The Pacific Empresses

An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific's Trans-Pacific Ocean Liners by Robert D. Turner From Vancouver and Victoria on the west coast of British Columbia, across the North Pacific by the great circle route that skirts the Aleutian Islands, to Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and the Philippines; this was the realm of the Pacific Empresses. For fifty years these beautiful ocean liners provided a fast link with the Orient. The Empresses brough tea, silk, spices and produce from the Orient and returned with Canadian cargoes. The first Empresses came to the Pacific in 1891, providing a fast, reliable steamship service connecting the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway with the Orient. The ships were the beautiful clipper-bowed Empresses of India, China and Japan. Later, as steamship design advanced and the service grew, the larger, record-breaking Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia joined the fleet. The Empresses consistently broke speed records for the North Pacific and set standards of service and reliability few steamship lines could match. While there were never more than four Empresses in trans-Pacific service at one time, they dominated the North Pacific until World War II. The war brought a dramatic end to the service as all the Empresses were pressed into action as troop ships. The Empresses sailed in troop convoys with some of the mightiest liners in the world. Air travel dominated the post-war years and the Empress fleet was never replaced on the Pacific. And so the elegant liners passed into history, Robert Turner's carefully researched text is accompanied by complete fleet lists, darwings, maps, 375 photographs and three full-colour reproductions. Beautifully designed and printed, and of the same high quality as its companion volume, The Pacific Princesses, The Pacific Empresses is an essential addition to any history or ship-lover's library.