CLASSIC LINERS
HALCYON DAYS
Passenger shipping in the 1940s and 1950s
These unique images, from Halcyon Days by Nigel Hughes and Trevor Jones, open a window on passenger shipping in the 1940s and 1950s, an era when some of the most famous ships ever built were enjoying their finest days in an era of peace.
FIONIA The pioneering Danish motorship Fionia (5,219gt) passing Le Déversoir on a northbound transit of the Suez Canal in the early 1950s. Built in 1914, Fionia was one of the earliest motor ships to be built, and served into the 1950s, being sold in 1954 and broken up two years later.
The 1940s and 1950s were times of significant change and adaptation for the international shipping industry in general, and for passenger shipping in particular. The industry, and indeed the global economic order, had been devastated by World War II, and shipping companies were left with depleted fleets yet increasing demand, not A fine just photograph for the carriage of Toltén, of commercial in her early days, passengers, at Vancouver but on also for the relocation of displaced persons, for waves of migrants, and for the residual transportation of military personnel and dependents. To make matters more difficult, by the late 1950s, passenger liners began to face competition from the jet airliner.