Talk:Royal Mail Steam Packet Company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Merge with Cunard?

A merge with Cunard is totally wrong; there is no connection, as I hope to establish (I've edited this a bit, and hope it remains comprehensible). I've removed the "merge" tag as the objective case against merging is overwhelming; if anyone feels strongly that a vote should be taken anyway, please reinstate it.

I think there is something wrong somewhere. The history I have has the RMSPC going bust and becoming the Royal Mail Lines in 1932, then operating for may years until taken over in the 60s by another line (which I think maintained the RML name for a while). I made an entry for RML which states all this:

"A British shipping line which took over the assets of the insolvent Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in 1932 and ran passenger services until taken over in in 1965 by Furness, Withy & Company, which later became part of Overseas Containers Limited[1]."

It was the largest shipping group in the world in 1927, hardly "not notable". [2]

I don't know where Cunard comes into it: I think the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company founded in London by Macqueen is not the same as the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company founded in Halifax by Cunard and others, which later became the Cunard Line.

The Royal Mail Line, the direct successor of the RMSPC, was sailing well into the 2nd half of the 20th century, so the RMSPC should have its own article, and "Royal Mail Lines"should be redirected to it.

I don't have enough definitive information to write an authoritative article myself.

Summary: Absolutely Don't merge into Cunard; RMSPC, later RML, once the largest shipping line in the world, is totally unconnected with Cunard. I think that this is so definitive tha I have removed the "Merge" tag; if anyone disagrees, please reinstate it

RMSPC seems to have bought White Star in 1927 and sold it on to Cunard later.

I do know from personal knowledge that the RML ran a regular major passenger service to the Southern Cone of South America in its day, and was the normal way to travel there before long-distance airliners were introduced. Pol098 (talk) 14:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC), edited later after discovering the cause of the confusion.