new record for her, averaging 18 knots most of the way.  The 3-day 23-minute record would stand until 1931. 

Another Trans-Tasman record for the Union S.S. flyer. Credit: Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1915

Niagara left Sydney on 13 May 1915 called at Auckland on the 17th and sailed the next day. Remarkably, she lost another propeller blade to her centre screw two days after departure, but continued on her way after the turbine was shut down, docking at Honolulu on the 28th and coming into Victoria and Vancouver  on 4 June.  There, the damaged centre screw was removed but with no replacement readily at hand, it was decided to send her  on her way with just the reciprocating engines driving the wing screws. 

The twin-screw Niagara sailed from Vancouver and Victoria on 9 June 1915,  called at Honolulu on the  16th, Suva 25th and arrived at Auckland three days later. By 2:00 p.m. 2 July she was alongside at Sydney. During her layover there,  a replacement centre screw, cast locally by Mort's Dock Co. and costing $4,000, was fitted.  Niagara sailed for Auckland on the 8th where she docked on the 12th, Suva (16), Honolulu and Victoria/Vancouver on the 30th. She did the run up the Straits of Juan de Fuca in the record time of 2 hours 40 mins. 

Credit: Vancouver Daily World 30 July 1915

Making another fast turnaround, Niagara was dispatched to the Antipodes at noon on 4 August 1915 with 270 passengers and arrived at Auckland on the 23rd. Ten of her crew enlisted during the Sydney turnaround including Purser A.R. Thompson, further exacerbating a growing wartime issue securing sufficient crews. The northbound Niagara arrived a day ahead of schedule in Honolulu 16 September and arrived at Victoria on 23rd did the 7,000-mile run in 20 days "hardly a roll did the big red stacker take on her entire passage. As Capt. Rolls termed it, 'the Pacific was a peaceful as a millpond." (Victoria Daily Times).

Credit: The Province, 12 August 1915

Sailing from Vancouver on 29 September 1915, she arrived at Sydney in the middle of a coal strike that, of course, affected the  oil-burner not one bit and Niagara  departed on schedule on 28 October

Arriving at Sydney from Vancouver (sailing from there 24 November), on 18 December 1915, Niagara  took the best part of an hour to berth owing to a fierce rain squall and one of her bow lines carried away in the process.   Niagara then went into the Woolwich dry dock for cleaning and painting and was floated out on the 21st.   She sailed northbound on the 23rd despite concerns over  shortage of crew which was sorely effecting Sydney based ships although the oil-fired Niagara not needing stokers and trimmers who were in especially  short supply, was to her advantage. Calling at Auckland on the 21st, she had but 107 passengers aboard by the time she left Honolulu on 7 January 1916, her lightest load to date.  

Niagara's route, of course, often featured climate extremes, but especially so on the remaining portion of her northern passage. Rough seas and a strong northerly gale were combined with blinding snow as she came off the British Columbia coast on 12 January 1916.   The snow was so heavy that her officers couldn't see her prow from the bridge. "Tons of ice were caked on the forecastle head, and the decks and rigging were sheathed in ice and great icicles hung from all parts  of the ship." (Victoria Daily Times). Instead of docking at Victoria on the 13th as scheduled, she had to skip the port entirely when her hydraulic steering gear froze up and she  made instead straight for Vancouver on her auxiliary steam steering gear, conned from the emergency aft docking station. 

A rather superb early photo card, published in New Zealand, of Niagara sailing from Auckland and laying down an impressive smokescreen in the process! 

1916

Into the second full year of war, Niagara kept on her regular run which attracted fewer and fewer passengers and more  and more cargo. When she cleared Vancouver for the Antipodes on 19 January 1916, she had 95 First and 95 Second Class fares, but a full 4,000-ton cargo and 972 bags of mail. Rough weather made her 10 hours late arriving at Honolulu on the 26th. She reach Auckland on 7 February and   Sydney was made on the 11th and 35 cadets from Australia, touring the Canada and United States for 11 months, were among those disembarking: "Most the lads appeared to have come back  with a vigorous American accent." (Daily Telegraph, 12 February 1916).

When she left Sydney on 17 February 1916, Niagara had one her best lists in a while; 294 in all.  She called at Auckland on the 21st and at Honolulu 2-3 March safely despite rumours of a German "raider" at large in the Pacific. Putting on all speed, she reached Hawaii 14 hours ahead of schedule but hazy weather delayed her arrival in B.C. until the 9th. 

The famous Australian diva Dame Melba (right) embarking on Niagara 23 March 1915. Credit: Honolulu Advertiser.

Southbound lists remained sparse and there were but 96 aboard Niagara's 15 March 1916 sailing from Vancouver.  She touched at Honolulu on the 22nd and took on 4,000 tons of oil and… Mme. Nellie Melba, the famous Australian diva, sailing for home with a Hawaiian protégé Miss Margaret Center.  Niagara  arrived at Auckland at 3 April and when she cleared the port, she had 470 passengers including 400 trans-Tasman fares disembarking at Sydney on the 7th.

Leaving Sydney with 180 passenger  on 13 April 1916, Niagara, after relishing a fast Trans-Tasman  passage of 3 days 2 hours at 17.5 knots, arrived at Auckland on the  16th. After calling at Honolulu on 28th, she docked at Victoria on 4 May with 250 passengers and 4,500 tons of cargo.

After a strike by her catering crew  over compensation for an injured fellow crewman that delayed her 12 hours, Niagara sailed from Vancouver on 10 May 1916 and arrived at Honolulu on the 19th. She docked at Auckland ten days later and Sydney on 2 June.  The next day she went into Woolwich Dry Dock for cleaning and painting.  She left for Vancouver on the 8th  and came into Honolulu on  the 23rd with her largest passenger list in quite some time: 565 including the author Sir Henry Rider Haggard as well the third contingent of volunteers from Fiji en route to  join the colours in Britain. "After a splendid passage of sixteen days from Auckland, N.Z." (Victoria Daily Times), Niagara docked at Victoria on the 30th. 

Photographed aboard Niagara shortly before sailing from Honolulu, the third contingent of volunteers from Fiji bound for England via The All Red Route to join the colours.  Credit: Honolulu Star Bulletin, 30 June 1916. 

Before she sailed on her 18th voyage, no fewer than 32 members of Niagara's steward department signed off to join the the Canadian Forces.  Eleven hours late awaiting the arrival  of the English mails, Niagara cleared Vancouver at 11:00 p.m. on 5 July 1916. She touched at Honolulu on the 12th after a fast  passage that made up 13½ hours on her lost time, averaging 17 knots.  Her departure south was delayed 30 minutes by the slower pumping aboard of a heavier grade of fuel oil than previously used which was reckoned by her engineers to give Niagara better speed.  

Niagara sailed from Vancouver on 30 August 1916 with 265 passengers and Daisy, a baby female elephant being brought to the Kapiolani Park Zoo in Hawaii.  Upon arrival at Honolulu on 6 September, Capt. Rolls told reporters that during the fine weather, Daisy " was able to promenade on the Boat Deck all the way down." 

Niagara was often a "Noah's Ark" of unfortunate animals bound for zoos, thanks to Ellis E. Joseph, "famed animal collector".  Daisy, above, at least had use of Niagara's Boat Deck on the trip to her new home in Hawaii. She became a beloved attraction at the Honolulu Zoo until 1933 when she trampled her trainer to death and... was shot and killed by the police. Credit: Honolulu Advertiser, 7 September 1916.

Niagara, which arrived at Sydney on 17 November 1916, came in ahead of schedule to allow more time for drydocking at Woolwich for cleaning and painting of her hull. When the liner sailed northbound on the 23rd, Mme. Dame Melba, "in urgent need of a long, undisturbed rest," was again aboard, bound for Honolulu. 

R.M.S. Niagara docking at Vancouver. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

1917

Before the year was over, Niagara left Vancouver on 20 December 1916. Her passengers rang in the New Year at sea and upon her arrival at Auckland on the 7th, the Auckland Star recounted that "On New Year's Night a concert was held aboard the steamer, and the passengers report their  holidays at sea as being most enjoyable."

In February 1917 after a San Francisco newspaper claimed a world steaming record for liner Great Northern of 145,600 miles covered in under two years, New Zealanders came up with a counter record: Niagara which in a two-year period had made 13 round voyages between Vancouver and Sydney. With each round voyage comprising 15,264 miles, Niagara had covered 198,432 miles or 87,000 more than the American contender.

Now on setting off on her 21st voyage, Niagara left Vancouver on 14 February 1917 with 246 passengers, including former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin and the Portland Beavers baseball team en route to Hawaii for training tour.

Few who witnessed the departure of the Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara for the Antipodes yesterday afternoon realized the staggering proportions of the fuel cost in the operation of this giant steamship on the roundtrip between British Columbia and Australia.

It was learned aboard the ship yesterday that anything from 30,000 to 36,000 barrels of fuel oil is consumed by the furnaces through the trip from Victoria to Sydney and return. The capacity  of the fuel tanks on the Niagara is 36,000 barrels, and it estimated about six barrels of oil is equal to a ton of coal.

While at Vancouver the Niagara usually takes aboard under 30,000 barrels and on the present trip she carried 27,000 barrels, which, is interesting to not, is greater than the entire cargo capacity of the tanker Asuncion, one of the carriers which handle the  fuel oil business between California and this Province. However, 27,000 barrels is not sufficient to take the Niagara on the round  voyage, so she pumps into her tanks several thousand additional barrels of oil at Honolulu.

With fuel oil running at $1 a barrel or  over, and still going up, a little figuring will give an idea of the fuel cost for the round trip to Australia.

Doubtless the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand has a contract  covering several years to guarantee the fuel supply for its steamers, but whatever the reduction the company may get on the existing prices it is  safe to  estimate that the Niagara's fuel  bill for the round voyage is in the immediate vicinity of $30,000.

Victoria  Daily Times, 12 April 1917

A rare late war advertisement. Credit: Australia Today, 1917.

With America in the war and amid unrestricted submarine warfare, the publication of shipping movements, sailing lists etc. was largely banned in Allied newspapers save for "safe arrival" notices, the exception being the Honolulu papers. Niagara continued to ply her regular trade but in relative obscurity. 

On her next southbound voyage, she arrived at Honolulu on 13 June 1917 and had aboard the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Rt. Hon. W.F.  Massey, Mrs. Massey and daughter, and the Minister of Finance, returning from a conference in London. It was also reported that "the liner now has her entire superstructure painted war gray from deck line up, although her hull is still in the familiar green typical of the line." (Honolulu Advertiser, 14 June 1917).

On her next northbound stop at Honolulu on 20 July 1917, Niagara's through passengers including another 20 Fijians en route to England to enlist, the third such contingent. 

On 10 August 1917 the U.S. Government announced that vessels bound for Sydney or Vancouver could not land their through passengers or crew at Honolulu. This was, however, rescinded in time for Niagara's call there from Vancouver on the 14th after a seven-day delay in British Columbia owing to a strike by the International Longshoremen's Association.  

Strikes, this time in Australia, saw Niagara turnaround at Auckland and skip  Sydney on her southbound September voyage.  She stayed there for 15 days and the opportunity given to overhaul her machinery. Her intending passengers from Sydney, including Mme. Melba again, sailed across the Tasman by another Union steamer.  Mme. Melba entertained the passengers during the voyage and Niagara  reached Honolulu on 21 September 1917.  Among those sailing  from  Honolulu was a contingent  38 British volunteers headed for England. "In honor of the departing British recruits the Hawaiian band were present at the sailing of the Niagara and added to the martial air with patriotic music of both America and Great Britain."  (Honolulu Star Bulletin, 21 September 1917).

During her turn-around at Sydney in November-December  1917, Niagara was drydocked at the Naval Dockyard at Cockatoo Island where, according to reported in the Shipbuilding & Shipping Record, 1 April 1920, the "centre screw was bored out and dynamically balanced to reduce vibration".  The positive effects of which were confirmed by her Chief Engineer:  "The records show less vibration; of course, there is more difference felt than recorded. The pipes under the promenade deck, which used to rattle badly at times, were quiet, also steering house doors and loose fittings, such as window-frames, bed fitting rails etc. The second class accommodation, captain's room, too, are also much improved. Of course, the conditions are the best; when we get bad weather and oil bunkers practically empty, there may be more vibration, but up to the present the propeller is a success."

Niagara in the overall wartime grey she sported beginning in 1918. If anything, it emphasizes her lovely lines. 

1918

When Niagara resumed sailings in January with her northbound departure for Vancouver, she did so  entirely painted in wartime grey and would stay so attired "for the duration."  When Niagara came into Honolulu on 1 February 1918, among her 200 passengers were war widows, in black mourning dress, who had been in England or Canada while their husbands were serving in France.  They were now returning home to Australia or New Zealand.  Another grim sign of the neverending war was that, for the first time, Niagara was armed, mounting two 3-inch guns aft, manned by specially trained men from her own crew.  

Photo card of Niagara posted from Auckland 3 March 1918. Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum. 

Niagara, which left Auckland on 2 May 1918, had aboard her most distinguished passenger list in her history and one that was only revealed upon her safe arrival at Honolulu on the 12th. Bound for an Imperial Conference and the second annual meeting of the war cabinet of Great Britain in London were Sir William Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia; Sir W.F. Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand; Sir  Joseph Ward, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sir Robert Garran, solicitor general of Australia and J. Cook, Minister of the Navy of Australia. 

The Honolulu Advertiser of 14 May 1918 reported that Niagara would make one more round voyage after her present trip and would then be commandered as a transport. The rumour was not confirmed but continued to swirl. Many of her through passengers southbound were discharged soldiers returning to New Zealand and Australia. 

Credit: Victoria Daily Times, 20 May 1918.

On 19 May 1918 Niagara came into Victoria just past midnight with her VIP passengers after a 22-day run up from Sydney. She also chalked a new if rather local speed record:

Laying down a speed record that never been equalled or even attempted by an ocean steamship in coastwise waters, the Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara, on Saturday night, forged her way up the Straits of Juan de Fuca at a twenty-knot gait, covering the marine territory between Cape Flattery and the  Race Rocks in the splendid time of two hours and fifty-three minutes. The fastest time hitherto made between these two points is claimed to be three hours and  fifteen minutes.

While on one course the liner reeled off seventeen miles in forty-right minutes, which will give some idea of the speed the big two-stacker was making after she had lined up in the Straits from seaward. This great effort by the Niagara is but another indication of the tremendous reserve power of the great ocean leviathans which link this port with the far-flung posts of the Empire. 

In accomplishing her splendid feat as she  neared Victoria from Australasia this voyage the Niagara was not driven at the maximum extent of her power. She was only using eight of her ten boilers, a fact which adds more gloss to  her performance.

Victoria Daily Times, 20 May 1918

Mme. Melba, as regular a passenger as any liner could covet and returning after a U.S. tour, was again aboard Niagara which sailed from Vancouver on 24 May 1918. If Australian prima donnas often figured in Niagara's lists, another passenger component around this time was an influx of Portuguese immigrants to the U.S. by way of Canada and Hawaii. On 17 July the liner came into Victoria, 17 days out of Auckland, with the second contingent of 144 Portuguese from Hawaii who had originally come to the islands as labourers in the sugar fields and, after five years in an American territory, qualified for entry into the mainland and citizenship. From Victoria, they transhipped to the CPR service to Seattle.  Also aboard was another contingent of 28 recruits from Fiji, "boisterously  happy and eager for a scrap with the Hun." (Victoria Daily Times, 17 July 1918). 

A loading accident alongside Vancouver delayed Niagara's next southbound voyage by three days when a  piece of heavy machinery being hoisted into a forward hold by the ship's derricks came away and crashed into hold, piercing one of her oil fuel tanks. She was finally on her way on 27 July 1918.  The Victoria Daily Times noted that "as the Canadian-Australasian liners have not been maintaining anything like a schedule for some past months the enforced delay to the Niagara is not considered serious. The standing orders applying to the operation of the company's boats are that no ship be permitted to leave port until a full cargo has been shipped."

Her next  voyage from Vancouver on 24 September 1918, with  400 passengers "including many war veterans." (Province), not to mention Prime Minister Right Hon. W.F. Massey and Minister of Finance, Sir Joseph Ward,  Major F.G. Massey, D.S.O., M.C., youngest son of New Zealand's Prime Minister,was Niagara's most notorious and to this day most controversial, it still being asserted that the ship was responsible for introducing the so-called Spanish Flu, the devastating strain of influenza that ravaged much of the world for two years, to New Zealand, although more recent research discounts this. Given the amount of material written on the subject, only a brief resume of the ship related aspects will have to suffice here.

Soon after departing Honolulu on 31 September 1918, some of Niagara's stewards fell ill with what was first diagnosed as "simple" influenza which spread quickly to deckhands, stokehold crew and engineers. By the time time Suva was reached on 5 October, there were some 60 cases. Dr. A.T. Latchmore ship's surgeon. was helped by two doctors who were aboard as passengers, Captain Kenneth Mackenzie and E.C. Barnett,  as well as by  passenger Nursing-Sister Hargrave, from New Zealand, who had served on the front. With the 10-bed hospital aboard hopelessly inadequate, the Second Class smoking room and some cabins which were at least somewhat self-contained aft, were pressed into service as makeshift wards.  On the 11th, the first death occurred aboard; Boatswain's Mate Thomas Rutherford, aged 35, from Nova Scotia, which was diagnosed as "bronchial pneumonia." The total number of cases aboard was now 123 crew and seven passengers. However, a remarkable number had recovered leaving about 30-40 still requiring treatment. By the time Niagara approached Auckland, Capt. J.T. Rolls wired authorities ashore that evening:  

Please advise Health Department Spanish influenza cases on board, increasing daily, present time over a hundred crew down. Urgently require hospital assistance and accommodation for 25 serious cases. Arrival schedule.

Remarkably, the New Zealand Minister of Health, G.W. Russell, was aboard as a passenger, and when Niagara docked at Auckland, he contacted the Governor-General and said he could not issue an order the quarantine the vessel without his proclamation. After the Port of Auckland Health Officer, C.C. Russell, came aboard and examined the patients, he concurred with Dr. Mackenzie that they were suffering from "simple influenza" not the far more serious and contagious Spanish variant. The same day Auckland's District Health Officer, Dr. Hughes, sent G.W. Russell a telegram giving clearance to let people disembark from Niagara. 

Before they were allowed to land, all passengers and crew were obliged to pass through an inhaling chamber improvised on the ship by the district health officer, and the crew quarters were thoroughly fumigated.  In addition, all of the mails aboard were sprayed with formaline.  Four hours after Niagara berthed, Prime Minister Massey and Sir Joseph Ward disembarked at 2:30 p.m.  Of those still in need of medical attention, 26-28  of the crew and two passengers, were admitted to Auckland City Hospital.  Of those, four were discharged the following day.  The Prime Minister issued a statement praising Niagara's crew: "The crew did splendid work. Members of the ship's company who were suffering from the complaint in the incipient stages insisted on remaining at their posts  much longer than they should have done. In their cases the disease was much more severe than if they had acted less unselflessly." Nine more patients were taken to the City Hospital from 13-21 October 1918, two died there and another aboard Niagara.  On the 17th  the longshoremen finally began unloading the ship which finally sailed for Sydney on the 21st at 10:30 p.m.

In the meantime, Auckland was ravaged by the pandemic, and of Auckland City Hospital's 180 nurses, 160 came down with the Spanish Flu, and two died.  

When Niagara reached Sydney on 24 October 1918, 296 passengers and 200 crew were detained for seven days at North Head Quarantine Station. About 280 of the passengers were released from quarantine on 1 November. Niagara left Sydney on the 6th and was at Auckland when the news of the Armistice was received.  The city was practically in darkness owing to the great loss of life which had occurred two weeks previously through the virulence of  the epidemic.  It was relayed by officers that 800 deaths had  occurred in the city. She came in with 320 passengers and 4,500 tons of cargo.  

Niagara docked at Honolulu 26 November 1918. It proved, as so much on the ill-starred voyage, a tricky affair as recounted by the Honolulu Advertiser: "The Kona wind was blowing heavily from the south; the Korea Maru was berthed at Pier 6, across from where the Niagara  was to  dock and with the transport Dix protruding beyond Pier 8; along with the narrowness of the harbor at this point; the berthing of the Niagara was a most dangerous and difficult job. She was brought up to the dock 'like a millionaire's  yacht' without even scratching the paint of the huge liner."  All credit was given Pilot John Macaulay in bringing her in. 

Rare and unusual aerial photo of Niagara in Auckland Harbour taken on 25 January 1919 at 400 ft. during a record 6,500 ft. maximum altitude flight over the city that day.  Note that the ship remains in her wartime overall grey.

1919

Niagara sailed from Sydney 21 January 1919 with full list including Dame Nellie Melba (again!) and the famous French General Paul Pau. When the liner arrived at Auckland on the 25th, she was quarantined when a Second Class passenger came down with influenza, but was allowed to dock at 5:00 p.m. that day and land her passengers.    A 17-gun salute by the Work Point barracks greeted the arrival of General Pau at Victoria on 16 February and a large crowd to see Niagara dock at Pier A in Vancouver later that afternoon.

Back to Normal?: after war and Spanish Flu, Niagara's arrival at Victoria on 16 February 1919 elicited the pre-war headlines with a large passenger list headed by Dame Melba and French General Paul Pau. Credit: Vancouver Daily World, 17 February 1919. 

When she sailed south from Vancouver on 21 February 1919, Niagara numbered Union S.S. Co. Managing Director Charles Holdsworth among her passenger, returning from Britain having completed negotiations for a new ship to replace the lost Aotearoa, and 20  returning Australian servicemen. In an especially busy day for the Port of Auckland, Niagara and Makura arrived from Vancouver and Manuka from Sydney on 13 March with a record 3,700 bags of mail landed from all three.  When Niagara arrived at Sydney on the 18th, she was  quarantined for four days which was then the  standard practice.  

Not Quite: a major outbreak of influenza re-occurred aboard Niagara en route from Sydney to Auckland 29 March-3 April 1919 which detained her and her quarantined passengers at Auckland for 17 days. 

The "flu" was not over for Niagara. She sailed from Sydney on 29 March 1919 for Auckland and before she reached port, 11 cases of flu had broken out among passengers and crew, three being serious. She was quarantined on arrival and the ill passengers and contacts landed to the quarantine hospital by ship's boat. The mails, after fumigation, were landed on 5 April. Eight more cases broke out that day and were landed in quarantine at Motuihi. By the 9th, there were over 60  patients ashore in quarantine, many of them steward. It was decided to evacuate all but essential crew from the ship and then quarantine the vessel for four days before allowing her to berth.  

Finally, after fumigation, Niagara was declared "clean" and permitted to berth on 13 April 1919. Leaving behind only 11 of her through passengers, she finally departed Auckland on the 20th. Two days from Hawaii, a  prominent millionaire Japanese exporter, jumped overboard in a suicide and despite the ship circling back to look for him, his body was never found.  Fifteen days late, the liner arrived at Honolulu  on the 30th.  Ending a miserable 40-day voyage, Niagara and her long suffering passengers were finally landed at Victoria on 6 May and at Vancouver the next day. It was noted that of the total of 50 cases of influenza aboard Niagara there was not a single  fatality and all recovered. 

Remarkably, Niagara still had her twin 3-inch guns aboard but these were finally landed during her Vancouver turnaround along with 200 rounds of ammunition and would be re-installed on government patrol boats.

With a new commander, Capt. D. McLean, replacing Capt. J.T. Rolls who was on leave,  Niagara started her 35th voyage from Vancouver on 12 May 1919. It proved to be one of her most difficult voyages, perfectly combining the agonies, aggravations and annoyances of strikes and Spanish Flu besetting Australia and New Zealand of the period. When Niagara docked at Honolulu on the 18th, one of her 480 passengers was landed "suffering from acute pneumonia" and all passengers had their temperatures checked before the ship was allowed to berth. Happily declared a "clean ship" upon arrival at Auckland on the 30th, Niagara was allowed to berth by 5:00 p.m. Her overnight call there was marred, however, by the theft of 300 worth of clothing and personal  effects from seven passengers' cabins. 

Then, owing to a seaman's strike in Australia, it was decided on 3 June 1919  that Niagara would not proceed to Sydney amid fears her mostly Australian crew would join the strike and strand the vessel. Her intending passengers for the port travelled there, via Wellington, in Manuka  and the same vessel would return to Auckland with Sydney passengers for Vancouver in time for Niagara's planned sailing on the 14th.  But, when Manuka finally arrived in Auckland, cases of Spanish Flu were diagnosed aboard and her passengers had to be quarantined first.  Niagara (commanded again by Capt. J.T. Rolls, back from leave), was finally able to sail for Vancouver the evening of the 25th after almost a month in Auckland.  

There was some resentment among New Zealanders enduring these delays and disruptions accommodating Australian passengers when, as newspaper editorials pointed out, the Vancouver service was subsidised only by the governments of Canada (£37,500 per annum) and New Zealand (£20,000) not Australia and that the Sydney call was one of convenience not contract. 

Niagara and Empress of Russia sharing Vancouver Pier A in c. 1919-20. Whilst Niagara is back in her pre-war colours, the CPR liner is in the odd grey livery used 1919-1921. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Niagara was off again on 17 July 1919, came into Honolulu on the 23rd with 470 through passengers and 69 for Hawaii. Again, all passengers' temperatures were taken before she was cleared to berth. After calling at Suva on 2 August, she docked at Auckland on 5 August and carried to Sydney on the 7th, the first time since March.

Returning to New Zealand from the Paris Peace Conference, New Zealand  Prime Minister W.F. Massey (right) and Joseph Ward, leader of the Liberal Party, photographed aboard Niagara at Auckland on 5 August 1919. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, 19 August 1919, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19190814-32-2

On 5 August 1919, "she steamed out of the harbour under glorious conditions." (Auckland Star) and Niagara reached Sydney on the 11th.  With the strike still not settled that, her crew signed off on arrival and her sailing north was "postponed indefinitely". On the 18th it was announced she would depart on the 21st. In the event, it was not until the 28th that she finally got away when the strike was finally settled. When she same into Auckland on 2 September, one crewman with a high fever was removed from the vessel and quarantined before she could berth. But as  pierside workers continued to refuse to work any vessel coming in from an infected port for seven  days after departure, she was idled for three days.  She finally sailed on the 13th and the "jinxed Niagara" as the local papers had taken to call her, arrived at Honolulu on the 22nd and at Vancouver on the 29th.

Astonishingly, Niagara's next voyage 4 October-25 November 1919 was entirely routine and unremarkable. As was her southbound trip commencing 30 November. She  docked at Sydney on Christmas Eve upon which her engineers  joined a marine engineers strike.  Her northbound sailing was indefinitely postponed.  

A splendid study of Niagara  coming into Vancouver, showing a lot of boot-topping after her long  voyage. Ending the 'teens strikebound in Sydney, she wouldn't arrive back in B.C. until 27 March 1920. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

The Edwardian Ocean Liner dominated the 1920s when their enduring qualities were more appreciated than ever in changing times. Not only did immigration patterns shift towards the British Dominions, but their contribution and sacrifice in the war helped establish the national identities of Canada, Australia and New Zealand for whom Niagara formed a vital link in travel, trade and tourism. It was, too, a time of labour unrest especially in Australia and Niagara had her fair share of strikes and storms. Even when displaced by the new Aorangi as flagship in mid-decade, Niagara remained as popular as ever with Prime Ministers, opera stars, composers, musicians, business leaders, imperial officials, athletes, tourists, Indian and Chinese workers and numerous animals of every description and ample cargoes  of Canadian lumber, paper, salmon and New Zealand butter and lamb and countless thousands of mailbags. Plying one of the longest routes in the world,  Niagara in the 'twenties was a working liner  in her prime.  

Niagara graced the cover of the second issue of The Blue Peter, September 1921.

1920

The New  Year begin as the old  had ended with Niagara idled at Sydney. With no end of the strike in sight and with the ship badly in need of an overhaul, she was shifted to Woolwich Dry Dock on 24 February 1920 for cleaning and painting.  As it was, the strike transitioned to arbitration and on 1 March she sailed for  Vancouver. She called at Auckland on the 9th,  "The Queen's wharf presented an animated scene last night when the Niagara finally resumed her running to Vancouver, after almost three months' idleness." (Auckland Star, 10 March 1920). When Niagara arrived at Honolulu on the 20th, the Honolulu Advertiser reported: "Sixty-two days of in activity at Sydney while the marine engineers were on strike was enough for most of the other employees of the Canadian-Australian steamer Niagara which  came back yesterday morning entering port like an long lost friend…  the other employees of the boat became sick and tired of the strike and being held at Sydney against their dock, and expressed keen pleasure at once more being on the run. The stewards were especially glad to get back to work to make their extra money on the voyage, for  they were without tips for two months."  Niagara finally returned to Vancouver on  the 27th.  She came in with 560 passengers including the champion swimmer Norman  Ross. 

R.M.S. Niagara alongside Vancouver's Pier A, c. 1919-20. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Aprils Fools Day was as good as any for Niagara to sail southbound from Vancouver and hopefully get back to normal. She had but 29 passengers for Honolulu and 41 through fares for the Antipodes.  When she came into Auckland on the 20th, the Auckland Star remarked that "more than the usual number of Asiastics arrived from Suva by the Niagara this morning. There were some 40 Hindus and 24 Chinese among the steerage passengers. The  men were obviously of  the better class of coolie, and could hardly be placed on the list of undesirable immigrants."  Proceeding to Sydney, Niagara  hit a full gale in the Tasman on the 24th which reduced her speed, and she came in late, docking on the 27th. With nary a delay, the liner cleared Darling Harbour on 30 April, called at Auckland 4-6 May where Charles Holdsworth, Managing Director of Union S.S. Co. embarked with his wife, bound for London.  After calling at Honolulu on the 17th, she docked at Victoria on schedule on the 23rd with 702 passengers, after what Capt. Rolls called "a fair and uneventful voyage."   She earned it. That and what was a record for the most number of passengers yet carried from the Antipodes to Canada.

Credit: Vancouver Daily World, 24 May 1920

Arriving at Sydney on 22 June 1920, Niagara became the first ship to take on oil bunkers at the port when, the next day, she came alongside the new Ball's Head Wharf oil depot of the Coal & Bunkering Co. and took aboard  750 tons.  The establishment of additional bunkering stations along her route immeasurably aided her voyage planning.  When she came into Vancouver on 19 July with 692 passengers, she could again report a routine voyage, marred only by the suicide one of her very well-liked library steward, William Bond, who jumped  overboard  the day after departing Honolulu after "showing signs of dementia". A life ring was thrown to him almost immediately and the ship turned around and searched for six hours for him, but to no avail. 

Wonderful study of Niagara in a bustling Darling Harbour, Sydney, in 1920. Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum. 

An otherwise routine voyage starting from Vancouver on 21 July 1920 was marked by a very stormy Tasman crossing with west and southeast gales all the way to the Heads. Even arrival at Sydney on 14 August offered little  respite and it proved impossible to get her alongside No. 5 Wharf in Darling Harbour despite the best efforts of a tug. The first attempt was abandoned and Niagara was towed out and made a fresh approach and safely alongside in an hour.   "Most of the passengers were glad to see the end of the trip, as in the run across from New Zealand very rough weather was experienced. Mountainous seas crashed over the steamer, and  four portholes were smashed in." (The Sun, 15 August 1920)

Her next outbound voyage, from Vancouver on 16 September 1920, was marked by Niagara's first ever call at Seattle the same day. This was to take on bunkers when an accident prevented the tanker Stewart from coming to Vancouver with her  fuel. Her passengers were  not allowed ashore as she took on 6,000 barrels and sailed on her way south.

The year ended, as it began, with another Australian strike, this time among stewards. This indefinitely postponed Niagara's planned 17 December 1920 sailing for Vancouver.  This also  held up Maheno and Ulimaroa in Australian ports and effectively cut off all sailings between Australia and New Zealand and put 20,000 out of work in Australia alone. 

R.M.S. Niagara at Auckland; some film of the period rendered reds darker than black hence the odd appearance of her funnels. Credit: Gerald Harry Edwards photograph, National Library of New Zealand. 

1921

With no  end in sight to the steward's strike, Union S.S. Co. cancelled Niagara's 12 January  1921 sailing from Vancouver and transferred Marama from the San  Francisco-Wellington service to take the departure instead. Marama, in turn, was replaced by Tahiti from San Francisco on 4  January.  

When union members voted to end the strike on 24 January 1921, the shipowners insisted they pledge not to strike again over the same issues before they would be resigned. When the union refused, the strike dragged until the union capitulated on 25 February, ending one of the longest maritime strikes in history. It did not, however, mean Niagara immediately returning to service as the line wanted to  slot her in to her original  timetable having already replaced her on her previous sailing. On 12 March it was  announced that Niagara would be held at Sydney until 7 April.  Then on 6 April the departure was put forward to the 11th.  In anticipation of being returned to service, Niagara went into Woolwich Dry Dock on 15 March for cleaning and painting on and undocked on the 22nd and proceeded to Ball's Head for fueling. 

After being in port since 12 December 1920, Niagara left Sydney for Vancouver at noon 11 April 1921.  She arrived at Auckland on the 15th, having last been there on 9 December. When she sailed on the 16th she again had aboard the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Rt. Hon. W.F. Massey, bound for the Imperial Conference in London. Anzac Day was observed aboard on the 25th with a memorial service and a speech by Premier Massey honouring the bravery of the Australian and New Zealand forces at  Gallipoli. Niagara came into Honolulu on the 28th, "thoroughly reconditioned and came into port looking spic and span." (Honolulu Advertiser).  She finally returned to Victoria and Vancouver on 5 May. 

New Zealand's Prime Minister W.F. Massey and Mrs. Massey (right and centre) disembarking from Niagara at Vancouver on 5 May 1921.  They would travel onwards to New York to embark in R.M.S. Carmania for Liverpool and the Imperial Conference in London. Credit: Vancouver Daily World, 7 May 1921. 

After a 40-hour turnaround at  Vancouver, Niagara was off  again south on 7 May 1921.  On arrival at Sydney on 2 June it was suspected that one of her passengers had smallpox, resulting in quarantining the vessel. After all 239 passengers were vaccinated, they were allowed to land on the 3rd. The ship was released on the 7th and left Sydney with a new crew on the 10th, and sailed  from Auckland on the 15th. When she came into B.C. on 5 July, she had one of the largest inbound lists that season: 662 (260 First, 218 Second and 184 Third) including the Australian Davis Cup team. 

At daylight on 9 July 1921 Niagara cleared Vancouver for the Antipodes with over 500 passengers including, once again, "The Australian Nightingale," Dame  Melba.  Called Honolulu 17th and Auckland 29th. On the final leg to  Sydney, she hit a heavy westerly gale off the Australian coast on 1 August and was a day late docking on the 4th.  Whilst alongside at No. 5 Wharf, Miller's Point, on the 7th, Niagara was  brushed astern by the departing Port Caroline, damaging her stern slightly  and carrying away her mooring lines.  Her departure for Vancouver on the 11th was not effected. 

Dame Melba on arrival aboard Niagara at Sydney on 4 August 1921. Credit: Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 4 August 1921.

On her next arrival at Auckland on 30 September  1921, Niagara again had aboard New Zealand Prime Minister W.F. Massey returning from the Imperial Conference as well as the crews of Columbia River and Carndinia which had been wrecked off Sunday Island and Main Reef respectively and who had embarked at Suva. Niagara docked at Sydney 5 October where she was drydocked at Woolwich before sailing for Vancouver on the 13th.

R.M.S. Niagara at Auckland. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

 1922

Proving it was sometimes the roughest part of the long voyage, the Tasman was again tempestuous when Niagara crossed from Sydney to Auckland (20-24 April 1922) and just before dinner one evening the vessel gave a violent lurch in the heavy seas, strong enough to upend furniture and passengers in it, throwing them against a bulkhead. One passenger suffered a broken collar bone as result.  When she sailed for Vancouver on the 26th she had some 600 passengers aboard.

Credit: Auckland Weekly News, 29 June 1922.

The day before she sailed from Sydney, Niagara was struck on the portside by the collier Marjorie whilst alongside at No. 4 Darling Harbour on 23 August 1922.  Two of her plates were damaged but as they were well above the waterline and temporary repairs were made and she departed on schedule.

The year ended with more labour disputes, this time between the Federated Seamens' Union and Union S.S. Co. which resulted in blacklisting the line's vessels. Niagara, which departed Auckland on 15 December  1922 for Sydney was sailing right into the middle of it. When she docked there on the 20th, her entire crew was paid off, but it was feared her seamen would not resign on the 27th, the day before her sailing for Vancouver.  Also leaving the ship, on annual leave, was Capt. J.T. Rolls who would be replaced  by Capt. R. Crawford.  Sure enough, on the 27th no union seamen signed on and the company immediately engaged 40 of the needed 52 seamen among volunteers and filled the other berths by the next day and all her engineers and catering staff signed on.  To prevent the ship from being boycotted or picketed at her berth, Niagara was then shifted to an anchorage in Neutral Bay where her intending passengers would be embarked by ferry on her new sailing day on the 29th.

The, disaster was narrowly averted on 28 December  1922 when laying in Neutral Bay fire broke out in the engineers' storeroom on the starboardside, believed caused by a fused wire, at 5:00 a.m.  Discovered by Fifth Engineer Crawford, one of only eight crew aboard at the time, others ashore seeing the smoke also alerted the shore fire brigade and the fireboat Pluvius was dispatched.  However, quick acting by Niagara's crew who, by first attacking the blaze with buckets of water and then getting a hose playing on it, had the fire extinguished within a hour and before it reached 10 cases of turpentine just 10 ft. away.  The storeroom and its contents were destroyed but no further damage done and the ship was cleared to depart as scheduled.

Without further ado, Niagara embarked her 400 passengers by ferry from the Margaret St. wharf the morning of 29 December 1922 and she was steaming through the Heads by 3:00 p.m., Vancouver-bound. 

Niagara sailing from Sydney. Credit: James Kinnear photograph, National Library of Auckland. 

1923

When Niagara came into Vancouver on 20 January 1923, the Vancouver Daily World said she arrived with a "whole new crew" and although most of the catering staff and engineers were oldtimers, she did indeed arrive with a new Captain and new deck hands after a routine voyage and light passenger list and cargo.  She did hit some  boisterous weather from Honolulu northwards with headwinds. 

Her next voyage from Vancouver on 26 January 1923. was marked by severe weather on the extreme ends. En route from Vancouver to Honolulu,  seaman Wm. G. Kew working on a lifeboat, slipped and fell overboard on 1 February. Six lifebuoys were thrown overboard and Niagara stopped for more than two hours to  search for him but to no avail.  The seas for the passage were very rough, with strong  head winds and rain, and many of the passengers were seasick and  doubtless glad when Honolulu was reached on the 3rd. Then, the first day out of Suva, she hit a cyclone accompanied by thunder, lightening and torrential rain. and buffeted about for  36 hours and had to hove-to, suffering six broken portholes flooding some of the cabins and twisting rails.  One passenger was injured and Niagara was two days late arriving at Auckland on 16 February.

Niagara came into Victoria on 24 March 1924 had the largest list from Australasia that season: 450 in all, commanded again by Capt. J.T. Rolls.  

On 4 May 1923 the first edition of the daily The Wireless News was printed and distributed aboard Niagara, composed of daily digests of news received by wireless from America and Australia. Artist Allan M. Lewis thought Niagara looked better in a white hull for the cover art it seems...

'Business and Pleasure: Boats of the 14 ft. Handicap Class Racing Alongside the R.M.S. Niagara in Auckland Harbour.' Credit: C.J. Collins photograph, Auckland Weekly News 3 May 1923, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19230503-47-2

Docking at British Columbia on 26 May 1923 Niagara had a good list of 536 passengers to  land. Her turnaround at Vancouver was marred by the tragic death of an employee of Wallace Shipyards who, whilst carrying out repairs to the vessel, fell  into an oil tank and  died, not being discovered until he was posted missing. 

R.M.S. Niagara alongside at Vancouver. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

In perfect Red Route Tandem, R.M.S. Niagara (Capt. J.T. Rolls) and R.M.S. Empress of Russia (Capt. L.D. Douglas) both docked at Vancouver on 29 July 1923 after fine passages. Niagara, 23 days out of Sydney and the CPR liner, nine days out of Yokohama.  Among Niagara's passengers were the captain and crew of the schooner Alert which had been wrecked in the Tonga islands and embarked at Suva.

Niagara, which arrived at Auckland from Sydney on 10 September 1923 three hours late, having met with suddenly stormy weather north of New Zealand:

...she received a considerable buffeting by a north-east gale, which was exceptionally severe and rose with remarkable suddeness. The Niagara cleared Sydney Head at noon on Thursday. Crossing the Tasman Sea the wind was light and viable, but there was an unusually heavy north-east swell. At 7 a.m. on Sunday the wind changed to the north-east, an shortly afterwards the Niagara was battling against a hard north-east gale, accompanied by high seas and torrential rail squalls. The wind and sea were on the vessel's bow and as she laboured the waves struck the hull and broken in heavy spray over the vessel. Cape Maria van Dieman was passed at 5 p.m. on Sunday, and the altered course brought the wind and sea on the Niagara's beam after she rounded the North Cape. The motion of the vessel was less violent then, but her passengers spent a restless night and they were all pleased when the liner reached the shelter of the land yesterday morning. The storm proved the Niagara to be a fine buoyant vessel, other the passengers would have had a much more unenviable time.

New Zealand Herald, 11 September 1923

Niagara in the Woolwich Dry Dock, Sydney 2-5 November 1923. Credit: Graeme Andrews Working Harbour Photograph Collection, City of Sydney Archives. 

With the last mail from New Zealand for England before Christmas, Niagara  left Auckland on 13 November 1923 with a record 646 bags or 262 more than the previous year.  Indicative of the efficiency of the post in those days, it was possible to put a letter in the late box at the central post office at 10:30 a.m. and it was put aboard Niagara just  before she cast off an hour later.  Returning a bit late for Christmas, Niagara landed 1,481 mail bags from North America and England at Auckland on 27 December. 

Niagara sails from Sydney for Vancouver on 28 August 1924. Credit: Frederick Garner Wilkinson, Australian National Maritime Museum.

Niagara sails from Sydney for Vancouver on 28 August 1924. Credit: Frederick Garner Wilkinson, Australian National Maritime Museum.

1924

Ending a record setting (in passengers carried) northbound voyage, Niagara docked at Victoria at 7:30 a.m. 4 April 1924. From Sydney to Auckland she had 448 passengers, then 613 from Auckland to Suva, 537 from Suva to Honolulu and 700 passengers total on the final segment to Victoria. She also made her best day's run: 379 miles steamed on 21 March. She also began a new voyage pattern, and instead of remaining in Vancouver for seven days, this was cut to six going forward with arrivals on Fridays and sailing at noon on Wednesdays. 

Credit: Victoria Daily Times, 4 April 1924

Passenger traffic continued to increase and on 29 May 1924, Niagara docked at Victoria with 650 passengers.

Niagara had a narrow miss coming into Sydney's Darling Harbour on 29 June 1924 when, manouevering to avoid the  outward bound steamer Norwich City, she came within 25 yards of the shore but skilful handling by her captain averted a grounding by which time her screws were churning up mud. 

After 40 years' service with  Union S.S. Co. and 10 years in command of Niagara, Capt. J.T. Rolls retired from the sea when he brought Niagara into Sydney on 23 August 1924. He would be replaced by Capt. A.E. Borlow on the northbound trip.

Another near capacity list went out in Niagara from Victoria and Vancouver on 19 November 1924, some 630 in all. She also carried 60 new cars and 25,000 cases of tinned British Columbia salmon.  But her passengers had little time to find their sealegs: "The Niagara sailed from this port last night in a raging storm, and she toiled her way into the Straits and passed Race Rocks with her lights discernable only intermittently on account of the haze of flying spray which flew over the sea. It was a wild night  to greet the Niagara as she sped into the open, and the outside was running high." (Victoria Daily  Times, 20 November 1924). The rough weather did not abate for two days and she was four hours late in docking at Honolulu on the 27th.

Not just another fine photograph of Niagara in Auckland Harbour, but dated 5 November 1924, it's the earliest showing the one exterior change to the ship during her long life: the bridge woodwork is now varnished not painted white. Credit: New Zealand Herald photo, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-529-02

1925

Niagara began the New Year by losing her flagship status but finally gaining a comparable running mate when in January the 17,491 grt Aorangi, built by Fairfield as the long awaited replacement for the war loss Aotearoa, and instantly famous for being the largest motor ship at the time. Henceforth she and Niagara maintained the C-A service on their own and As J.H. Isherwood noted of Niagara, "she still retained her immense popularity, however, many preferring her to her newer and larger sister."

Capt. A.C. Showman assumed command of Niagara in January 1925. Credit Wellington Maritime Museum.

On her first sailing of the New Year, Niagara  (Capt. A.C. Snowman), Niagara cast off from Vancouver on 14 January 1925 for the Antipodes  and "will not be seen again in Vancouver until  May 1, as she is to go off when she reaches 'down  below' for overhaul." (The Province, 14 January 1925).  She arrived at Sydney on 6 February to begin her refit which included improvements to her cabins, ventilation and crew quarters as well as a complete interior refurbishing. This was capped by a visit to the Woolwich Dry Dock on 2 April for cleaning and painting. "After an extensive overhaul, the Niagara looks like a new ship." (Evening News, 6  April  1925). Niagara resumed service with her departure from Sydney on the 9th and arrived at Victoria and Vancouver  on 1 May after, from all accounts, was an exceptional voyage:

Ploughing up the Royal Roads early this morning, with 489 passengers aboard, the Canadian-Australian liner Niagara docked here to-day at 8.05 o'clock from the Antipodes after a voyage which was not marred by a single stormy day. 'Rare weather,' remarked Capt. A.C. Showman, as the big ship was moored alongside the Rithet piers this morning. 'Never had a blow all the way.' 

'We passed the Aorangi a few days ago,' said Capt. Showman, 'only a few hundred yards away and we had a good look of her. She was going at a great pace at the time, and made a great impression on all board with her bright light that vanished into the night and over the horizon in a remarkably short time.'

Times Colonist, 1 May 1925

With the introduction of the new Aorangi, the 12-year-old Niagara now assumed "Elder Ship" status on the Vancouver-Antipodes run. Credit: Times-Colonist, 1 May 1925.

After a brief respite, another strike in Australia, this time by seamen, started in July 1925. So when Niagara came into Auckland on the 20th, that was far as she got. To prevent her from being strikebound on arrival on Sydney, her 216 intending passengers for that port were, after a four-day delay, dispatched via Wellington in Maunganui. On the  30th Niagara's northbound passengers sailed from Sydney for Wellington in Maunganui and then entrained for Auckland to  embark in Niagara which sailed on 4 August. Among those aboard was the renown violinist Fritz Kreisler and his wife, returning to America after a triumphant Australian 40-concert tour, having  gone out on the maiden voyage of Aorangi in May. When Niagara called at Honolulu on 14 August, Kriesler performed a concert that day and, rather graciously, Capt. Showman, delayed the ship's sailing for an hour to accommodate this. As it was, heavy winds a few days out of Honolulu made Niagara a full day late coming into Vancouver on the 22nd when she berthed at Pier D at 5:00 p.m.  

Capt. Showman held Niagara at Honolulu for an hour to accommodate passenger, and famed violinist  Fritz Kreisler, to give a concert ashore.

Gales in the Tasman delayed Niagara's arrival at Sydney until later afternoon on 19 September 1925: "After leaving Auckland the Niagara ran into bad weather and crossing the Tasman Sea the conditions were wild in the  extreme, a west to south-west gale raging, with terrific fury, accompanied by  high head seas. Though badly buffeted the Niagara fully maintained her reputation for being a good sea boat." (Daily Telegraph, 21 September 1925).  

A slowdown by wharf workers delayed her northbound departure until 8:00 p.m. on 25 September 1925: "the night sailing of a big passenger liner is something of a novelty, and passengers booked by the Union Co.'s R.M.S. Niagara and their friends who gathered to see them off, had this experience last evening. All seemed to enjoy it. The send-off was no less hearty, and the night shadows imparted to the scene a glance of romance."(Daily Telegraph, 25 September 1925). Labour issues continued and when Niagara provided fuel oil to New Zealand Shipping Co.'s Ruahine when the two ships shared a berth in Auckland (Ruahine having barely made it there from Wellington when half her crew went on strike), Niagara's deck crew refused the order to "cast off" on the 30th at sailing time for Vancouver. Instead, the ship's officers handled the lines and got her into the roadstead to anchor. She got no farther when her engineers refused to work, but after negotiations, Niagara was finally off  midday on the 31st.

R.M.S. Niagara at Vancouver in 1925. Credit: James Crookall photograph, City of Vancouver Archives. 

An impressive 18 hours ahead of schedule, Niagara came into Vancouver at 10:00 p.m. on 10  December 1925, thus ensuring that her  mails  from the Antipodes would get to England, via St. John, in time for Christmas. To achieve this, Capt. A.C. Snowman "put the big ship to her best, and made a record for the one-week run [from Honolulu] that is better than even the new MS Aorangi ever made."

Niagara's last voyage that year, from Vancouver and Victoria 16-17 December  1925 was one of her stormiest ever, meeting a constant series  of  cyclonic storms for six days en route to Honolulu and vividly recounted when she docked at Auckland on 5 January 1926:

After loading at Vancouver the Niagara cleared  Victoria shortly before one o'clock on the morning of December 17.  Strong  easterly winds were experienced until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the wind changed to  the south-east and increased to gale force, accompanied by rough seas and a heavy head  swell which caused the vessel to pitch heavily and ship  water over the  fore deck. Next morning the gale changed to the north-west and during the day to the  west-north-west and west-south-west. The change of wind brought the sea on the beam and caused the Niagara to roll  considerably.

On the second morning from port the wind changed back to the south and increased to a strong gale. During the next three the Niagara laboured heavily in the head high seas, which continually broke over the bow and flooded the fore-decks. Heavy water at times reach the bridge, 56 ft. above the waterline, and the high spray carried by the wind drenched the look-out man in the crow's nest on the foremast, 40 ft. higher than the bridge.

These conditions continued until four o'clock on the afternoon of December 22, when the Niagara, when the Niagara passed through the centre of the cyclone. During a 60-mile squall, accompanied by torrential rain and  vivid flashes of lightning the wind changed  suddenly to the west-south-west. At about the same time an exceptionally heavy wave broke on board forward and carried away the starboard ladder, as well as smashing in the doors of three companionways leading below.  The force of the sea broke away the steam pipe casings and bent some of the steam pipes  on the deck. When the saloon companion-way doors were broken the sea found its way below and flooded the saloon.

The  Niagara proved very buoyant, otherwise more damage might been done by the confused state of the sea which necessitated the ship being hove-to for  two  hours. The evening the weather began to moderate and continued to improve as the Niagara progressed toward Honolulu, which was reached on the morning  of December 24.

During the worst of the storm the passenger received a considerable shaking and some were reported to  have received minor injuries. After leaving Honolulu fine weather prevailed until December 30, when the Niagara encountered the outer edge of the hurricane which did so  much damage at Samoa about 300 miles from her course. In the afternoon the wind blew hard from the west-north-west, accompanied by  heavy rain and high seas, which continued until midnight. Afterwards, fine weather prevailed for the remainder of the voyage.

New Zealand Herald, 6 January 1926

Sydney Harbour icons... 26 March 1926, one established, R.M.S Niagara passing Dawes Point, and one in the making: construction of the new Sydney Harbour Bridge from the North Shore. Credit: National Library of Australia. 

1926

When Niagara left Sydney on 14 January 1926 she numbered among her passengers the famed English contralto  Dame Clara Butt, and husband Kennerley Rumford, bound for Auckland, to continue her concert series in the Antipodes. 

During her call at Sydney in March, Niagara was fitted with one of first Flemming patent lever propelled lifeboats. Credit: Evening News, 11 March 1926

A good 12 hours ahead of schedule due to very favourable winds and seas from Honolulu north, Niagara docked at Victoria at 9:00 p.m. on 27 May 1926. 

'There are mixed feelings in the departure of the big passenger steamers, but generally the scene is one of gaiety. In bright sunshine the Niagara yesterday departed for Vancouver, and the steamers from the ship to the wharf presented a riot of colour'. Credit: Auckland Star 7 July 1926.

Capt. Showman left Niagara at Sydney on 14 July 1926 to relieve Capt. Crawford in command of Aorangi and Capt. J. Mawson taking Niagara for a round voyage.

In a tragic beginning to her southbound voyage from Vancouver and Victoria on 28 July 1926, a Second Class passenger shot himself on the Boat Deck on the first night out and was buried at sea the next morning. In a rare incident of engine trouble, the southbound Niagara which arrived at Suva on 13 August 1926, stayed there for three extra hours  to sort it out and arrived at Auckland three days later. 

It was fair weather up and poor down with Niagara again coming into Victoria 12 hours early on 11 November 1926 sped by south and southeasterly winds and docking at Honolulu late on the 24th after bucking rough seas. 

An excellent New Zealand Herald photograph of R.M.S. Niagara sailing from Auckland for Sydney 13 September 1927. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection 1370-592-02.

1927

On 12 January 1927 Niagara sailed from Vancouver and Victoria with Australian Prime Minister Bruce and Mrs. Bruce among her passenger, returning from the Imperial Conference in London. To enable him to keep in touch with Government affairs in Melbourne, Amalgamated Wireless Ltd. installed a special short-wave transmitting set aboard and messages were exchanged throughout the 6,500-mile voyage. 

Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce (right) and Mrs. Bruce aboard Niagara during the call at Auckland en route home from the Imperial Conference in London. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 1 February 1927. 

Niagara came into Sydney on 4 February amid an enthusiastic welcome home for Prime Minister Bruce that including a "small fleet of aeroplanes, the pilot of which performed dare-devil feats, circled over the Niagara as she came down the harbour, where a citizen's committee and Federal ministers warmly greeted Mr. and Mrs. Bruce." (The Telegraph). Returning from the 30,000-mile tour, Prime Minister told reporters that "My outstanding  impression of the whole tour is that Australia is the best country of the whole lot to live in, and I am extraordinarily glad to be back."

Rough weather on the final leg from Honolulu made Niagara several hours late in arriving at Victoria on 4 March 1927 with 379 passengers and a very heavy cargo of 7,000 tons including a large consignment of New Zealand butter.

When Niagara docked at Victoria on 29 April 1927, her passenger list had an addition since leaving Honolulu when Jean Niagara Scade was born aboard three days out.

Added to her 200 passengers, a heavy mail and  full cargo, Niagara sailed from Vancouver on 3 May 1927 with one maple tree and six saplings which would be planted at the new Australian capital of Canberra by Hon. Ernest  Lapointe, representing the Canadian Government. She also numbered among her passengers the Canadian Association Football Team en route to tour New Zealand.

It was announced on 19 May 1927 that Niagara, upon arrival at Sydney on the 27th, would undergo an extensive overhaul and Maunganui, normally on the trans-Tasman service, would replace her for one voyage, departing Sydney on 2 June for Vancouver. 

It was not often that poor weather delayed Niagara's comings and goings in Auckland but on 1 August 1927 a dense fog enshrouded the harbour for 12 hours: 

The Royal Mail liner Niagara, which was due from Sydney, at 6 a.m., was delayed by the fog in the gulf and did not arrive until 12.45 p.m. The vessel made a fine run from Sydney, but she was approaching Tiritiri at 4.30 a.m. the fog was encountered, and in a few minutes all land marks and beacon lights were obscured. The engine were then slowed down and for seven hours the Niagara was compelled to cruise in the safety zone of deep water until  land marks could be observed to allow her to enter the narrow confines of Rangitoto Channel.

The regular blasts of the Niagara's fog whistle could be plainly heard by the signal men at Tiritiri, but the liner was not visible from the island. The passengers had a monotonous time, as the fog confined them to a world of their own. It was weird experience listening to the hoarse blast of the Niagara's fog-whistle sending out its warning note every two minutes for such a long periods. The lifting of the fog at 11.30 came as a pleasant relief, and the Niagara was able to resume her voyage. 

New Zealand Herald, 2 August 1927

The Canadian football team, sailing home in Niagara from Auckland on 2 August  1927, they went out in her in May. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 3 August 1927

On 13 September 1927 Niagara sailed from Auckland with a new captain, T.V. Hill, after Capt. A.C. Showman, fell ill ill during the voyage. He returned to Sydney in the ship as a passenger for treatment. The sad news came on 5 November of Capt. Showman's death, aged 55, who had first joined Union S.S. Co. in 1903.

Capt. T.V. Hill, Niagara's new master, on her bridge. Credit: Fairfax Archives, Trove (National Library of Australia)

Niagara arrived at Honolulu on 7 October 1927 with the smallest list she had carried to date: 202. "We had a perfect voyage until we were off the breakwater" said Capt. J.V. Hill as he brought Niagara off William Head Quarantine station on arrival at Victoria on the 14th October 1927 "enveloped in a blanket of fog" which delayed her docking for an hour.  Her passengers included Sir Kenneth Beatty, Chief Justice of the Bahamas and Peter M. Dewar, of the famous whiskey manufacturers. 

On 22 November 1927 Niagara left Auckland with the record shipment of New Zealand butter, 20,000 boxes for Canada, 1,870  for Honolulu and 1,000 for Shanghai. Her heavy Christmas mails for England reached their destination on Christmas Eve. 

Few routes could offer  such climatic  contrasts and the  northbound Niagara ended her long run from the Antipodes in a blinding snowstorm in the Straits: "Driven by a high wind, heavy snow blanketed the ship and aids to navigation were hardly visible. The first light sighted was Race Rocks station, which was seen early this morning." reported the Times Colonist on 9 December 1927.  She brought in a heavy Christmas mail of 1,200 bags, 900 of which were destined for Britain and 368 for the U.S., but only 94  passengers.

The crew of the schooner Doris Crane rescued by Niagara 340 miles from Hawaii. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 3 January 1928. 

On 20 December 1927 the southbound Niagara (which left Victoria on the 14th) rescued the crew of two-masted  schooner Doris Crane which had burned to the water's edge and one crew  member had burned to death in the fire. The vessel, nine days out of Fanning Island, had an explosion in her engine room  the previous day, 340 miles north of Honolulu. After fighting the fire for 18 hours, the exhausted crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats and drifted for four hours before Niagara came upon them. A crewman recounted: "We were lucky. In the darkness the steamer Niagara saw the flames  thirty-five miles away. We fired distress rockets. She looked mighty  good as she came up to us." The passengers collected a total of $1,000 to give to the survivors who were landed at Honolulu.

Niagara's rescue of Doris Crane's crew was major news in Hawaii, note the photo of her lifeboats recovered and hung in Niagara's davits. Credit: Honolulu Advertiser, 22 December 1927

R.M.S. Niagara at Vancouver. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

1928

Coming into Sydney on 7 January 1928, Niagara entered the Woolwich Dry Dock three days later for cleaning and painting. On her first voyage for 1928, she sailed on the 17th with Dame Nellie Melba once again aboard her favourite liner, bound for Honolulu.

Credit: New Zealand Herald, 12 March 1928

On 28 February 1928 Niagara effected another rescue at sea when, en route from Auckland to Sydney, she sighted rescue flares at 7:55 p.m. from  the drifting fishing launch Ika, which had broken down off Tiritiri Island and had drifted 50 miles in two days in the strong southerly winds and rough seas to 10 miles northeast of Maro Tiri Island. Her three-man crew were taken off and the launch, badly leaking, was cast adrift. They returned to Auckland in Niagara on her return call on 11 March.

The Honolulu Advertiser of 21 March 1928 reported that "San Franciscans have it doped out that the Union Line plans to take the Niagara off the Northern schedule and her into San Francisco, replacing the Tahiti which will be used in the inter-colonial trade in the Antipodes." This coincided with rumours that Union S.S. Co. was contemplating building three new ships, one for the San Francisco  run, another for the Canadian route. The San Francisco Examiner being quoted: "It is known definitely that the 17,000-ton ship Niagara, at present on the run between Vancouver and Sydney will be diverted to the San Francisco service." At the time W.P. Roth, President of Matson Line, indicated the line would build three new ships costing $15 mn. if the White Bill were passed by Congress, for the Australian run."It now appears to be a race between the Matson Line and the British flag Union Line as to vastly improve service between San Francisco and the Antipodes. Which will be first?"  

Niagara at Victoria, June 1928. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

Niagara, outward bound for Sydney photographed from the passing Marama, coming into Auckland on 21 June 1928. Credit: Auckland Star, 22 June 1928.

Photographed from Maheno, Niagara departs Auckland for Vancouver on 3 July 1928. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 4 July 1928. 

With her giant bulk well above the water line on account of only light cargo, the R.M.S. Niagara looked larger than ever when she docked last evening at 9.30 o'clock at the Rithet piers from Sydney, Auckland, Suva and Honolulu. There were only about 1,000 tons in all on the ship, giving her an extra ten feet above the water line. Usually when the ship arrives at this port from the Antipodes she is  laden with five or six thousand tons, and the big difference in the freight consignment last evening made the vessel look three times as large.

Times Colonist, 20 July 1928

Commanded this trip by Capt. J.F. Spring-Brown, replacing Capt. T.V. Hill who was on leave. "Capt. Brown reported a fine trip from the South Seas with exceptionally fine weather between this port and Honolulu, enabling the ship to clip twelve hours off her schedule." She came in with 404 passengers.

Niagara sails from Auckland on 3 July 1928. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 11  July 1928

When Niagara sailed from Vancouver on 25 July 1928, her 300 passengers included 50 delegates  bound for the Eucharistic Congress  at Sydney, including the Bishop of Budapest, Hungary.

An immaculate Niagara sails from Wharf no. 5, Darling Harbour, 23 August 1928 on one of her most memorable voyages. Credit National Library of Australia.

On what was, by all accounts, one of her most enjoyable and packed with "notables" voyages, Niagara left Sydney on 23 August 1928. When she left Auckland on the 28th, the Auckland Star reported: 

It was a gay crowd which assembled on the wharf to see the Niagara off at 11.15 this morning. A lacework of multi-coloured streamers-- silent tokens of parting between passengers and friends-- was in evidence.

The lusty voices of the English League footballers, en route to Canada, to play two games before going Home, rang out melodious songs of farewell…

As the steamer drew away and broke hand strands, the inspiring notes of the cornetist on the boat-deck struck up 'Auld Lang Syne' and other suitable numbers, fading away as the mail liner back into the stream which another precious burden of transport. On such occasions the depths of human hearts are hard to fathom.

English Premier League  footballers sailing from Auckland in Niagara for Canada on 28 August 1928. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 29 August 1928.

And when she docked at Victoria on 14 September, the Times Colonist reported:

With a cosmopolitan list of travelers from all parts of the world, including opera  singers, statesmen, merchants, business men, sportsmen and globe trotters, the Canadian Australasian liner Niagara docked at the Rithet piers here this morning at 7.30 o'clock from Sydney, Auckland, Suva and Honolulu. With this varies  list of travelers and with splendid weather conditions, the three-week trip which the Niagara terminated  at this port this morning had been the most delightful since she has been in operation. Capt. J. Spring Brown, commander of the liner, report all well during the voyage.

There were only 269 passengers but among them were Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair, K.C.B., M.V.O, Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Buesst, conductor of the British National Opera Company, William Dillingham, son of the prominent  Hawaiian family,  opera singer Madame  Marion Frank,  members of the English League Rugby Football team which had been playing in the Antipodes for six months and the Stanford University baseball team. 

In the course of the voyage, the ship's surgeon Dr. Costello Shaw, with the aid of two doctors and a trained nurse who were among the passengers, performed a lifesaving appendectomy on Morris Elgar, a steward. A large cabin was requisitioned and the ships carpenter built a crude operating table.  During the operation the ship encountered heavy swells, her speed of 16 knots reduced to a minimum and her bow turned across the trough of the sea to prevent rolling.  The operation took an hour and was completely successfully.  All in all, it was indeed a memorable voyage.

It was announced on 18  September 1928 that Union S.S. Co. were, for undisclosed reasons, changing their month departure pattern from British Columbia from the last Wednesday of the month to the first. This would be accomplished gradually with Niagara sailing the 19th, the second to last Wednesday, then Aorangi on 17 October, Niagara on 14 November and so on until the new schedule was in place by 6 February, the first Wednesday of the month.

When Niagara docked at Auckland on  22 October 1928 it was reported that her reefer space had been increased by insulating No. 1 hold, providing another 450 tons of capacity. The work was done during her Auckland-Sydney-Auckland voyage and Sydney layover was supervised by Mr. Scott Miller, naval architect for Union S.S. Co.  The new space was quickly put to use when Niagara sailed the next day for Vancouver with over 23,000 boxes of New Zealand butter.  In all, she left with the largest frozen cargo she had yet carried.

Twenty-four hours late, due to storms en route by Honolulu, Niagara docked at  Vancouver at 1:00 p.m. on 10 November 1928.

When Niagara sailed from Vancouver and Victoria on 14 November 1928 she took out the last mail to reach Australasia before Christmas, totalling some 2,000 bags. She had rough weather at the very beginning of the long voyage, between Vancouver and Victoria, and did not  make up the time, arriving at Honolulu late on the 22nd at 12:30 p.m.

R.M.S. Niagara in Darling Harbour, Sydney. Credit: National Library of Australia.

1929

On 4 January 1929 Niagara made her first arrival in British Columbia for the New Year, also her  90th voyage. It was estimated she had steamed the equal of 27 times round the world or 684,000 miles. 

The return leg, from Vancouver on 9 January 1929, was eventful.  Among the 125 passengers aboard and afforded specially constructed "cabins" on the  Boat Deck were 15 husky dogs bound for New Zealand and thence aboard the sailing vessel Elinor Bollings to the Antarctic for the Byrd Expedition. "It is a long jump to the Antarctic, but the the adventurous dogs seemed excitedly pleased with the adventure." (The Province, 9 January 1929). In another errand of mercy for the ship,  en route from Honolulu to Suva on the 19th, a wireless message from the freighter Walhemo, 100 miles away, asked for medical assistance for her boatswain who had fallen 25 ft. into the forward hold of the ship, badly fracturing his wrists and cutting and bruising his body. He was too badly injured to be treated aboard and was taken aboard Niagara, successfully treated and taken to Sydney.

Proving the press loves a good  dog story, the 15 Alaskan huskies who sailed in Niagara from Vancouver to Auckland, destined to join the Byrd Expedition to the South Pole, were just about the most famous of all the ships passengers.  Here, they are newly embarked at Vancouver. Credit: The Province, 9 January 1929. 

Enjoying the Hawaiian sun  on arrival at Honolulu. Credit: Honolulu Sun Bulletin, 16 January 1929.

On arrival at Auckland with the aviation mechanic and pilot also joining the Byrd Expedition. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 29 January 1929.

Two smartly attired young American visitors on arrival at Auckland. Credit: Timaru Herald, 9 February 1929.

On 8 May 1929 it was announced that both Aorangi and Niagara would miss a round trip to undergo five weeks' overhaul and refurbishment at Sydney.  Niagara's Sydney sailing of 26 July would be taken by the just refitted Aorangi with Makura having filled-in for her in June and in turn replaced on the San Francisco run by Maunganui.

Sometimes even the best oiled of machines failed and when Marama, bound for  Auckland from Sydney, was delayed by bad weather, four passengers, two Canadian and two Americans, missed catching the northbound Niagara on 4 June 1929. Worse, the two ships passed off the Little Barrier, some three miles  apart. Most of their luggage, too, had been put aboard Niagara at Sydney and made the trip without them.  The unfortunate quartet had to now wait a fortnight for the next steamer to San Francisco from Wellington or a month before the next departure for Vancouver.

Niagara arrived at Sydney on 26 July 1929 and, as planned, was laid up for a month to undergo a major refit and refurbishment as detailed by the Auckland Star, 26 August 1929: 

Fresh paints, new carpets, new furniture and a thorough cleaning-up have restored to the Union Co.'s R.M.S. Niagara the appearance of a vessel on her maiden voyage.

At Sydney, the Niagara was stripped of all fittings, and completely renovated. Some of the furniture was re-upholstered, but the greater part was discarded and replaced with new. The carpets were also renewed, and the walls and ceilings of the lounges, smokerooms, dining saloons and the library repainted and decorated to harmonise with the new scheme of furnishing.

The only important structural alternation was the flooring-over of the circular light well in the first-class lounge. This was originally designed to allow the light from the big coloured glass dome in the boat deck to shine down into the dining saloon. The alteration greatly increases the floor-space in the lounge and extra lights have been installed in the saloon to make up the difference in illumination.

All the machinery has been overhauled and adjusted, and the hull  cleaned and painted, so the Niagara will  have a good chance of emulating the Aorangi, which recently broke her own record for the trans-Pacific run on her first voyage after overhaul.

The removal of the central well of the lounge added 150 sq. ft of space and this was used as a dance floor. Niagara left Sydney on 22 August  1929. 

A busy ship, Niagara left Vancouver on 13 November 1929 with 439 passengers, a capacity cargo including full reefers of British Columbia apples and 1,000 bags of English mails from Duchess of Richmond.  On the 16th the weather deteriorated to a moderate gale with driving rain. Heavy seas prevailed for two days, "and the conditions during that time were the worst the vessel has experienced for some considerable time." (New Zealand Herald, 3 December 1929). Then, after leaving Suva, the ship encountered a westerly gale. "Although  some of the passengers felt the roughness considerably, the Niagara took the seas well and came through the storm in a manner which confirmed with reputation as a good sea boat." (Auckland Star, 2 December 1929). 

One off-shoot of Canadian Pacific's part acquisition of Canadian Australasian in 1931 was increased promotion of  the service in the lavish graphic manner CPR used for their own services. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

By the 1930s Niagara was well into middle age, graciously assuming the status of the beloved veteran. Unlike so many ships of equal or greater longevity, she never once deviated from her original route and purpose, thus enhancing her reputation as a reliable stalwart, and remarkably sharing this quality with her contemporaries Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia.  They would become proper fleetmates in 1931 when, with the pressures of the Depression and potent new American competition on the North America-Antipodes route, Canadian Pacific assumed a  50 per cent share in the  Canadian-Australian Line, further integrating it with their own Asian component of the All Red Route. For Niagara, it remained business as usual and another full decade of faithful service.

1930

Niagara passing under the still under construction Sydney Harbour Bridge. Credit: Manawatu Standard, 4 June 1930.

July 1930 saw an important milestone reached in the ship's history: R.M.S. Niagara's 100th round voyage.  For a vessel whose every roundtrip covered 15,262 miles, it was especially impressive statistically.  More than the 1,526,200 miles under her keel in 17 years  was that it been achieved all on the same route and same service, a consistency which earned her the admiration, indeed the affection of many, as manifested  that month in newspaper reports and even editorials. 

Voyage no. 99 ended at Sydney on 19 July 1930 and as if being groomed for the occasion, Niagara entered the Cuckatoo Island dockyard for her quarterly hull cleaning and painting. She was undocked on the 22nd.

Niagara getting painted at Cockatoo Island on 21 July 1930 before departing Voyage no. 100. Credit: Sydney Morning Herald, 22 July 1930.

In the rain, Niagara sailed on her "century" at 5:50 p.m. on 24 July 1930 from No. 5 Wharf, Darling Harbour, commanded by Capt. J.F.S. Brown, replacing Capt. T.V. Hill who was on annual leave. Among those aboard were delegates for the Pan-Pacific Women's Conference in Honolulu. Nowhere was the ship's milestone more celebrated than in Auckland where she docked on the 28th with many newspaper tributes.

When the Royal Mail liner Niagara left Sydney on Thursday evening  for Auckland, Suva, Honolulu and Vancouver she began her 100th round voyage in a service she has maintain without mishap for 17 years. During that time the Niagara has earned a reputation for comfort, speed and reliability, which has made her one of the most popular vessels of the Union Steam Ship Company's fleet. To the people of Auckland the Niagara had become a familiar sight and when she steams up the harbour on Monday morning she will still be the same stately and trim liner as on May 9, 1913, when she paid her first visit to Auckland…

The first commander of the Niagara was the late Captain John Gibb, who followed by Captain John Rolls, Captain Rolls was master for  nearly ten years, and it was he commanded the vessel during the anxious days of the war. Other commanders were Captain H. Morrisby and Captain A.C. Showman. The liner's fifth and present commander is an Aucklander, Captain. T.V. Hill. 

New Zealand Herald, 26 July 1930

Credit; Auckland Star, 12 June 1930.

She would seem to be a good ship from every point of view, and that she is a favourite of the ocean is proved by the fact that she has made her hundredth voyage and has never met with any mishap. But she has been near it at times, as those who have sailed on her will tell you. On her maiden voyage, when coming out to New Zealand, she narrowly escaped disaster. Running down the Irish Sea in a fog which had continued from the time she started fro the Tail-of-the-Bank at Greenock, she was set out to the west by an unusual current. Approaching the Fastnet Rock, and with only a mile distant from it, the fog momentarily lifted, to show her officers she was heading direct for a smash-up. It was only a glimpse they got of the rocks, just sufficient warning to lead the ship out to safety."

And so I shall always think of the great Niagara as a good ship of  blue-blooded lineage, well brought up, refined, and correctly behaved. Old age is creeping over her, but to look at her as she lay at Auckland wharf prior to her last departure, all trim, ship-shape and Bristol fashion, one could never imagine that had crossed and recrossed the wide Pacific on two hundred voyages. She is indeed a favourite of the ocean.

Auckland Star, 2 August 1930

Niagara arrives at Auckland 28 July 1930 on the occasion of her 100th round voyage with Capt. J.F.S. Brown (right) on the bridge. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 29 July 1930.

One of the most popular vessels that has ever  flown the flag of the Union Steamship Company, the Niagara had enjoyed a singularly fortunate career, and on no occasion has she been concerned in any serious mishap...

It is safe to say that the Niagara is one of the best known and most popular vessels that has ever travelled the long sea lanes of the Pacific, and the universal wish will be that her future will be fortuitous as her past. Dip to the Niagara!

Auckland Star, 12 June 1930

Capt. Spring-Brown on the bridge of Niagara as she sails for Sydney during her 100th voyage. Credit: Auckland Star, 28 July 1930.

After calling at Honolulu on 8 August 1930, Niagara, with 296 passengers aboard, made a good run north to arrive early at Victoria the evening of the 14th and Vancouver the following morning.  She sailed for Antipodes for the return leg of voyage 100 on the 20th. 

It was the Butter Record and yet another feather in Niagara's cap. When Canada doubled its tariff on New Zealand butter to 12 cents a pound, an enormous (and record) consignment totaling 37,000 cases (2 mn. pounds) went out in the ship from Auckland on 26 September with every effort to land it in Vancouver before 12 October 1930 when the new rates took effect, saving $120,000 in tariffs. The call at Honolulu on the 3rd was cut to four hours and all speed was put on, with Niagara arriving at Vancouver on the 10th, doing the passage from Auckland in 17½ days instead of the usual 19. 

The party of New Zealand scientists aboard Niagara at Auckland before sailing for Suva and thence to the tiny South Pacific island of Niuafou to observe the solar eclipse. Credit: Timaru Herald, 27 September 1930. 

Among those sailing in Niagara on 22 September 1930 from Auckland for Suva was a party of New Zealand scientists bound for the small Pacific island of Niuafou to observe the eclipse of the sun. From Suva they would be taken to the island in H.M.S. Laburnum. 

Niagara coming into Auckland on 3 November 1930, steaming past North-Head. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 4 November 1930.

On 20 November 1930 Niagara left Auckland for Vancouver and being again the last English Christmas Mail boat went out with a record 1,382 bags of letters and 93 bags of parcels. 

Credit: Manawatu Standard, 31 December 1930.

Niagara's final crossing of a busy year tested the ship's strength and seakeeping like few others in her long career. Sailing from Vancouver on 10 December  1930, she encountered a south-east  gale, that  evening shortly after clearing Victoria, which increased to a whole gale the next day.

For four days the Niagara was buffeted by stormy conditions and high head seas, which repeatedly broke on board forward and  damaged some of the deck fittings and broke ports forward. The wind also carried away the wireless aerial. After the storm subsided the wind changed to the north-east, which was in the vessel's favour. Honolulu was reached on schedule time  on December 17 and the Niagara resumed her  voyage the same evening.

Fresh to light winds and continuous heavy rain prevailed until the Niagara was south of the equator on December 22, when the barometer began to  fall and the conditions became threatening. The same night the  wind increased to a hard northerly gale, which was accompanied by heavy rain and high following seas. The following day the wind had increased to a full gale from the northeast and it blew in fierce rain squalls. The cyclone was travelling between the Samoan and Fiji Groups and the course the  Niagara was steering to  Suva was taking her away from the centre of the cyclone, which was estimated to have passed close astern of the vessel. The vessel continued running before the wind with high seas following on the port quarter and waves frequently broke on board.

One particularly heavy sea carried away the telegraph casing which contained the wires connecting the telephones and engine-room telegraphs. At mid-day on December 23 the speed was reduced to ease the strain on the vessel and the same evening the  speed was  further reduced and the Niagara was practically hove-to owing to the wind having  reached hurricane force. On Christmas Day the storm continued to mid-day. The conditions then moderated sufficiently to allow the vessel to resume her course and speed. The weather continued to improve during the remaining 500 miles' run to Suva.

The Niagara's behaviour during the trying conditions was excellent and her  bouyancy as she ran before the tempest was remarkable, according to the passengers. In spite of the exceptional amount of stormy weather experienced the liner reached Suva at six o'clock last Friday, her schedule time. Idea conditions prevailed during the passage from Suva to Auckland, which was covered in three days, the speed at times reaching 17 knots.

New Zealand Herald, 30 December 1930

Captain Hill did not leave the bridge for 36 hours, and through it all, ensured that the passengers got a proper Christmas celebration in the middle of it. Although he had to manufacture Christmas Day as the ship crossed the International Date Line on 24 December which wiped Christmas Day off the calendar. Instead, he organised the festivities, including a children's tea party on Christmas Eve. Remarkably the only injuries during the tempest were not storm related, but stranger still. After leaving Suva, a gentleman fell on deck playing with a child, resulting in a compound fracture of his right leg. Then, three days later, a stewardess stepped on the same  child's ball, falling and suffering a compound fracture of her left arm. 

R.M.S. Niagara, in Auckland Harbour, 8 September 1931. Credit: Auckland Weekly News.

1931

Niagara being repaired after ramming her pier on arrival in fog at Vancouver. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Niagara finally blotted  her copy book when,on 30 January 1931, coming into Vancouver from Victoria in dense fog, she struck her berth at Vancouver. Although the impact was slight and barely noticed by those aboard, her stem was twisted by the impact and eight plates damaged. Repairs were effected at her berth by B.C. Marine Engineers and Shipbuilders Ltd., costing £1500. She was able to sail as scheduled on 4 February. 

"The voyage was the most remarkable, from a weather point of view, that I have experienced since being in command of the ship, the sea was like a mill pond an there was a total lack of  hot weather in the tropics." Capt. T.V. Hill told a reporter of the Vancouver Sun after docking Niagara at Pier C on 27 March 1931. In addition to 300 passengers, her cargo included 1,000 56 lb. boxes of butter, 5,000 frozen carcasses of mutton and 85 bags of mail. 

As a consequence of the imposition of higher tariffs the previous year, Niagara's sailing from Auckland for Vancouver on 5 May 1931 was notable for not having a single box of butter aboard.  The once thriving trade was all but shutdown. New Zealand retaliated with a higher tariff on imported motorcars from Canada, all contributing to the growing global depression. Conversely, a new Canadian-Australian trade treaty saw the first ship of duty free Australian oranges arrive at Vancouver in Niagara on 20 July.

Making a fast passage north, Niagara docked at Victoria's Rithet Piers on the evening of 21 May 1931. a good 12 hours ahead of schedule. "Capt. T.V Hill, master of the liner, reported an excellent trip since leaving Sydney three weeks ago. The voyage in southern waters was made through placid seas and even as the ship approached Cape  Flattery nothing worse than a choppy sea and a bit of a breeze was met. This gave zest to the voyage and the passengers enjoyed walking along the deck in the bracing wind after lazily sitting for three weeks in their deck chairs bath in warm tropical sunshine." (Victoria Daily Times, 22 May 1931).

R.M.S. Niagara coming into Auckland Harbour 15 June 1931. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 16 June 1931.

Niagara's  northbound voyage from Sydney commencing 29 June 1931 got off to a tardy start. Heavy rains delayed the arrival of incoming trains and her sailing was delayed for eight hours to await them, not sailing until midnight.  Then off Tiritiri Island, a fishing launch flying a black flag and apparently drifting, attracted the attention of Capt. Hill who had the ship turned about but when within hailing distance, it was ascertained nothing was amiss and passage was resumed.

Niagara arriving at Auckland. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, Auckland Libaries Heritage Collection AWNS-19310624-36

The big event of 1931 was made public on 4 August when  E.W. Beatty, Chairman and President of Canadian Pacific Railway,  announced the formation of a new company, Canadian-Australian  Line Ltd,  jointly owned and operated by Canadian Pacific and Union Steamship Company, to continue operation of Niagara and Aorangi. J.C. Irons, appointed as General Manager of new company with head office for Vancouver. The registered office of new company was 999 West Hastings St., Vancouver. CPR will be the traffic agents in North America and Union SS in Australia and New Zealand.

Long rumoured, it was the culmination of CPR's ambitions for their own Canada-Antipodes route that dated to the 1880s and spurred by new and potent American competition in the form of the magnificent new Mariposa and Monterey of Oceanic S.S. Co. It also served as an effective foil to the long standing issues arising from the mostly Australian crews of the C-A Line in that now that the new company was Canadian, it had the option of re-registering Niagara and Aorangi in Canada and putting their crews under Canadian articles. This, in fact, was never done and both remained registered in London.  But the threat remained. 

There was also the prospect of now exchanging tonnage between CPR and C-A, especially given the new American competition and the near collapse of the North Atlantic trade amid the worse of the Depression.  There was no question that CPR had way overbuilt during the 1920s, introducing the superior intermediate Duchess quartet in 1928, while Union S.S. had lagged in modernising their San Francisco-Antipodes fleet.  All this fostered all manner of intriguing rumours and speculation. The Vancouver Sun reported at the time "It is officially stated that no additions to the fleet are contemplated at this time, but shipping circles here state it would be no surprise if the Canadian Pacific's Duchess type ships, operating out of Eastern Canada to  ports in Great Britain, were transferred to the Pacific seaboard for service between Vancouver, Australia and New Zealand." 

Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Indicative of new management as well as a Depression Era spur to develop  new business, was the report in The Province of 21 September 1931 that "a three months' cruise to  Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and the South Sea Islands for R.M.S. Niagara is planned for early next year. The tour is being handled by Thomas Cook & Sons. The ship will sail on January 6 from Vancouver." This never materialised and Niagara would, in fact,make but one short four-day cruise during her long career.

The simplified new houseflag for the CPR/Union Canadian Australasian Line. Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum. 

Operations carried on as normal for Niagara. To conform with CPR's class designation, however, Second Class was renamed Tourist.  On 20 August 1931 she sailed from Sydney for the last time flying the old Union S.S. C-A houseflag and upon departure from Vancouver on 16 September she had the revised, simplified flag of the new company at her mainmast. 

Credit: New Zealand Herald, 11 August 1931

Bad weather en route had Niagara making a rare Friday morning arrival at Victoria on 6 November 1931. In addition to passengers, cargo and mails, she also brought in a valuable shipment of 11 Corriedale sheep from Christchurch for the Canadian Government station at Lethbridge, Alberta. As with Niagara's numerous animal passengers, they occupied special cabins built on the Boat Deck.

R.M.S. Niagara sailing from Vancouver 11 November 1931. Credit: Walter Edwin Frost photograph, City of Vancouver Archives.

On her next southbound trip, Niagara  carried out tests of an experimental installation of a wireless telephone set constructed on board by the ship's Chief Wireless Operator, C.  Taylor. During the voyage, Taylor was able to talk to the American yacht Camargo and Aorangi when 190 miles distant and to a shoreside station in Suva, 280 miles away. 

Labour trouble continued in Australia, fermented by Communist elements in the seamen's unions.  With Niagara and Aorangi now effectively owned by Canadian Pacific, there grew calls for them to be re-registered in Canada and their crews recruited from there and placed under Canadian articles. "As a gesture of goodwill toward Australia and New Zealand, the company deferred action about a transfer of articles. But, if there is the slightest interference with two vessels the weight of public opinion  will force the owners to take action which will sever a long-existing connection between the two vessels and Australia." (New Zealand Herald, 2 December 1931). On 9 December, after her crew refused the demand of the Seamen's Union to black vessels of the Union S.S. Co. over  a dispute concerning the coastal steamer Koranui, Niagara sailed from Sydney as scheduled.

An intriguing rumour was reported on 16 December 1931 that Duchess of Bedford and Duchess of Atholl might replace Niagara and Aorangi  and those ships going on the San Francisco route or a new run from Shanghai to the Antipodes via the Straits Settlements and northern Australia.

Niagara docked at Honolulu on Christmas morning, delayed a few hours by head winds. Commanded by Capt. William Martin, replacing T.V. Hill who was on leave. 

Icons of Sydney Harbour, old and new: R.M.S. Niagara passing under the just completed Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1932. Credit: Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Tyrrell Collection. 

1932

As the Depression began to really bite, the passenger figures for 1932 were pretty grim.   Niagara came into Victoria on New Years Eve, 12 hours ahead of time owning to following winds on the passage north from Hawaii, and had only 47 passengers in all, to date her smallest: 19 First, 17 Second and 11 Third.

Last of the rather old fashioned Union S.S. era timetables (1932) for the Canadian Australasian Line. Credit: timetable images.com

On 26 January 1932 it was reported that en route from Honolulu and Suva, an operation was performed at sea aboard the liner when a passenger came down with acute appendicitis. The appendectomy was performed by Dr. O'Neill, ship's surgeon, assisted by two other doctors aboard as passengers. While successfully carried out, but after an initial recovery, complications set in and the patient, a passenger, died and was buried at sea.

'Cockatoo dockyard workmen were busy yesterday scraping the stern plates and rudder of Niagara yesterday.' Credit: Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 1932.

To conform with CPR class designations, effective with Aorangi's 3 February 1932 sailing from Vancouver, Second Class would be redesignated Cabin Class.

Niagara sailing from Auckland  9 February 1932. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 10 February 1932.

There were only 132 on Niagara's list coming into Victoria on 26 February, 12 hours ahead of schedule,  and  1,600 tons of cargo in her holds.  Northbound, she hit heavy swells all the way from Honolulu and then heavy fog on the final leg to Vancouver. 

Niagara came into Victoria late on 21 April 1932 with another light list. Much of the decline in business, other than the prevailing Depression, was attributed to marked downturn in Australian travel to Canada and the U.S. owing to the worst currency exchange value with the Australian pound in year, being worth half its value against the North American dollars.

From Suva to Auckland, Niagara encountered an exceptionally high swell and light southerly wind, "the swell caused the Niagara to pitch and dive continuously and occasionally she dipped her bow into the swell, the  forepart of the forecastle deck being flooded. An adverse current combined with the a swell to retard the vessel's progress nearly a knot. A change occurred about six o'clock yesterday morning, when the wind suddenly moved to the east and blew with the force of a moderate gale, accompanied by rough beam seas. The boisterous conditions through the day until the Niagara reached  reached the shelter of the Hauraki Gulf." (Auckland Star)  She came into Auckland four hours late on 16 May 1932. Giving the Auckland postal staff another chance to impress, Niagara came into port  with 1,600 bags of English and American mail. Anchoring in the stream at 4:30 p.m., the mail for the South and City, some 295 bags, was put into a launch and at Queen's Wharf and to the post office in… 20  minutes. The Southern mails were on the 7:30 p.m. for Wellington.  The rest of the New Zealand mails were off the ship soon after she came alongside at 5:00 p.m.

Only record holders have their marks bested and on 27 May 1932 Niagara had hers for the fastest Auckland-Sydney passage of 3 days 23 minutes finally beaten by Mariposa which accomplished it in 2 days 16 hours 45 minutes.  Niagara had held the record for nine years. 

If nothing else, the association with CPR introduced more modern and effective marketing for the Canadian-Australian Line. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Among the nearly 300 passengers aboard Niagara upon her Victoria arrival on 16 June 1932 was the Australian cricket team bound for a North American tour. In her reefer spaces was trial shipment of bananas from Fiji. Southbound on the 22nd, Capt. Hill had a full fight card on the passenger list with six boxers and one wrestler from the U.S. bound for events in Australia among the 175 aboard. 

When Niagara arrived at Auckland on 11 July 1932, it was revealed that she had established radio telephone communication with the northbound Aorangi 60 miles apart.  Aboard the flagship were the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand bound for a conference at Ottawa who spoke with passengers aboard Niagara.

During her Sydney layover 16-21 July 1932, Niagara was given improvements in her Cabin Class dining saloon and the ladies  lounge. Nine long tables were replaced with 29 smaller ones with nine six-seat, nine for two, and 11 four-seat tables. In the lounge, the old-fashioned settees along the walls were removed and replaced by five chesterfields and 10 lounge chairs and the existing armchairs were upholstered.  

If passenger carryings lagged, Niagara could still take out copious cargoes. Her sailing from Auckland on 27 July 1932 for Vancouver was delayed seven hours by the loading of 57,000 cases of Australian dried fruit, 900 boxes of butter and considerable general cargo for Fiji and Canada. 

More than a few tears were shed when dockmen at Vancouver loaded 2,000 sacks of British Columbia onions for the Antipodes aboard Niagara on 16 August 1932.

C-A publicity material finally assumed a more contemporary appearance with the 1 September 1932 publication of the 1933 sailing list. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

There were only 51 passengers aboard Niagara when she docked at Victoria on 6 October 1932, but 700 cases of New Zealand butter in her holds, the first large shipment since the reduction of the Canadian tariff owing to a shortage in the country. Once again, good conditions on the final lap had her arrive 12 hours early. 

A typically heavy Christmas mail for England was aboard Niagara as she cleared Auckland for Vancouver on 15 November 1932, comprising 988 bags of letters and 70 bags of parcels. At Suva, the Governor-General, Sir Murchison Fletcher, embarked, bound for Christmas home in England via the All Red Route. Arriving at Vancouver on the 30th, he proceeded by CPR to St. John to embark in Duchess of Richmond on 8 December for England. 

After a stormy passage from Hawaii, Niagara arrived at Victoria on 2 December 1932. "Capt. T.V. Hill, master of the ship, said he ran into rough seas a day out of Honolulu and he was forced to cut the ship's speed. The battled big combers for several days. A whistling gale sweeping down from the north also helped to hold the vessel back, the skipper said." She brought in one of her smallest lists ever, just 28 in all: 11 First, 6 Tourist and 11 Third Class. 

On her final voyage for the 1932, Niagara left Suva on 23 December with the first 1,000 cases of Fijian bananas for Sydney.

Niagara at Vancouver. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

1933

Niagara had a stormy beginning to the New Year and when she came into Victoria on 27 January  1933, Capt. T.V. Hill told reporters the ship met with rough weather between Sydney and Auckland and especially on the final  leg north from Honolulu , sailing through a "howling gale and big seas." The Depression bottomed out that year and certainly reflected in her list: 38 in all (9 First, 19 Tourist and the rest in Third). 

Last effected in 1931, the traditional two-year refitting and refurbishing afforded Niagara and Aorangi was announced for 1933. Monowai would fill-in on the Vancouver services, replacing Niagara in July and Aorangi in August.

To spur leisure travel, CPR announced on 1 February 1933 two "sea holiday" two-week-long trips to Hawaii from Vancouver and Victoria. The first being outbound in Aorangi on 26 April and back in Empress of Japan, returning 9 May with two days in Honolulu and 24 May out in Niagara and back 7 June in Empress of Canada. 

"Making one of her smartest voyages in recent years…" Niagara came into Victoria on 18 May 1933 with 200 passengers, many of whom were en route to England, making connections for Empress of Britain from Quebec the 27th.

After hitting a patch of rough weather between Suva and Fiji, when seas broke over the fo'c'sle head, but undamaged, Niagara she arrived at Auckland on 11 June 1933. 

It is a standard rule in maritime industry, that the recognized depreciation of a ship is 5 per cent, annually, covering interest, sinking fund and general maintenance. Therefore, in ordinary practice, a ship that has operated steadily for twenty years has paid for itself, on the company books.

Two of the finest deepsea ships operating regularly from this port have just attained this desirable condition of being free from debt. In June, 1913, R.M.S. Niagara of the Canadian-Australasian Royal Mail Line, and R.M.S. Empress of Russia, of Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd., arrived here on maiden voyages, new from the builders' hands. These magnificent vessels then were the last word in marine architecture, in speed, comfort and beauty on the entire Pacific. Although outclassed in recent years in size and speed, they remain magnificent vessels, fitted with every luxury and comfort that passengers can desire, classed A1 at Lloyd's, good sea boats and sound hulls. 

The Province, 10 July  1933

June 1933 marked the 20th anniversary of Niagara and Empress of Russia, both making their maiden arrivals at Vancouver just days apart in 1913.  Since then, Niagara had steamed nearly 1,800,000 miles and Empress of Russia 1,300,000 miles. 

On her last voyage before lay-up for overhaul, Niagara docked at Auckland on 7 August 1933, six hours later after bucking strong head winds down from Fiji.  Her departure for Sydney was also put back and she arrived there on the 12th. Her refit was carried out at her berth at no. 5 shed, Darling Harbour. After drydocking at Cockatoo, Niagara sailed for Vancouver on 12 October looking "spic and span" and "like a new ship."  It had been a comprehensive refurbishment indeed:

On her first visit to Auckland after a  thorough overhaul, extending over two months and costing £30,000, the Royal Mail liner Niagara arrived at Auckland yesterday, en route from Sydney to Vancouver. The liner is now 20  years old, but in the words of an engineer, who spoke yesterday of the work carried out in his department, 'she is good as new.'

Several of the public rooms present an entirely new appearance. The first-class smoke-room and music-room have been redecorated and refurnished, with new carpets and upholstery. The lounge, too, has been redecorated and, in additional, talking picture equipment has been installed. The projection room is enclosed behind panelled mirrors while the screen is rolled down from the deckhead above the main staircase. Performances were given on the trip from Sydney and the installation worked perfectly.

The eight de luxe suites in the first class accommodation have been decorated on new lines. Each possesses a distinctive colour scheme, and all furnishings have been provided to blend with the new pastel tints generally employed. Every cabin in the ship has been thoroughly redecorated and repainted, and the public rooms in both cabin-class and third-class embody several new features.

Extensive work was done in the engine room, with the result that the liner is expected to have steaming power in reserve.

New Zealand Herald, 17 October 1933

Fair weather and following seas all the way up from Hawaii, allowed Niagara to clip 10 hours off schedule time to dock at Vancouver at 9:00 p.m. on 29 December 1933.  When she came in, it was revealed that her doctor, Dr. J.E. Mason, had died of  a heart attack on the 20th during the voyage and buried at sea.

Auckland Arrivals 14 May 1934: Niagara, from Vancouver, photographed from Remuera, from London. Credit: New Zealand Herald  photograph, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-529-04

1934

Repeating the Hawaiian holiday voyage scheme, CPR announced on 2 February 1934 two more such trips including Empress of Canada "out" on 2 June and "back" in Niagara on the 8th. 

It all sounded quite placid when three days later, Niagara reached Auckland on 4 February 1934 from Sydney after battling a gale which was encountered just after clearing Sydney Heads and increased to hurricane force the next day:

A  nor'seaster on the Tasman means confused, lumpy seas. Driving wind, accompanied by rain, swept the vessel with water and spray, the force of which is illustrated by the fact that varnish was stripped from the bridge. Speed was reduced by the storm, and for the 24 hours from early Friday morning the ship averaged 11 knots instead of her customary 15 to 16. Through her decks were screened, they were swept by the rain and spray, and most of the passengers did not find their 'sea legs' till the end of the trip. The Niagara lived up to her reputation for seaworthiness, and the only damage reported was to one port. 

Auckland Star, 5 February 1934

Capt. T.V. Hill told the New Zealand Herald upon arrival: "It was typically bad Tasman weather. The wind was from the north-east and reach a  velocity of from 40 to 50 miles an hour. There were beam seas and strong winds practically all the way across the Tasman and some of the passengers were not seen very often in the dining saloon. However, the ship behaved well and there was no damage at all."

Traffic from the Antipodes is showing signs of improvement in freight and passengers, it is declared. MS Aorangi on her last inward visit had an improved list of passengers, an a good cargo. R.M.S Niagara, Captain T.V. Hill, is bound inward , and she too has better consignments than has been usual in the past few years. The ship brings 118 passengers in all classes, and has a good cargo totalling 2,600 tons for Vancouver. It consists of fresh grapes, fresh onions, frozen rabbits, wool, pineapples and bananas. Outward her freight bookings also show increases.

The Province, 17 April 1934

Another rough crossing of the Tasman had Niagara docking at Auckland 12 hours late on 28 May 1934, meeting strong easterly winds and head seas and cutting her speed for 24 hours. There was minor damage to deck fittings and "the dining saloons were hardly ever fully patronised at meal times… In spite of te buffeting that the liner received, passengers who have travelled frequently across the Tasman Sea paid a tribute yesterday to  her seaworthy qualities. 'It was the Tasman in one of its ugly moods, a passenger said, 'but the ship stood up to it marvelously" (New Zealand Herald, 29 May  1934).

With her largest list (236 passengers) in three years, Niagara docked at Vancouver on 15 June 1934.  Southbound, she raced towards Honolulu to land her surgeon, Dr. A.N. Beattie, who had come down with an acute case of bronchitis, arriving 12 hours early on the 26th. He was taken to Queen's Hospital and Niagara left the next day with a new doctor, Dr. Thomas McVeagh. 

In a remarkable incident, on 19 August 1934 a bottle which had been thrown overboard 21 years earlier on Niagara's maiden voyage was discovered on an Australian beach. It contained a rolled up breakfast menu dated 14 April 1913 with the following written on the reverse: "Thrown overboard at 12 noon, 11/4/1913. Lat. 2. 40.5 long. E. 94.57 distance from Melbourne 2359 miles. Should this bottle be found, will the finder please forward the contents to the editor of 'The Age,' Melbourne." The bottle, thrown into the sea between Cape Town and Melbourne, was found on Gabo Beach, Australia.

The rather understated announcement of Niagara's first  (and only) cruise: from Sydney to Lord Howe Island, 29 December 1934-2 January 1935. Credit: Daily Commercial News, 2 October 1934.

On 29 September 1934 it was announced that Niagara would make her first ever cruise: from Sydney on 29 December, four days to Lord Howe Island, returning 2 January 1935. This would carry only First Class passengers (fares from £6)  and left the evening she arrived from Auckland. 

R.M.S. Niagara. Credit: NZ Ship & Marine Society.

1935

What was a very quiet first half of the year for Niagara was considerably enlivened in July. With 150 passengers aboard, including the Prime Minister of Australia, Right Hon. Joseph A. Lyons, the liner sailed from Victoria at 5:30 p.m. on 17 July 1935. In very heavy fog, 25 miles west of Race Rocks, she  and the inbound freighter King Egbert collided at 8:10 p.m..  A deckhand aboard Niagara saw the King Egbert coming out of the fog and just seconds her bow crashed into the upper port rail, just below the bridge, crunching through three feet of steel, denting the hull and before sliding off sideways towards stern. Fortunately, King Egbert was lightly loaded at the time with a cargo of lumber so the impact was more of glancing brush and there were no casualties aboard either vessel, although both, especially the freighter were badly damaged.

Many of the passengers, including Premier J.A. Lyons of Australia, were in the saloon watching a moving picture when the vessels crashed. They went out on deck to see what had happened.  Some hastily put on lifebelts and held life-preservers in readiness, but others return to their chairs in the saloon. A dance  under way in another saloon was interrupted for only half an hour. Premier Lyons took the whole affair calmly. He said there was nothing to get excited about, and her praised the coolness of the crew of the Niagara and its passengers.

Another passenger, Miss Clarice Gray, was quoted: 

I was in my cabin after dinner, when I felt the ship shake under me with a kind of shudder. A second later the was another shock. I grabbed my coat and went on deck. Everybody seemed have gone there, too, but there was no excitement. Many of the passengers had lifebelts in their hands that they had taken from their cabins. Some had them on as if ready to swim at any moments. Other had them wound around their necks and were struggling to adjust them."

But when we got on deck we could see that the ship wasn't going to sink. There was a hole in the side but we realized then there was no real danger. The officers and crew had quietly taken their positions all over the ship almost in a moment and stood there awaiting orders. They swung out some lifeboats but did not lower them. By this time the other ship  had disappeared in the fog and we didn't know what had happened to her until got into Victoria this morning.

The Province, 18 July 1935

The bows of King Egbert show the force of the impact which would have been far worse had she been well-laden at the time. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

Bruised and battered, Niagara after the collision. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

Close up of the damage to her hull and forward superstructure. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

Damage to her forward superstructure. Credit: British Columbia Archives.

Both ships continued to Victoria under their own steam, with  Niagara berthing at the outer docks at 5: 40 a.m. and the freighter going round to Royal Roads off Esquimalt and later went into the dry dock.  King Egbert's bow was stove in and on Niagara most of the impact and damage was in an area of Third Class washrooms and several staterooms, not occupied, near the no. 1 hold as well as crumping the portside corner of the superstructure. 

Niagara's passengers were put on trains for San Francisco to catch President Madison for Australia or put up, at company expense, at the Empress Hotel in Victoria to await completion of repairs, although few had the patience for that.  Some 100 passengers eventually sailed in Mariposa.

Once Empress of Russia left the dry dock at Esquilmalt were she was undergoing her summer overhaul, Niagara took her place on 20 July  1935. It was estimated it would take 8-10 days to effect repairs. Men from Yarrow Ltd. were already at work torching off the exterior damaged steel work while the forward holds were unloaded to allow inspection of the hull below the waterline.  The damage included carrying way 40 ft. of railing on C Deck and  10 ft. of the B Deck superstructure crumpled.  Once into dry dock, it took 120 men working two weeks to repair the vessel and it was considered a credit to Yarrow that it was accomplished in the tome allotted. 

Niagara being repaired by Yarrow at Esquilmalt and showing extent of the damage to her hull in way of the no. 1 hold. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, 21 August 1935, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection AWNS-19350821-43-3.

On 30 July 1935 announced that Niagara would sail on 1 August at 10:30 a.m. and she left dry dock the next day and shifted to Rithlet's Piers to reload cargo into 1 and 2 holds.  She sailed from Victoria with "a fair amount of freight, mails and a handful  of passengers." To get her back on schedule, she would turnaround at  Auckland with a quick turnaround there, sailing from there 20 August to return to Vancouver by 5 September. 

Docking at Auckland on  19 August 1935, the Auckland Star reported: "As the liner nosed her way round North Head this morning and moved slowly up the harbour to her berth at Prince's wharf she looked neat and trim under a fresh coat of paint, and it was said by those who have had experience of her that the collision had in no way impaired her seaworthiness. On the contrary, it was explained that she performed magnificently in the only heavy weather experienced on the run from Vancouver during the past two days." 

Niagara leaving Auckland late 22 August 1935. Credit: New Zealand Herald photograph

Due to a delay in filling a crew vacancy,  Niagara did not sail north bound from Auckland until the afternoon of 22 August 1935, a day late. This meant that the New Zealand University hockey team would not be able to play their first test match at Suva and she also missed her English mail connections. She made up a lot of time from Honolulu to Victoria and almost set a record in doing so.

That autumn was marked by an unhappy return to labour unrest on both ends of her route. In sympathy with a longshoremen strike in British Columbia, Niagara's deck crew and engineers refused to sign-on for her 9 October 1935 sailing from Sydney unless given assurance that only union labour would work the ship upon arrival in B.C.  Even after this was granted by management, they refused to sign-on, leaving the ship and her passengers stranded. It rekindled calls to re-register the C-A ships in Canada as J.C. Irons, Managing Director stated: "If the crew of the Niagara decides not to sail, the ship will be brought her where a Canadian crew will be signed on. Such a step would sound the death knell of Australian crews in ships of this line." (Times Colonist, 11 October 1935).  In the meantime,  Marama left Sydney on the 13th for Wellington and Auckland with 73 of Niagara's passengers, 120 still remaining. 

With the situation hopelessly deadlocked, C-A announced on 15 October 1935 that Niagara would be manned by a skeleton volunteer crew and taken to Vancouver,  and be able to sail on schedule on her next southbound voyage. Ten days late, she left Sydney on the 19th, embarking her passengers and scratch crew by tender in Watson Bay.  She had only 22 passengers on board, with "one of them having the entire first class accommodation to himself." Most  of her Sydney passengers had already been rebooked in Mariposa for San Francisco. "The first two meals we  had aboard were sandwiches and tea. There was no cook aboard to prepare anything better. We were all quite willing to put up with that menu for  next four days, if we could only get away from Sydney, but it was a relief when just before we sailed a launch drew alongside and put aboard several cooks," a passenger told the Auckland Star. Niagara arrived at Vancouver on 6 November  and it was reported that her southbound trip on the 9th would be the last commanded by  Capt. T.V. Hill who had been  promoted to command Aorangi after his leave, was replaced as master of Niagara by Capt. William Martin. 

Capt. William Martin, master of Niagara 1936-1940. Credit: Wellington Maritime Museum.

Delayed two days in Sydney due to another shipping strike in Australia, Niagara docked at Vancouver on 29 December 1935. Among her passengers was Australian composer-pianist Percy Grainger who travelled Tourist Class. 

R.M.S. Niagara at Pier B-C, Vancouver, 1936. Credit: James Crookall photograph, City of Vancouver Archives. 

1936

The smashed remains of  a lifeboat shows the force of the storm Niagara started 1936 with en route from Victoria to Honolulu. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 21 January 1936.

Niagara began 1936, sailing from Vancouver on New Years Day and two days into the year, ran into one of the most ferocious storms she ever encountered with 80 m.p.h. winds and 70 ft. high waves. It was so bad, she was hove-to for 22 hours on the 3rd-4th.  She finally  arrived at Honolulu at 7:20 p.m. on the 8th.  Capt. Martin said that it was the roughest weather the ship had encountered since  1922, ironically also  on 9 January.  "One wave especially, a mountain of sea estimated by various passengers at from 70 to 80 feet in height, sent both the skipper and other officers scurrying from the bridge only a moment before the side of the housing was carried away as cleanly as though it had never been attached, it was reported. However, excellent manueuvering kept the total damage to the ship down to slight proportions. Only a small part of her superstructure, a few lifeboats and some railings were destroyed and no injuries to her passengers were reported, although many had spent sleepless hours all during the storm, it was said. " (Honolulu Advertiser, 9 January 1936). Ventilators forward were damaged, a vestibule door smashed on the starboard side and flooding adjacent area.  One lifeboat was carried completely away and another smashed to pieces. 

Cap'n W. Martin as rare and seamanlike a shipmaster as ever trod decks, brought Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara  into Port of  Vancouver just before midnight Friday [17 April  1936]. He was eight hours behind schedule, having struck big seas and rough  weather most of the passage most of the passage, until he neared our coast, when were kind to Niagara. Cap'n Martin called for steam and got it and Niagara made her knots and picked up lost time. And she can 'step' when she has a mind!

Vancouver Sun, 18 April  1936

A dramatic photo of Niagara ploughing through the worst the Tasman can give. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 27 May 1936.

Niagara, certainly no  stranger to the tempestuous Tasman, got a further introduction, lasting four full days when she was pummeled by a gale almost from the moment she left the Sydney Heads on 21 May 1936.  "Tremendous head seas burst into flying spray high above the bridge and caused the Niagara to settle down to a daily run of an average of only 340  miles, or just over half speed. Of the 240 passengers on board surprisingly few were confined to bed, so well did the Niagara ride the storm at reduced speed. Deck games proceeded normally. The master, Captain W. Martin, and his officers declare that the prolonged seas and rough weather on this trip were the worst in their long experience. Last night the Niagara passed Cape Brett in the teeth of an east by south gale and heavy seas. Exactly two years ago on the same voyage the Niagara encountered identical weather with the cyclonic weather readings, but it was so prolonged. On that occasion the Niagara arrived at Auckland 12  hours late."  (New Zealand Herald, 26 May 1936).  She arrived at Auckland 26 May, one one day late, and sailed the same to cut the delay to 11 hours but was still several hours late when she returned to Vancouver on 12 June 1936 with 225 aboard.

Niagara's record number of passengers landing at Honolulu on 24 June 1936 was not ignored by the local press. Credit: Honolulu Star Bulletin, 25 June 1936.

C-A/CPR Hawaii excursions became increasingly popular as indicated when Niagara cleared Vancouver on 17 June 1936 with 225 participants among the 350 passengers, who would return in Aorangi on 3 July.  In all, she landed a record 268 passengers at Honolulu on the 24th.

Niagara was off again to Antipodes on 12 August 1936 with 247 passengers.  "The skirl of bagpipes mingled with gay laughter and tearful leave-takings today as the band of the Seaforth Highlanders played to the departing Canadian-Australian liner Niagara. It was a tribute to the crew of the  ship which earlier this week laid at the foot of the Vancouver Centotaph the wreath they had brought from 'down under.'  (Vancouver Sun, 12 August 1936). As she sailed, she passed the inbound Empress of  Canada. 

Rumors are current that a vast sum of money is to be spent within the next two years to bring the trans-Pacific services out of Victoria and Vancouver to a desired position of supremacy on the Pacific.

Victoria Daily  Times, 14 August 1936.

That August came a flurry of rumours that CPR/C-A were considering the construction of four new ships, costing $50-60 mn., two to replace Aorangi and Niagara and two supplanting Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia. The North Pacific ships would be comparable to Empress of Japan while for  the C-A service the ships would be smaller but faster: 22 knots, to cut the passage by  five days and allow a three-weekly service rather than monthly.  "Construction of two new ships to replace the Aorangi and Niagara on the Canadian-Australian line's service from British Columbia to the Antipodes via Hawaii will begin as soon as government subsidies can be arranged." (Victoria Daily Times). "The report was brought to Honolulu today by Harry Dawson, manager of the travel department of Theo. H. Davies & Co., Ltd. Mr. and Mrs. Dawson returned on the Niagara from a two months' mainland tour... that  a London architect, representing the Canadian Pacific Steamship Co. will be sent on a Pacific tour soon to sound out preferences of  modern travellers before plans are completed for new Canadian Pacific ships. (Honolulu Star-Bulletin), 14 October 1936.

For once, Niagara derived some benefit from labour unrest when the U.S. Pacific Coast Maritime Strike stranded some 2,000 passengers in Hawaii in November 1936 and on the 19th it was reported she had embarked some 300 passengers at Honolulu.  Her arrival at Vancouver was right in the middle  of the one of the worst and most persistent fogs in the port's recent history:

Highlight in a week of skilful navigation on Inlet and Strait, during which  shipmasters and pilots aboard deep-sea ships, ferries and coastal vessel have summoned all their knowledge of sound-and-echo navigation to their assistance, was the piloting Friday [27 November] from Victoria to Vancouver of Canadian-Australasian line Niagara. Scheduled to arrive from down under at 2:30 p.m.; reported late yesterday afternoon to laying to anchor off Mayne Island, Niagara, commanded by Cap'n William Martin, slipped into this darkness and fog  cloaked port only four  hours behind schedule. She sought her berth as a blind man feels his way around, and tied up slowly and efficiently  without a scratch. Every one of her 325 passengers was loud in praise of the skilful piloting which had brought the ship through without loss of precious  time. 

Vancouver Sun, 28 November 1936

Credit for the passage also was due to Capt. John Park, B.C. Coast pilot. It was reported that they could not even see the pier until 100 ft. off it. 

Loading local cargo aboard Niagara at Vancouver in 1936 for the Antipodes: British Columbia apples (left), salmon (top right) and onions (bottom right). Credit: J.S. Matthews photograph, City of Vancouver Archives. 

Seldom in the history of steam navigation did a pair of sister ships have more of an effect than Matson/Oceanic's Mariposa and Monterey which, within a few years of their  introduction, literally swept  the seas of competition.   With the Depression  adding its knockout blow and with the promise  of new  subsidised tonnage remaining  just that, Union S.S. Co.  announced in 1936 that they were withdrawing Makura and Maunganui from the San Francisco-Wellington  service and closing the route.  It was left to Makura to  make the final departure from San Francisco on 18 November.  It was, of course, planned well in advance of the U.S. Pacific Coast maritime strike which, ironically, idled the very pair of ships that prompted Union's withdrawal and precisely when they were most needed. 

With the U.S. Pacific Coast shipping strike still unsettled, Niagara was never in more demand. She sailed from Vancouver at noon on 2 December 1936, two  hours  late due  to loading a record cargo, mails and embarking over 500 passengers. She took on a record 7,864 bags of mail and another 755 loaded at Victoria and for three days prior to sailing, trains from San Francisco brought 2,000 bags a trip. Half the mail was for Honolulu, for New Zealand, there were 2,380 bags of letters and 602 bags of parcels and 1,267 bags for Australia. Niagara arrived at Auckland on the 21st and at Sydney on Boxing Day. 

Painting one of Niagara's funnels at Vancouver, 1937. Credit: James Crookall photograph, City of Vancouver Archives. 

1937

The first ship to sail from Sydney for North American in some seven weeks, Niagara was packed and given  one of her most enthusiastic send-offs. Credit: Brisbane Telegraph, 22 January 1937.

The New Year began awkwardly with Niagara and Aorangi the only ships operating from North America to the Antipodes yet both were briefly idled to bring into effect the long planned retiming of their service to co-ordinate with that of Matson/Oceanic from San Francisco.  This would give a fortnightly service either from Vancouver in Niagara and Aorangi or San Francisco in Mariposa and Monterey.  To effect this effect meant delaying the first C-A sailings of the year, leaving a six-week gap with the U.S. ships still strikebound. Niagara which arrived at Sydney on Boxing Day 1936 did not sail until 21 January 1937.  She was drydocked during this period (entering Cockatoo Dock on  14 January) and when she left Sydney she was, predictably, fully booked.   She would also be the next southbound sailing from Vancouver on 17 February. 

Remarkably, Niagara once again lost a blade off her centre turbine screw en route from Suva to Auckland at 10:00 p.m. on 6 March 1937.  Passengers reported feeling severe vibration and the engines stopped for  a few minutes until passage was resumed at a slightly  slower speed. When she ship arrived at Auckland, she was inspected by a diver and then proceeded to Sydney. There, she was put into Cockatoo dry dock on the 15th where her screw was replaced and sailed for Vancouver on schedule on the 18th. Among those aboard were the Australian team for the Davis Cup in America. By the time for left Honolulu her 278 passengers included 123 bound for Britain and the Coronation of King George VI in London on 12 May including Viscountess Galway, wife of the Governor-General of New Zealand, who would travel onwards via Empress of Australia from Quebec on 24 April.

As she did most years, Niagara carried Australia's team for the Davis Cup in tennis in America on her March northbound voyage.  Here, the team exercises on the  Boat Deck at sea. Credit: Daily Telegraph, 13 March 1937. 

In one of her more dramatic errands of mercy, Niagara which left Sydney on 13 May 1937, received a distress call on the 26th, some 600 miles south Hawaii, from the famous  private Viking, belonging to multi-millionaire banker and financier George F. Baker who had come down with acute case of peritonitis   Racing at top speed for four hours, Niagara reached the yacht at dusk. In perfect eather and sea conditions,  two passengers aboard, Dr. J.A. Newel  of Melbourne and Miss  Dorothy Jackson, a trained nurse from Brisbane, went over to the  yacht in one of her launches while "the Niagara's 300 passengers and her crew of 400 men watched the exciting transfer from her decks. Cameras were taken out and hundreds of pictures of  the unusual scene were snapped."  An operation was performed on Mr. Baker by his doctor who was aboard the yacht assisted by the two Niagara passengers, after which Niagara proceeded on her way, but after rallying, Mr. Baker, aged 59, passed away just after Viking reached Honolulu.

On her next southbound voyage, Niagara  landed one of her largest number of passengers at Honolulu… 167 in all… on 16 June 1937.  On the 21st, on another mercy mission, she detoured to Hull Island, in the Phoenix Group, to  pick up the captain and 14 crew of the wrecked Burns Philp schooner Makoa (250 grt/1918) and take them to Suva. Niagara came to within a few hundred yards of the island and the survivors  rowed out to  her. Their vessel was wrecked on 25 May and they had been stranded on the sparsely populated island for 28 days. 

Among those arriving at British Columbia in Niagara on 29 July 1937 were Capt. D.N. McLeish and two other officers who were en route for Scotland to take over the new Union S.S. Co. freighter Kapapo, completing at Alex. Stephens.

Whilst Union S.S. Co. continued with their own modest newbuilding programme, the grander plans for new tonnage  on the C-A and CPR routes languished. In August 1937 it was reported that while the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji were prepared to subsidise the improved service, realisation of the planned two new 24,000-ton liners to operate it were increasingly doubtful if for the very reason British shipyards were busy with  naval and merchant contracts and it would two to three years before they could be entered into service.  Again, the prospect of CPR transferring two of their Duchess ships to the route came up as an expedient although with North Atlantic traffic picking up, an increasingly less likely one.  

Torrential rain from a cyclone which lashed New Zealand delayed the departure of Niagara from Auckland for Sydney  on 25 August 1937, it being impossible to complete cargo  loading owing to delays in rail travel due to wash-outs.  She did not sail until 3:00 p.m. but putting on all speed, made a fast trans-Tasman run to reach the Heads by  7:00 p.m.  on the 28th.  On her northbound voyage she was commanded by  by Capt. Arthur Toten, relieving Capt. Martin who was on annual leave. 

Whilst loading a cargo of fireworks aboard Niagara alongside No. 5 Wharf, Darling Harbour, Sydney, late on 27 October 1937, a terrific explosion occurred which killed one man and injured four others.  Workers near the scene were thrown into the air and hurled many yards whilst buildings more than 200 yards away were shaken and had windows broken.  The consignment, transhipped from the liner Nanking and destined for  Suva, totalled 100 cases. The loading of the rest of the cargo was stopped and the undamaged Niagara sailed on the 28th.

Once again, Niagara carried the future master of another new Union S.S. Co. freighter, Wanaka, when she came into B.C. on 18 November 1937 with Capt. A.W. Rabbits who would proceed to the Clyde.  

She also came into with a new flurry of rumours and speculation regarding the proposed two new Canadian-Australasian liners.  It was planned to combine the former San Francisco route with that to Vancouver and Victoria by calling there en route. "It is definitely understood in Australia and New Zealand that the two speedy greyhounds, the construction of which is being considered by the Dominions affected in co-operation with the British government, to offset U.S. competition on the Pacific route, will be built and in commission by 1940." (Times Colonist, 19 November 1937). The proposed new routing would be Sydney-Auckland-Suva-Honolulu-Victoria-Vancouver-San Francisco-Honolulu etc.  Vancouver would remain the turnaround port.

On 14 December 1937 the Port of Auckland set a new tonnage record with 15 overseas vessels in port, totalling 167,465 grt. Here, the Grand Old Lady of the Antipodes, Niagara berths at Central Wharf from Vancouver whilst her ultra modern American competitor Monterey lies alongside King's Wharf. Credit: New Zealand Herald, 15 December 1937. 

Among those landing from Niagara at a very busy Auckland on 14 December 1937 was Mr. N.S. Falia, Managing Director of Union S.S. Co., who said a draft agreement re. the new ships had been recently submitted to the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Great Britain for  approval and "when this was forthcoming construction of two vessels along lines of the Imperial Shipping Committee (1936) report to replace the existing ships remained to be arranged." As to emphasize the point, Matson/Oceanic's Monterey berthed the same morning from Sydney.  Niagara brought in 3,318 bags of Christmas mail, the largest consignment in a single vessel landed in more than ten years.

R.M.S. Niagara arriving at Sydney's Darling Harbour. Credit: National Library of Australia.

1938

Members of the Canadian Team of the Empire Games sailing for home in Niagara from Sydney on 15 February 1938. Credit: Daily Telegraph, 16 February 1938.

"More operations, it seems, have been performed aboard the Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara than any other Pacific ship. In the last six years at least 12  major operations have been performed  while she was steaming at sea between Victoria and Australia." (Times Colonist 6 May 1938). In the latest such case, her surgeon Dr. A. White, performed an appendectomy on 3 May at sea on a 16-year-old steward cadet after leaving Honolulu. The operation was carried out in the ship's  mail room, on a long board, assisted by two other doctors who were  passengers aboard. The young patient made a good recovery and was fully recovered by the time the ship returned to Sydney. 

On 24 April 1938, Niagara stopped off the remote  island of Canton in the Phoenix group, between Suva and Honolulu, jointly occupied by the British and Americans when it was reported there was a shortage of potatoes in the American camp there. "Thereupon Captain  Martin had the Niagara's carpenter build a solid raft and upon places several sacks of potatoes, sealed benzine tins of fresh meat, fruit, vegetables, cakes and biscuits, and the latest newspapers and magazines… Captain Martin stopped the Niagara and the raft with the valuable supplies was launched safely to the cheers of the men ashore, who dipped the Union Jack an the Stars and Stripes in gratitude. Their camps were right  on the beach in full sight of the Niagara." A boat was dispatched and towed the raft ashore. Canton Island was one of the vital weather reporting stations being developed to facilitate the new Pan American World Airways trans-Pacific "Flying Clipper" service.

Twenty-years of unbroken service, one of the proudest records in the shipping history of the Pacific, will be completed by the Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara, which will arrive at Auckland this afternoon from Vancouver, before she makes another southbound voyage. On May 9, 1913, as the largest and finest ship ever to enter New Zealand waters, the Niagara first visited Auckland. The 25th anniversary of this will occur when the liner is at Vancouver after her next voyage north.

In her long sea service, during which she had gained just claim to  be one of the most popular passenger ships calling at Auckland, the Niagara has made about 150 round voyages in the trade between Australia, New Zealand and Canada. She has enjoyed a singularly fortunate career, and on occasion has been involved in any serious mishap.

New Zealand Herald 4 April 1938

The year marked the 25th anniversary of Niagara's maiden voyage and when a quarter of a century was good age for any ship, let alone one which had operated consistently on one of the longest routes, it was doubly significant.  

The Tasman was in  another of its contrary moods from the  time Niagara cleared the Sydney Heads to her arrival in Auckland on 13 June 1938 with a strong south-south-west wind. "Seasoned travellers said they had never seen the Tasman in a worse mood. A heavy sea broke over the poop and dislodged a companionway ladder… The Niagara sighted the Awatea making slow headway into  the  heavy seas." (Evening Post, 13 June 1938). One passenger was hurled out of a swivel seat in the dining saloon and flung sharply against a bulkhead 15 ft. away and another suffered a broken rub when he was thrown against a deck rail.

"It is good news to Vancouver that the negotiations for two new steamships for the Australia run are about to be completed. The ships,  it  is understood, will be in service within two years between this port and the Antiopodes, and will replace the Niagara and the Aorangi. The new steamships will be fast luxury liners and will be able to compete on even terms with the palatial Matson liners which ply between San Francisco and Australian and New Zealand ports. The Niagara and Aorangi were first-class ships in their day, but they have seen a lot  of service and have been outclassed for some time-- outclassed to the point that valuable passenger trade is being diverted from Vancouver to San Francisco… The new ships will restore the Vancouver trade which has been slipping away. They will also serve to restore the British flag to a place of supremacy in the commerce of the Pacific.

The Province, 13 July 1938

Both Niagara and Aorangi added Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria to their passenger lists starting in 1938. Credit: Otago Daily Times, 28 July 1938

Niagara left Suva on 22 July 1938 embarking Governor-General Sir Arthur Richards and Lady Richards who are en route to Jamaica  to assume the position there. They joined a passenger list that included 49 German and Austrian refugees. Always a Royal Mail Steamer in duty as well as title, R.M.S. Niagara came into  Auckland  on 25 July 1938 with a record mail consignment of 3,669 bags for New Zealand and 1,138 bags for Australia. It also marked the end of the longstanding facility of the Post & Telegraph Dept. of having an agent and assistant aboard Niagara and Aorangi to sort the mails before landing. In the future, it was planned to divert much of New Zealand's first class post via the new Empire Air Service via Australia. 

The New Zealand Maori rugby team aboard Niagara before sailing on their tour of Fiji. Credit: Auckland Star, 10 August 1938.

The northbound Niagara arrived late at Honolulu 19 August 1938 due to heavy seas between Auckland and Suva. She had aboard with 167 through passengers and sailed with a record 260 for the trip to B.C. with 427 in all aboard.

Imperial Echoes: Lord Gowrie, Governor-General of  Australia reviews the guard of honour on the quayside upon arrival in Niagara in Sydney on 24 September 1938. Credit: The Sun, 24 September 1938.

On 21 October 1938 Niagara arrived Vancouver, completing her  46th northern crossing under C-A and  approaching her 170th voyage  since entering service almost 26 years  ago. "On the shoulders of the master  of a passenger linger rest the responsibility each voyage of the lives of hundreds of human beings, the safety of millions of dollars, the happiness and content of hundreds or thousands of shareholders. So he must keep alert and stand by. Because it was hazy approaching this coast, Captain Martin stayed awake and put in a twenty-four stint. Because of fog, shore business and night run up the coast he stayed awake last night. Bright-eyed and ruddy with a spring in his step, he confessed  this morning he had not  slept for fifty hours and could not hope to do so until  six more  hours have passed." (The Province, 21 October 1938). 

When Niagara left Vancouver on 26 October 1938, her 450 passengers including another party of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. Of the  70 aboard, four would settle in New Zealand and the rest in Australia. "The party is well representative of trades and professions, and included doctors, dentists, engineers, merchants, photographers and a journalist." (New Zealand Herald, 15 November 1938)

On 9 December 1938, a unique ship to ship transfer of a passenger was effected off the Hawaiian  coast between Matsonia and Niagara. A passenger on Niagara was informed that a relative in San Francisco was dying and as the ship had been delayed by head winds on the way up to Hawaii, the passenger could not transship while in port. So Capt. Martin wired to Capt. A.M. Johnson of Matsonia  to request the transfer which was done off Diamond Head, a full half hour after she put to sea. Eight other passengers from Australia also transferred to Matsonia to make it  home by Christmas.

It was a gay scene, yet said, for there were tears as friend were parted for the Christmas  holiday-- the one time when they should be together. Passengers aboard Niagara will celebrate Christmas Day as the ship sails on-- one day this side of Hawaii. And their celebration will be as yours or mind. Everything will be provided. There is a Christmas tree, toys for the kiddies, evergreen and  holly decorations  through the  ship, a real Santa Claus… and Christmas dinner.

Vancouver Sun, 21 December 1938

Niagara left Vancouver on 21 September 1938, number among her 375 passengers her largest group to date of Jewish refugees, 130 in all, including a Berlin doctor, an electrical engineer and a young opera dancer, all of whom were settling in Australia. 

R.M.S. Niagara arriving from the Antipodes, photographed from the new Lions Gate Bridge (opened in March 1938) at Vancouver in 1939. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

1939

Niagara which would have more than her fair time in dry dock that year, arrived at Sydney on 14 January 1939 and was shifted to Cockatoo dry dock for a quick hull cleaning and painting and undocked on the 17th to load for her northbound voyage.To the delight of many of her passengers from the Antipodes unused to such things, it was snowing when Niagara came into Victoria on 9 February 1939, eliciting an impromptu snowball fight on deck before disembarkation.  

Eight "Braves" and a Mountie made for irresistible publicity  when the party departed in Niagara from Vancouver in February 1939. Credit: The Province, 15 February 1939. 

Eight Indians, from reservations near  Calgary and an Canadian Mountie, embarked in Niagara on 15 February 1939 bound for Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales Easter exhibition and rodeo at Sydney.  Eddie One Spot, spokesman for the troupe, told the Province: "I think we can take it, this is the first big trip for all of us and we're all looking forward to it. We at Honolulu, the Fiji Islands on the way over. At Sydney fair we're going to spend two weeks on a ranch before the show opens, breaking our horses. Then we will make an encampment at the fair. We will wear full dress and try to show the people of Australia what an Indian council looks like."  The men came from the Stony, Sarcees, Blackfeet and Bloods tribes.  When Niagara arrived at  Honolulu, it was reported that none of  her Southern Alberta Indians was troubled by seasickness on their first ocean voyage: "Guess a ship can't toss or roll  more than a buckin' horse, and I'm used to that." Johnny Left Hand of the Stoney tribe told reporters. Other among the 200  passengers including another party of 43 Jewish refugees  bound for Australia. Most of them were from Vienna, including doctors, lawyers and professionals with their families.  She docked at  Sydney on 11 March. 

And upon arrival in Sydney 11 March 1939. Credit: Trove, National Library of Australia.

The Saint Bernard of the South Pacific had yet another errand of mercy to accomplish after Niagara left Suva on 24 March 1939. On the 30th she received an urgent call for medical attention from the British tanker W.B. Walker, en route from San Francisco to  Suva, for a seriously ill Fifth Engineer. Both ships put on all speed and raced towards one another to rendezvous eight hour later.  A lifeboat from Niagara took the man over to the liner where an emergency appendectomy was performed by ship's surgeon Dr. Charles Wesley.  The operation was successful and the man was landed at Honolulu for further treatment. Niagara docked at Vancouver on 7 April.

Credit: New Zealand Herald, 4 May 1939.

With both Niagara and Aorangi up for their biannual refits and Niagara also due for a survey, Union S.S. Co. announced on 6 April 1939 that Monowai, laid up since 2 May the previous year, would be recommissioned to take Niagara's 11 May voyage from Sydney and then Aorangi's of 6 July.  After a brief refit, Monowai deadheaded from Auckland on 5 May to Sydney and the next day Niagara arrived from Vancouver.  Most her crew transferred to Monowai which left for Vancouver on the 11th. 

On 1 June 1939 it was announced that Niagara would resume service upon her sailing from Sydney for Vancouver on the 8th for which she heavily booked with 470 passengers. Instead, her 4:00 p.m. departure came and went and she remained tied up at No. 5 Darling Harbour after eight of her junior engineers and two electricians went on strike, objecting to their post-refit accommodation which they claimed was inadaquately ventilated, too close to the noisy  scullery and demanding single berth cabins instead of sharing two-berth cabins. Whilst negotiations  continued, the ship was shifted to another berth, with her passenger still aboard, to allow the inbound Awatea to berth. After management promised to permanently address the issue during her next drydocking (by shifting some aft First Class cabins to engineer accommodation) and giving the engineers passenger cabins for this trip, the  matter was settled and Niagara was finally  on her way at 1:00 p.m. on the 9th. 20 hours late. 

With her junior engineers escounced comfortably in First Class cabins, Niagara departs Sydney 20 hours late on 9 June 1939.  Note Aorangi alongside at the adjacent berth just beginning her overhaul. Credit: Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 1939

"A typical winter Tasman crossing was experienced by the Canadian-Australasian liner Niagara… Cold conditions with heavy following seas ruled for the voyage across the Tasman and rough weather was also experience on the down the coast. Several passengers were thrown about, but  no one was seriously hurt." reported the New Zealand Herald 13 June 1939 the day after she docked and her Auckland departure was delayed 13 hours. A large party of school teachers from  Canada and the U.S., totalling some 250, returning from a holiday  trip in Hawaii, comprised half the passenger list brought into Victoria on the 30th.

Adolf Zuckor, head of Paramount Pictures, on the Boat Deck of Niagara on arrival at Sydney. Credit: Trove, National Library of Australia. 

Niagara left Vancouver at 10:00 a.m. on 5 July 1939 and not due back in Canada until  September, being  the second half of refit, including drydocking, at Sydney. Among her 284 passengers was famed American film producer and head of Paramount Picture, Adolf Zuckor and his wife. 

On 22 July 1939 came the momentous announcement by Sir Edward Beatty, Chairman of Canadian Pacific that the planned five new ships (two replacing Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia, one replacing Empress of of Australia and two replacing Niagara and Aorangi) would not be ordered owing to now prohibitively high shipbuilding costs, adding that "within a year or two world conditions may improve  sufficiency to justify expenditure of the $56,000,000 involved in the construction of the five new ships."

At the same time, Chairman Beatty confirmed that as a stopgap, one of the Duchess-class ships (Duchess of  York being mentioned) might be transferred to Canadian-Australasian as a replacement for Niagara. The Province (24 July 1939)   reported: "the transfer of one of the Canadian Pacific's Duchess ships to the Pacific to  augment the  company's  fleet in these waters would be a significant and welcome development, Vancouver's shipping community agreed. Sir Edward Beatty, chairman and president of C.P.R., stated on Saturday [22 July] that such a move was now being considered. It is assimed that the Duchess of Richmond, or whatever Duchess ship is assigned to the Pacific service, would be placed in operation between this coast and Australasia rather than between here and the Orient, already served by fast, modern liners… The present Empresses on the Oriental run are all  faster vessels than the Duchess  type, but on the Australian run the old Niagara and Aorangi might be easily replaced by Duchess type ships until faster craft, already planned, are built. With the modern Duchesses the company would, it is felt, be able to easily to hold its advantage over the American line, and maintain it when the  new ships come out." On 10 August Northern Advocate reported "It is claimed at that the Duchess of York altered to fit the Pacific trade, she could maintain the Canadian-New Zealand-Australian run in conjunction with the Aorangi until there is a drop in building costs when two liners could be constructed."

Once again the placing of orders for two liners for the Canadian-Australasian trade, replacing the Aorangi and Niagara, has been postponed. It is not unnatural that considerable disappointment is felt at this delay, the reason for which- is stated to be that the principal shipbuilding .yards capable of carrying; out the contracts are fully occupied with naval work and are likely to be so for some while. In addition thereto the costs of shipbuilding have risen very considerably and the price of the liners, if constructed today, would be substantially higher than had been estimated. Without doubt the Aorangi and the Niagara though not the equivalent of modern liners, are quite capable, of carrying on the trade for a further period, but at the same time it is depressing that after so many years of discussion upon this subject, after agreement has been arrived at between the different Governments and interests concerned, postponement again takes place. 

Daily Commercial News, 26 July 1939

Niagara left Cockatoo dry dock on 24 August 1939 and shifted to  No. 5 Darling Harbour. The day Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, Niagara sailed from Sydney at 4:00 p.m.   A crowd of several hundred people were allowed on the wharf to see her sail and  give her a traditional steamer send-off but no visitors were permitted aboard. 

She was in well across the Tasman when Niagara's second world war started on 3 September 1939 and New Zealand  declared war on Germany at 9:30 p.m. that day, simultaneously with Great Britain.  from that money, Niagara's comings and going in Australia, New Zealand and Canada pretty much disappeared from public announcement or reporting although, as she did throughout the First World War, she continued to ply "her lawful occasions". 

A gray  ghost of her former spic and span red, white and green self, the Canadian Australasian liner Niagara resumed her  voyage to Vancouver late Saturday night after passengers had boarded by 10 o'clock.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 18 September 1939

Still in full peacetime livery fresh from her  refit, a smart but tardy Niagara docked at Honolulu at noon on 16 September  1939, late as she was expected the previous day. This was due to her taking a different course as well as head winds for two days and she ran blacked out at night with all boats swung out. "American passengers spoke in high terms of the way Capt. William Martin, the Niagara's commander, and officers and men brought the liner to Honolulu. The Niagara is a veteran of raider dodging in the Pacific during the World War, and Capt. Martin learned plenty of wrinkles in the north sea patrol service. He brought the Niagara  on a secret course on which saw some islands he'd never seen before."(Honolulu Star-Bulletin). Immediately upon arrival, her crew began to repaint her in "neutral grey," purchasing 25 extra gallons of paint ashore and by the time she sailed that same night, they had painted both funnels and much of the hull. She sailed for Vancouver later the same day with 150 passengers and arrived on the 22nd.

A rare photograph of Niagara in the overall light grey paint she wore only from September-December 1939. Credit: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 18 June 1940.

Departing Vancouver on 27 September 1939, Niagara reached Honolulu on 4 October with 356 through passengers.  When she returned to Hawaii on 10 November she had only 39 aboard. It was noted in the local press that unlike the CPR trans-Pacific ships, the C-A ships were not defensively armed. Northbound, she called at Honolulu on the 29th with 211 passengers. On 14 December it was announced that Aorangi and Niagara will be repainted in their pre-war colours as the "admiralty considers the gray paint too readily identified the liner as belligerents." 

R.M.S. Niagara, outbound from Vancouver, Antipodes-bound. Credit: University of British Columbia, Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Into her third decade and her second world war, Niagara, as she had in her first, continued plying her lawful occasions.  The Grand Old Lady of the South Pacific sailing The  All Red Route "as always" was answer enough to the global presumptions of Continental powers.  Yet, her luck ran its course before her 27th year was out, abruptly ending  the exemplary career of what surely remains among the  greatest passenger liners to serve the Antipodes.  

A completely repainted Niagara arrived at Honolulu on 5 January 1940. Her wartime grey had been replaced by a revised version of her peacetime colours, the main difference being that instead of white, her superstructure was now painted buff whilst her  hull and funnels were back to their classic livery. She had been repainted during the turnaround in Australia.

To encourage trans-Tasman passenger traffic, on 22 January 1940 it was announced that a reduction of the war risk surcharge from 33⅓ per cent to 15 per cent would apply to crossings made in Aorangi and Niagara in addition to Awatea and Wanganella. 

Canadian-Australian Line 1940 schedule cover.

On her first voyage of the New Year and decade, Niagara arrived at Honolulu at 3:00 p.m. on 26 January 1940 after a stormy passagesouth from Canada, encountering three separate weather depressions en route. Capt. Martin told reporters that the weather was "a bit heavy, but that the liner which was build to stand the rigors of the North Pacific, took it all in a good stead." She was off again south at midnight.

"Capt. William Martin was particularly proud, on arrival, of his brand new armament, consisting of a 4.7-inch gun mounted on a platform on the stern. The crew has had firing practice during the voyage from Sydney, where it was installed. The Niagara's running mate, the Aorangi, already has a fun mounted, and all Canadian-Pacific liners now carry armaments." So the Honolulu Advertiser reported on 3 March 1940, the day after Niagara called northbound from the Antipodes, landing three passengers and carrying 40 through fares. An additional 45 boarded for the final run to Vancouver.

When Niagara docked at Honolulu from Vancouver and Victoria on 20 March  1940 she had but 29 through passengers and 24 landing there. Northbound, Niagara called at Honolulu on 26 April 1940

On 15 May 1940 Niagara called at  Honolulu where she landed 38 passengers, docking at 8:00 a.m. and sailing that afternoon for Suva and the Antipodes

One of the Navy's functions was to protect lives and property, he [a BBC naval observer during a recent broadcast] continued. The Navy held control of the seas, and the German fleet-- such as it was-- could not threaten trade routes or  dependencies.

'Wellington, for instance,' he remarked, ' is in no danger of being suddenly bombarded.' The German fleet, as a force, was impotent. The mere fact of  the British Fleet's existence means that the old Niagara can do her usual trips across the Tasman to Auckland, up to Suva and across to Vancouver… the normal life of people away from the  scene of  conflict goes on.

Manawatu Standard, 24 January 1940

Commencing Voyage no. 163, R.M.S. Niagara (Capt. William Martin) left Darling Harbour, Sydney, at 4:00 p.m. on 13 June 1940 with 74 passengers, 273 bags of letters and 50 bags of parcels. She docked at Auckland on the 17th and upon departure the next day  had a total of 146 passengers and 203 crew aboard.

She was sailing directly into a 228-mine barrage laid by the German  raider Orion (HSK-1), commanded by Korvettenkapitän Kurt Weyher, the night of 13-14 June 1940 in the northern and eastern approaches to the Hauraki Gulf.

The sinking of Niagara brought the war to New Zealand and it was not until the next day the Prime Minister announced she had indeed struck a mine and was not the victim, as initially reported of some mysterious explosion or sabotage. 

At 3:40 a.m. 19  June 1940, Niagara, off Bream Head, Whangareion, hit one of the contact mines with devastating effect, the explosion occurring on the starboard side of no. 2 hold forward, blowing the hatch cover  into the air along with a  motorcar which was being carried as deck cargo, wrecking the starboard bridge wing cab and blowing out most of the windows in the wheelhouse. The explosion also wrecked the baggage room and blew the doors off nearby cabins and reduced two tubs in a public bathroom to powder.  Lights went out  in sections of the ship and the alarm system disabled amidst the damage to the bridge.   Able Seaman F.D. Harris, close to the impact area, was lifted four feet off his feet and flung on his back by the concussion. After peering into the open no. 2 hold, he could see this was already flooding and cargo was floating about and went directly to the bridge to report the damage. 

A distress call was sent out within minutes: SS Niagara, engines disabled; explosion in no. 2 hold. Full of water. Vessel going down by head. Vessel headed toward  Hen and Chickens. Every pump was put on the no. 2 hold, but to no avail, it being apparent that the bottom was blown out and the ship was doomed. 

'Finished with Engines!' That was the ring that came through on the telegraph of the Niagara, and the stokehold crew and the engineers, who were all at their posts, took the next order from the chief to make for the upper deck. Water was then pouring over the stokehold plates.

Auckland Star 20 June 1940. 

Second Engineer E.H. Church and Third Engineer F. Hughes were to leave the engine room after closing down the boilers and fires to  prevent explosion. 

With remarkably no casualties  caused by the initial mine explosion, the whole attention of Capt. Martin and the ship's company was toward ensuing all aboard were safely evacuated from Niagara which, too, ensured her people could get off whilst she still stayed afloat even if mortally wounded herself. Seaman F.D. Harris described the scene on the Boat Deck to the Auckland Star:

If it had been rehearsed and played by movie actors it couldn't have been more perfect. There was some excitement, naturally, but no panic. The passengers stood about until it was their turn to leave the ship, and the disembarkation proceeded with extraordinary efficiency. It was hard to believe this was real life; that this explosion, alarm, rousing of passengers and the well-oiled launching of the boats into the calm seas were not make-believe."

There was a haze on the sea. Our board put back to take aboard a fireman, apparently the last man to leave. It was nearly 4.30 a.m. and we watched Niagara as she slowly settled by the head. At 4.50 the lights went out and the ship then became just as shadow in the low mist, with her stern high. Then the shadow disappeared.

So it was when, at 5:32 a.m. on the morning of 19 June  1940, the gallant old Niagara foundered in 66 fathoms between the Mokohinau Islands and Hen and Chicken Islands.  "We watched the old Niagara go  down with the moon shining on her, and my personal feeling was that I had lost an old friend," First Class passenger Mrs. F.A. Williams, Suva, Fiji, was quoted in the Auckland Star. 

One of Niagara's smartly turned out lifeboats, her evacuation was probably the most flawless and perfectly disciplined of any wartime  sinking.  Credit: Tudor Washington Collins photograph, National Library of New Zealand. 

Fireman J.L. Murray was the last to leave the ship and appeared on the boat deck after all the boats had been lowered, one immediately returned seeing him. All 18 of  her lifeboats had been safely and efficiently launched with all her passengers and crew.  Many were inadequately dressed, some in bedclothes, and suffered from a cold wind in the open boats which were kept, as much as possible close to one another although they eventually came to be spread over an square mile. At dawn the first RNZAF Vilderbeest bombers appeared and flew very low both to lift the spirits of those  in the boats as well as search for any possible survivors in the water. 

Niagara's passengers and crew  photographed  just prior to being rescued. Credit:Auckland Weekly News, 26 June 1940. 

The cruiser HMNZS Achilles sighted the first of the Niagara's boats just after 8:00 a.m. and dispatched a motor launch to guide the boats toward the Huddart, Parker liner Waganella (1932/9,576 g).  "Like a regatta," every one of the 18 boats hoisted sail and made for the liner and others transferred their occupants to the coaster Kapiti and other smaller launches.  All were landed at Auckland.

Niagara survivors being embarked on the Huddart, Parker liner Waganella for passage back to Auckland. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, 26 June 1940.

All of Niagara's officers, crew and passengers including "Uncle Charlie," Engine Room Storekeeper, aged 75, from Glasgow who had been aboard during her maiden voyage and made over 100 voyages in her, had been rescued.

But what became of Aussie?  He became the most famous of all ships cats for a spell when, initially he was reported to have  gone down with his beloved Niagara.  The handsome  grey and white part Persian, 4-5 years old, was born during a call at Suva. His mother had  been the ship's mascot for years and his father was a Persian cat belonging to a Vancouver harbour policeman,  so his ancestry was of pure C-A route pedigree.  Aussie, who was in the care of the ship's storekeeper, Robert Burns,  apparently had many feline friends in the ship's ports and the first ashore, but never missed a sailing.  There were some near misses, however, and a crewman found Aussie on the front steps of the Sydney main post office shortly before sailing and on another occasion, he was found ambling down one of the city's busiest streets.  "Because of temperament, Aussie did not always appeal to passengers, who thought him a little stand-offish. But the crew knew his full worth, especially as a rat catcher. He was never any trouble and always turned up regularly for his meals-- milk and rabbits' legs in the morning, steak in the afternoon." (New Zealand Herald, 21 June 1940).

The fate of Niagara's cat, Aussie, made him a New Zealand legend to this day. 

As with many animals, it was said that Aussie sensed danger and was suddenly up shortly before Niagara hit the mine.  He was carried by a crewman into a lifeboat but terrified, he scrambled back aboard his beloved home.  Believed lost and much mourned, Aussie was then miraculously reported to have been found when  a cat washed ashore on  a beach north of Whangarei Heads.   The animal, similar in description to Aussie, was found asleep on the beach by Mr. R. McDonald, a resident of Horahora, two days after the sinking, near a float from one of Niagara's lifeboats and other debris.  He took the cat home to his farm, fed it but it escaped the next day and was never seen again. 

Trawler Ikatere aground after towing in the recovered Niagara lifeboats. Credit: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-101-4

For many weeks, debris, wreckage and two of her  lifeboats came ashore on the beaches around Whangarei. And, tragically, much oil fuel from the fully laden Niagara, washed ashore at Waipu Cove, killing hundreds of penguins. More than eighty years later, oil continues to seep from the wreck which has been described as an "environmental time bomb." 

And there was the saga of Niagara's  gold. In addition to half of New Zealand's entire supply of .303 ammunition being sent to Britain to make up some of the losses suffered in the Battle of France and Dunkirk evacuation, she also had in her strong room 590 bars of  gold worth £2.5 mn from South Africa being sent by Britain to the United States as payment for munitions.  

One of great feats of deep  sea salvage was the recovery of Niagara's £2.5 mn. in gold. Top left: the  salvage ship Claymore, top right: the specially designed diving chamber and bottom, the salvage crew with  some of their haul. Credit: Auckland Weekly News, 4 March 1942.

In one of the epics of deep sea salvage, an Australian syndicate was formed to carry out the recovery of the gold, spurred by a £27,000 fee plus 2.5% of the value offered by the Bank of England.  Using a specially designed diving chamber and with a decrepit mother ship, the 1902-built Claymore, the team began operations  in December 1940 and located the wreck on 2 February 1941.  Niagara was found lying on her portside, but it was many months before the strong room was located and the door to  it blasted open.  The first bars were brought to the surface on 13 October and by the time the operation was halted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 555 bars had been recovered. In 1952, all but five of the bars were brought to the surface. Today, Niagara remains a popular but challenging destination of scuba divers. In 2007 her bell was recovered. 

Somewhat forgotten in all it all, was the ship herself and her wonderful record. At least at the time of her sinking, Niagara was fondly remembered and heartfelt tributes to  her appeared in newspapers in Vancouver, Victoria, Honolulu, Suva, Auckland and Sydney where she was a faithful and familiar friend in the course of a 27-year career as eventful and exemplary as any ship in history.

From Vancouver (top left), Honolulu (bottom left) and Auckland (right), the loss of Niagara was mourned in newspapers like the familiar old friend she was on her well trod path. 

Specially designed for the Canadian-Australian Line at a time when Pacific traffic was increasing by leaps and bounds, the Niagara was one of the most handsome steamers of her time.

She became probably the most well-known passenger ship to make regular visits to the port.

Hero of one war and  victim of another, the Niagara has now gone to her final rest.

Northern Advocate, 19 June 1940

Of her many souvenirs, one of the most poignant with which to conclude her story is Fritz Kriesler's arrangement of Niagara's signature sailing music, Aloha 'Oe, which he composed aboard Aorangi and Niagara in 1925 on his tour to the Antipodes and recorded for Victor a month after his return:  

R.M.S. Niagara, 1913-1940, at Vancouver Pier B-C, 1936. Credit: James Crookall photograph, City of Vancouver Archives. 

Built by John Brown, Clydebank, Yard no. 415

Gross tonnage       13,415

Length: (o.a.)        534 ft..

              (b.p.)         524.7 ft.

Beam:                     66.3 ft.

Machinery: twin quadruple expansion reciprocating engines, one low-pressure direct-drive turbine, triple-screw,  two double- and six single-ended  oil burning Scotch boilers 220 psi. 14,500 s.h.p.

Speed:                     17.5 knots service

                                18 knots trials

Passengers             281 First Class 210 Second Class 176 Third Class   

Officers & Crew   205 

                               

Life ring from R.M.S. Niagara found on a beach near where she sank. Credit: Mangawhai Museum 

Across the Pacific, Liners from Australia and New Zealand to North America, Peter Plowman, 2010

Glamour Ships of the Union Steam Ship Co., Jack Churchouse, 1981

North Star to Southern Cross, John M. Maber, 1967

Ships that Passed, Scott Baty, 1984

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Evening News

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New Zealand Herald

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Otago Daily Times

Sydney Mail

Sydney Morning Herald

Timaru Herald

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The Sun

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NZ Ship & Marine Society

Museum of New Zealand

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A special note of appreciation for the University of British Columbia's outstanding Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection of Canadian Pacific material. 

Bell from R.M.S. Niagara, recovered in April 2007 by Craig Howell and Dr. Richard Harris. Credit: Mangawhai Museum.

Additions/Corrections/Contributions welcomed

contact the author at posted_at_sea@hotmail.com

© Peter C. Kohler