RMS Celtic

Common card · No. 348329

RMS Celtic was an ocean liner owned by the White Star Line. The first ship larger than SS Great Eastern by gross register tonnage (it was also 9 ft [2.7 m] longer), Celtic was the first of a quartet of ships over 20,000 tons, the dubbed The Big Four. She was the last ship ordered by Thomas Henry Ismay before his death in 1899. The second liner of her name (the first was completed in 1872), she was put into service in 1901. Her large size (she could carry nearly 3,000 passengers) and her low but economical speed (16 kn or 30 km/h, while her contemporary liners then sailed on average at 19–20 kn or 35–37 km/h) inaugurated a new company policy aiming to favour size, luxury and comfort, to the detriment of speed. Assigned to the route between Liverpool and New York, Celtic experimented with a mode of slower than usual rotations, but was also used for a long cruise in 1902 which met with some success. In 1907, she was briefly used for the American Line on the Southampton route, before White...

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